Bex Craske - Sustainability Manager of the Scout Association

I am Bex Craske, the sustainability manager of the Scout Association (United Kingdom).

Scouts is the world’s biggest youth movement. Volunteers support millions of young people in more than 150 countries to gain skills for life and leave the world a little better than they found it through fun, teamwork, and adventure. 

Here are my top tips for empowering young people to reduce, reuse, recycle, and share. 

1. Focus on fun! Supporting young people to collect friends and experiences, not things.
2. Be guided by young people’s interests. They may already have a lot of passion or knowledge and be keen to explore, learn, or campaign around a particular area. Not sure where to start? Use the amazing Good Life Goals as a guide or prompt for discussion, helping young people explore their values and why their choices matter.
3. Design activities to be engaging and ‘hands-on’, with opportunities for sharing and learning different skills that support going circular. For example, fashion fans could turn old t-shirts into tote bags; keen Minecraft builders could make things from plastic bottle bricks; those worried about consumerism could organise a swap shop; and keen adventurers can learn to care for and repair their kit, like bike repairs.
4. No matter what young people’s area of interest is or the skills they wish to learn, there will always be someone with the right knowledge, keen to help and share their skills. You can find them by exploring local projects and groups like Scouts! And signpost ways young people can engage further and learn more, whether it’s joining in with local community activities, books, podcasts or films.
5. Most importantly encourage young people to give things a go and be an active part of shaping the world and their future.   

#ForOurPlanet Campaign