Cambridge

Cambridge Backs at Dawn. Attribution: Alex Brown
Location data
Map
Loading map...
Location Cambridge, United Kingdom
Coordinates 52° 12' 19.91" N, 0° 7' 7.19" E

The aim of this page is to recognise, celebrate and encourage the self-empowerment of community agency networks (CANs) and community groups' activism for climate, environment and many other sustainability topics across Cambridge.

News

Cambridge
Cambridgeshire
UK
Europe
Earth
  • News Britain’s roofs can be a huge resource for solar energy, theguardian.com (Dec 22, 2023)
  • News Partnership project involving local communities helping nature and climate getting underway in Cambridge., climateoutreach.org (Sep 18, 2023) — The River Cam CAN (Climate Action through Nature) project will involve communities near the river working on initiatives that will benefit them and the environment. “The River Cam connects most of the city’s green spaces, habitats and communities – including some of the most economically and socially disadvantaged. The river system is also emblematic of the environmental challenges that Cambridge faces; it suffers from flooding, pollution, drought and over-use of water, all are getting worse, and many are connected to climate change. This has impacts on both communities and nature and this project is about encouraging people to get involved and help their rivers and streams." James Littlewood, Cambridge Past, Present & Future. The two-year project is a being delivered by a partnership of local organisations supported by the national charity Climate Outreach, with funding from The National Lottery Community Fund.
Read more
  • News Sustainability on show at Co-op Group’s newest store, thenews.coop (Aug 21, 2025)
  • News ‘A game-changer’: the 9,000 acre project reclaiming the Fens for nature, theguardian.com (Nov 04, 2023)
  • News Pumping hot: inside Britain’s first heat pump village, positive.news (Jul 12, 2023)
  • News How heat from old coal mines became a source of local pride in this northern English town – new study, theconversation.com (Nov 20, 2025)
  • News ‘Robot’ buses could bring more environmental benefits than public transport with drivers, theconversation.com (Nov 20, 2025)
  • News Beth Mead: ‘If we don’t adapt to climate change, football becomes a privilege, not a right‘, theguardian.com (Nov 19, 2025)
  • News Sharing soil, sweat and tears, ffcc.co.uk (Oct 30, 2025) — Are farm partnerships the future? We talk to the team behind Abunda to find out
  • News Renewable energy investment should come from defence budgets, say retired military leaders, theguardian.com (Oct 23, 2025) — Former European officers say spending on low-carbon power would make nations more resilient to threats from potential aggressors
  • News Green to Grey, How Europe is squandering the little nature it has left, greentogrey.eu (Oct 01, 2025)
  • News Bees, Community, and Shared Futures, grassecon.substack.com (Nov 20, 2025)
  • News ‘Robot’ buses could bring more environmental benefits than public transport with drivers, theconversation.com (Nov 20, 2025)
  • News The Cambodian women rising up to protect their communal land, positive.news (Nov 20, 2025)

Networks, sustainability and international development initiatives

  • Transition Cambridge
  • Climate change and sustainability, information from Cambridge City Council. links checked 19:16, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Abbey People, "community charity in the Abbey Ward of Cambridge, improving the lives and wellbeing of Abbey residents." added 13:17, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Cambridge University International Development , student run society aiming to promote awareness and discussion of international development issues across Cambridge. This is primarily achieved through events and the Vision magazine which is published termly.
Cosmolocal discovery club

Each week 3 different short videos from across the UK or world.

Northern Ireland community action, Haringey community action, West Midlands community action / ...This week's featured Global videos / ... read more about Cosmolocalism

UK and international events

UK events

  • Event Nov 10 - 16, 2025 (Mon - Sun) — Living Wage Week, livingwage.org.uk
  • Event Nov 13, 2025 (Thu) — Kindness Day UK, Nov 13 annually, aiming to increase the value of kindness in society as well as increase the amount of kind acts that take place, making kindness a greater part in our daily life, kindnessuk.com
  • Event Nov 16 - 22, 2025 (Sun - Sat) — Road Safety Week, brake.org.uk
  • Event Nov 22 - 30, 2025 (Sat - Sun) — National Tree Week, The Tree Council's annual tree celebration. People across the country planting thousands of trees to mark the start of the winter tree planting season. "Trees and hedgerows are some of the most powerful tools we have in the fight against climate change.", treecouncil.org.uk

UK community action events

Global or international events

  • Event Nov 05, 2025 (Wed) — Media Liberation Day, Change the Media, Change the Future, mediarevolution.org
  • Event Nov 06, 2025 (Thu) — Outdoor Classroom Day, celebrating and inspiring outdoor learning and play, outdoorclassroomday.com
  • Event Nov 13, 2025 (Thu) — World Kindness Day, Nov 13, annually, highlighting good deeds in the community focusing on the positive power and the common thread of kindness for good which binds us, randomactsofkindness.org
  • Event Nov 16, 2025 (Sun) — International Day for Tolerance, Nov 16 each year, fostering respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human, unesco.org
  • Event Nov 19, 2025 (Wed)International Men's Day, Nov 19, annually
  • Event Nov 28 & 29, 2025 — Buy Nothing Day, en.wikipedia.org

2021-2030, UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, International community action events

Cambridge video

Community resources

  • Makespace, community inventing shed, Cambridge

Community and voluntary action

Cambridge SCA (Cambridge Student Community Action) is a registered charity that provides community volunteering opportunities for students at the University of Cambridge in England. The organization facilitates various projects aimed at serving the local community. Cambridge SCA manages ten internal projects, each led by student project leaders, which focus on areas such as education and support for children and the elderly.In addition to these internal projects, Cambridge SCA collaborates with external organizations, including Cambridge Carbon Footprint, Headway, and Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre to offer additional volunteering opportunities.

Food activism

Maps: Map of Cambridge Growing Spaces

Community farm

Cohousing

  • Marmalade Lane, Cambridge's first cohousing community, added 15:21, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Towards sustainable economies

Circular Cambridge, a season of events celebrating progressive ways to design, manufacture, access, repair and reuse the things that we want and need in our lives.

Arts, sport and culture

  • Together Culture, gathering a membership community united in their desire to help create a more equitable and ecological creative economy. Video: Together Culture on youtube.com, added 20:01, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Climate action

Cycling activism

National Cycle Routes in and around Cambridgeshire include: Route 11: connecting Harlow in Essex to King's Lynn in Norfolk, via Cambridge ; Route 12: incomplete but when fully constructed it will run from Enfield Lock (London) to Grimsby (Lincolnshire) via Peterborough ; and Route 51: connecting Colchester and the port of Harwich to Oxford via Cambridge

Urban sustainability

  • Water Sensitive Cambridge, Community Interest Company "Reconnecting people, land and water in Cambridge UK and beyond through a “Water Sensitive” Approach", and "working with the people of Cambridge to put rain in the ground close to where it falls."

Open spaces

Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, Northamptonshire to the west, and Bedfordshire to the south-west. The largest settlement is the city of Peterborough.

News archive

2014-2020

  • Cambridge's Dutch-style roundabout: Why all the fuss? Sep 26, 2020...BBC News
  • Marmalade Lane: the car-free, triple-glazed, 42-house oasis, May 8, 2019...The Guardian
  • The city where children go to school in a plywood box, Oct 14, 2017...BBC News
  • Floating bus stops making cyclists' lives safer, report says, Oct 25, 2016...cambridge-news.co.uk
  • Cambridge: Council's electricity supply goes 100% green, Oct 13, 2016...cambridge.gov.uk
  • How Cambridge Became the U.K.'s Model Cycling City, August 6, 2015...CityLab
  • Learning from Cambridge Skillsfest – in more ways than one, March 3, 2014...A dragons best friend

About Cambridge

Campaigns

  • Save the Green Corridor! Cambourne to Cambridge – bus lane not busway, petition on change.org

Past events

Cambridge ( KAYM-brij) is a city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, 55 miles (89 km) north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of the City of Cambridge was 145,700; the population of the wider built-up area (which extends outside the city council area) was 181,137. There is archaeological evidence of settlement in the area as early as the Bronze Age, and Cambridge became an important trading centre during the Roman and Viking eras. The first town charters were granted in the 12th century, although modern city status was not officially conferred until 1951.

The city is well known as the home of the University of Cambridge, which was founded in 1209 and consistently ranks among the best universities in the world. The buildings of the university include King's College Chapel, Cavendish Laboratory, and the Cambridge University Library, one of the largest legal deposit libraries in the world. The city's skyline is dominated by several college buildings, along with the spire of the Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church, and the chimney of Addenbrooke's Hospital. Anglia Ruskin University, which evolved from the Cambridge School of Art and the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology, also has its main campus in the city.

Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology Silicon Fen or Cambridge Cluster, which contains industries such as software and bioscience and many start-up companies born out of the university. Over 40 per cent of the workforce have a higher education qualification, more than twice the national average. The Cambridge Biomedical Campus, one of the largest biomedical research clusters in the world, includes the headquarters of AstraZeneca and the relocated Royal Papworth Hospital.

Cambridge produced the first 'Laws of the Game' for association football and was the site of the first game, which was held at Parker's Piece. The Strawberry Fair music and art festival and Midsummer Fair are held on Midsummer Common, and the annual Cambridge Beer Festival takes place on Jesus Green. The city is adjacent to the M11 and A14 roads.

Near you

Cambridgeshire community action - Peterborough community action

External links

Page data
Authors Phil Green
License CC-BY-SA-4.0
Cite as Phil Green (2022–2025). "Community action/Cambridge". Appropedia. Retrieved November 28, 2025.