Climate Marathon

The first Climate Marathon took place in October 2020 and involved over 300 people walking or running 26 miles per week to celebrate and raise awareness about climate action around the world. The idea for the event came out of the postponement of COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, until 2021 due to the pandemic, since we felt that action on climate change and the issues it causes was not something we could afford to delay.

We were joined by lots of great partners and friends throughout the month, including trailrunners like Lizzy Hawker, Emma Roca, Lucy Bartholomew, Samantha Lynn LeBlanc, as well as Nigel Topping, the UK’s High-Level Climate Action Champion for COP26, as well as Satish Kumar, co-founder of Schumacher College and Pavel Cenkl, Director of Learning at Dartington Trust and Head of Schumacher College, who came up with the original idea. We estimate that between us we managed something like 50,000 km of running or walking across the space of the month, which is further than running all the way around the world! That feels like quite an achievement, so a huge thank you to everyone who helped us reach such a great milestone.

We received some really positive feedback from participants:

“Fantastic community who really encouraged everyone. I loved the interviews and the pictures that were shared. Thank you for organising.”

“Really enjoyed being a part of something worthwhile.”

“I enjoyed the challenge and meeting the other participants via Zoom. It’s a great campaign and I am inspired to take action in my immediate community.”

With the focus on COP26 already beginning to ratchet up, watch this space to hear more about our intention to bring back Climate Marthon again in 2021 if we can. In the mean time, you can still browse #climatemarathon on Instagram, watch the YouTube interviews, or take a look below at some of the photos from participants around the world to get a sense of what it was like…