Libraries and positive climate action: inform to transform

The British Library is hosting a series of webinars focused on libraries and the climate crisis. The aim of the series is to bring together international library leaders to share their different responses to the climate emergency.

This session will explore global examples of how libraries are building their capacity in climate literacy and engagement with a wide range of communities.

Providing information is a vital part of libraries’ climate change work – being able to point to the latest science and the most relevant local sources of information. The ways in which libraries do this is varied and often innovative. They include workshops, discussions or practical materials to encourage recycling, reduction of energy consumption or improvements in our natural environment. This also means that librarians need new types of training and resources to help them take up these new activities.

This event will be live captioned.

Speakers:

Susanna Eklund has chaired the National Library of Finland (NLF) Sustainability Working Group since 2020. She has worked at the library since 2015 in several roles: as a service designer for the Finna.fi service, responsible for museums as data providers, and currently as an information specialist and project manager for the Images in Dialogue-project. Alongside her work, Susanna has developed her skills in leadership for sustainability and is particularly interested in the challenges and opportunities of sustainability related organisational change in cultural heritage institutions. Her background is in archaeology, building conservation, digital communication and the Finnish cultural heritage field. 

Laragh Quinney is Programme Lead for the National Library of Scotland’s Climate Action Plan. In this role she helps co-ordinate sustainable action across the Library and engagement with sector partners. She was recognised as Scotland’s Library and Information Professional of the Year 2025 for her work developing the Carbon Literacy for Libraries Shareable Course. This introduces key concepts of climate literacy and shares case studies of good practice across the library sector. It celebrates the sustainable model of libraries and how they can support others to cut carbon emissions. Laragh is a member of the Green Libraries Campaign Board, working to secure funding and promote environmental action by libraries. 

The session will be chaired by Maja Maricevic, Director of Science and Innovation at the British Library and responsible for the Library’s strategy, policy and partnership development across higher education and science. Maja is particularly interested in the big challenges of our time, such as the continuing digital transformation and climate change. Maja chairs the UK Green Libraries Campaign, a partnership of UK libraries working towards a better future for planet and people. Maja is an Advisory Board Member for the UK Research and Innovation programme Building a Greener Future. She is also a Board member of London’s Knowledge Quarter. She has previously worked in universities, government departments and as a professional consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Further speakers will be announced shortly.

Libraries and positive climate action

By their nature, libraries are both places of information and places enabling the birth of new ideas and activities. This means that libraries are ideal hubs to help us address the complex challenges of our time. In this series of events, organised by the British Library, we explore how libraries across the globe are deploying their expertise and resources to tackle the climate crisis. Libraries’ action is focused on the diverse communities on their doorstep and their experiences of climate change in their local environment. However, libraries worldwide are also collaborating and learning from each other to enable positive climate action.

In this series, we are looking at three crucial climate-focused themes, relevant both for libraries that are already active in climate initiatives, and those that are just starting to explore this area of activity. Firstly, we are looking at how libraries can build their capacity to provide information about climate change and to facilitate practical climate action. In the second webinar, we are looking at how citizen science can enable users to participate in building up our collective knowledge of climate issues. And thirdly, we are exploring how libraries can support our consumer-focused societies to adopt circular economies to use our resource more efficiently.

Our expert panellists, from different libraries across the world, will help us discover new perspectives and share practical tips and real-life experiences to broaden our knowledge and inform our future practice.

Image: from the British Library archive