The problem

Climate change poses a significant challenge to the health and wellbeing of older people, living in vulnerable locations or who’re unable to avoid the effects of extreme weather. As the UK population ages, these challenges become more acute, while public funding is squeezed by higher need and a decline in the number of working age people.  Meanwhile, many older adults are enjoying longer, healthier lives but may feel unable to participate in climate action.  

The challenge

How might we build connection between generations, involve the skills and experience of older adults in driving innovative community centred solutions and ensure climate resilience is fair? What would it take to support older people to play an active role in co-creating solutions that make their communities greener and more resilient? 

What if ....

We could reimagine elderhood as a source of wisdom, creativity and inspiration for environmental action. And at the same time use this work to reduce tensions and create empathy between generations?

What we did

We made a ‘deep dive’ review into the topic, mapping the system and using scenarios to understand where we could have most impact. And we also led an organisational readiness review. We identified significant strengths – including our well-established supporter base with older adults – but also some big gaps.  

The Healthy Ageing in Changing Climate project was a key reference. We convened a roundtable for London Climate Action Week with the report authors and grassroots actors – like Bristol Older People’s Forum – to explore how to maintain  pressure around their recommendations and also shared our learnings.  

What we did

To further our thinking we led innovation and design challenges with two groups of students: at Bristol University Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Royal College of Art.  

The Bristol students developed prototypes for local resilience to extreme heat. The RCA teams developed creative responses such as a prototype for gamifying older people’s action, using myth-based archetypes and Live Action Role-Play.  

What we learned

Conversations around climate action often portray old people as victims  of climate impacts. But 60+ is not a homogenous group. Older people have hugely differing life experience, physical abilities and professional skills.  

We questioned whether ignoring this experience and omitting age related perspectives in existing local climate resilient practices could hamper community cohesion?

What we learned

The UK is unusual in not having a stronger ‘elders for climate’ movement (compared for example to Friends of the Earth Ireland’s BOLD programme). 

There is also a wealth of prototype inter-generational projects – but they are struggling to create sustained impact.

What next?

We would love to see inter-generational models more firmly integrated in Friends of the Earth’s work with communities, bringing people together and addressing possible tensions.  At a time of transformation and instability,  we wonder whether Friends of the Earth could embrace our collective role as ‘elders’ within the environmental justice movement.  Contact us to get our full report.

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