#BuildBackBetter: Accelerating Collaborative Local Climate Action

Rakesh started out volunteering with Greenpeace and Co-ordinating the Newcastle Greenpeace group. As local campaigns against fossil fuel exploration became more prominent, he got involved leaving behind his Greenpeace role. Rakesh continues to support local campaigns against opencast coal and Membership Officer of Greens of Colour, a liberation group within the Green Party.

Chris Church is Director of the Community Environment Associates (CEA) consultancy and an advisor on sustainable and community development, specialising in work at the local and community level and the links to the national policy agenda.  He has worked on environmental issues for over 30 years, as a volunteer activist, an NGO manager, a consultant, and a trustee of UK and international bodies.  
 
Chris has chaired the UK Low Carbon Communities Network, the London 21 Sustainability Network, and led work to set up Community Energy England.  He has been a trustee and director of Surfers Against Sewage, the Environmental Law Foundation and Climate Action England.  He worked for eight years as an advisor to the Community Development Foundation where his work was on how environmental concerns linked to poverty, health and social justice issues. Chris is an Associate of the Green Alliance and was a member of the London Sustainable Development Commission appointed by the Mayor of London.  He is a Parish Councillor for North Hinksey, an area close to Oxford. 

Chris worked for Friends of the Earth (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) as Local and Regional Development Manager for six years in the 1980s. He is now on the national board of directors of Friends of the Earth and is campaigns officer for Oxford Friends of the Earth.  

Cara Jenkinson is part of the Ashden Liveable Cities team which works with UK towns and cities to  help them realise their sustainability ambitions. Ashden runs a network of city region sustainability officers, and has published a  Climate Action Co-benefits toolkit for local authorities (co-authored by Cara) and "31 climate actions for councils", published in partnership with Friends of the Earth. Cara is also director of a community energy group and has an Economics and Policy of Energy and the Environment MSc from UCL.  

Jake Woodier is an experienced campaigner and organiser currently working as the COP26 Campaign Manager for The Climate Coalition - the largest group of organisations in the UK dedicated to tackling climate change. Before this, Jake has been active within grassroots movements and organising for the best part of a decade. Most recently, with the UK Student Climate Network where he helped coordinate the UK youth strike movement, including co-organising the global climate strike in September 2019, the largest climate demonstration in UK history.  
  
Jake also has responsibility in a voluntary coordinating role with Green New Deal UK, is a writer, and an editor of a politics and culture magazine. 

Ric Casale is one of the founding trustees of Carbon Copy – a solutions hub that helps bring together the initiatives needed to accelerate climate action, connecting local communities, councils and companies who share the goal of a carbon zero future. He is an entrepreneur with a track record in taking ventures from concept to market. Ric has studied renewable energy with the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) and urbanism at London School of Economics. He is the author of "Civic Revolution. A Citizen's Guide" about the power of place-based civic action in leading transformative environmental change.

As the host of this event series on accelerating local climate action collectively, Ric would like us to be inspired by the variety of practical projects and the different ways people collaborate to get things done.