We are fundraising to support ZERO, our town centre hub where residents can come for advice on energy saving, reducing food waste, and restoring nature locally.
ZERO is a community-run town centre hub which is focused on tackling local issues through practical solutions. ZERO is open to the public from Tuesday to Friday, and is the 'go-to' spot for residents to seek advice and education on all manner of topics, as well as contribute to Guildford and Surrey targets. These include: - how to keep their home warm and healthy, whilst cutting energy bills - how polluted their local river is, and how they can learn to test it in our citizen science project - reverse nature loss by simple actions at home - how to get around Surrey by active travel routes - bring their non-kerbside recycling to our Terracycle drop off - borrow one of 120 household items through our Library of Things - attend events and workshops - volunteer for a local project As a charity most of our funding goes against specific project metrics. We need core cost support to ensure our premises, ZERO, can continue to support so many excellent projects.
What we'll deliver:
Why it's a great idea:
ZERO provides significant benefits to the Guildford community across a number of areas. Our Home Energy Advice Team visit residents’ homes, conducting thermal imaging surveys and helping residents find energy efficiency funding. This supports residents who are struggling with fuel poverty, as well as the able to pay market who are looking for long term cost savings, ensuring residents bills are reduced whilst keeping homes free of damp and mould, keeping the residents healthy. Our Community Water Lab and water rangers team conduct regular monitoring of river water quality along the Wey and TIllingbourne. Our E.coli testing, in partnership with Uni of Surrey, has been highlighting E.coli levels up to 27x the advisable human contact level, including in areas near river activity such as the Wey Kayak Club. The ZERO community fridge has so far in 2024 saved nearly 30 tonnes of food from going to waste, collecting from supermarkets and redistributing to residents, who have made around
Steps to get it done:
Although the funding request is not in itself a dazzling project, the funds are crucial to support the running of our town centre hub, ZERO. We closed our zero waste shop when we moved, due to proximity to another community interest company selling similar goods, and as a result lost an important unrestricted income stream. ZERO is the backbone of the charity being able to support so many impactful projects across a range of themes, from energy efficiency to waste to nature loss, so this funding would be very impactful in a number of ways by supporting our core costs.
Gallery
Journey
Follow this project You are following this project for updates to your inbox
We hit the target with 24 hours to spare. A huge thank you to everyone who donated and supported this crowd funder. Core costs aren't very sexy so they're never easy to fundraise for, so every £ donated through avenues like this is a huge help. Please stay up to date with the progress we make using these funds by visiting zerocarbonguildford.org to sign up for our newsletter. Thanks again to everyone, see you in ZERO!
Whoop, 100 people have pledged since fundraising began!
Brilliant news, thanks everyone!
Whoop, 90 people have pledged since fundraising began!
Whoop, 80 people have pledged since fundraising began!
How will the money be spent?Target (inc. fees) £16,506
Costs Breakdown
This shows how money raised for the project will be spent. These costs have been confirmed by the project's Delivery Manager and verified.
Overfunding
This project is enabled for overfunding. If the project hits its funding goal before the end of the campaign period, any extra funds raised will be spent (in order of priority) on:
Target (inc. fees) £16,506
Our Volunteer List
Want to help?
Do you have stuff or skills to contribute to this project? Use this tool to offer something to the project creator.
VolunteerZero Carbon Guildford is a local charity focused on tackling local issues through pragmatic and practical solutions and projects, which also help to tackle wider scale issues such as nature loss and climate change. We run ZERO, the hub on Guildford High Street where residents can visit to find out how to cut their energy bills, reduce food waste and restore nature on their own patch.
ZCG runs the Surrey-wide Home Energy Advice Team, which provides free in-person home visits to support residents with their energy bills. We conduct thermal imaging surveys and help residents find funding for short and long term energy savings, and have supported over 600 homes so far in 2024!
We also run the Library of Things in partnership with Guildford Library, where residents can borrow a wide range of items for free, and we work with lots of local supermarkets to reduce food waste, re-distributing food surplus from ZERO to the public - having save nearly 30 tonnes of food from going to waste already in 2024!
Our Community Water Lab housed in ZERO is unique in having community-run E.coli testing capabilites, and we test the Wey and TIllingbourne to monitor for pollutants, uploading data to opensource platforms for scientifuc study.
We also work on reversing nature loss locally, with 11% of Surrey's native species having gone extinct in the last few decades. In 2024 we have installed a sedum roof in an otherwsie bare playground at Guildford Nursery, and a rooftop biodiversity garden at White Lion Walk.
Last year we were awarded the national award Innovative UK Communtiy Project.
Project Owner: Zero Carbon Guildford The Project Owner takes legal responsibility for receiving and spending the funds raised and ensuring the project is delivered.
Find me at:
