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CAFOD

Great Big Green Week 2024: Make a swap for our common home

9 May 2024
Great Big Green Week banner image

We’re taking part in Great Big Green Week to make ‘swaps’ for our climate – and we want you to join us!

Pope Francis has reminded us we all have a part to play to stop the climate crisis harming our global family.

We can play our part by making ‘swaps’. That might be swapping the types of food we eat, the amount of clothes we buy or the way we travel.

And we need politicians to make their own swaps too: swapping their policies to ones that will care for our common home and our global family – now and in the future.

With Great Big Green Week coming up in June, a UK-wide celebration of action to tackle the climate crisis, make a swap in your life and call for political leaders to do the same.

What can I swap for the climate?

There are lots of ways in our everyday lives we contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. But it’s people in the world’s poorest communities who are hardest hit by climate disasters. We need to stop this injustice.

There are many things we can swap to tackle these emissions. We might swap to buy second-hand clothes, or swap from binning food waste to composting it. Or maybe we might swap our bank account to one that doesn’t support fossil fuel investments.

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Tell us about your swap!

We’ll be displaying our swap messages on a website, on social media and in CAFOD publications so that others can be inspired to make their own swap.

And during Great Big Green Week in June, we’ll share your messages with political parties to make sure they hear in the run-up to the general election how people want policies to care for our common home

Efforts by households to reduce pollution and waste, and to consume with prudence, are creating a new culture. The mere fact that personal, family and community habits are changing is contributing to greater concern about the unfulfilled responsibilities of the political sectors and indignation at the lack of interest shown by the powerful.

Pope Francis - Laudate Deum, #71

How can I make a swap and call for politicians to do the same?

Whatever you decide to swap this Great Big Green Week, make sure to tell us what it is!

You can do this by completing our contact form and writing a message on the online board we’ve set up to show what everyone is committing to swap.

All our swaps add up. But we know that we need politicians to act if we’re going to prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis. So as you’re writing to tell us what you’re going to swap, leave a message calling for politicians to help us to swap from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

LiveSimply Award

LiveSimply Award

The LiveSimply award enables you to strengthen the bonds of community in your parish or your school, to nourish your spiritual life and care for God's gift of creation.