A low carbon Edinburgh Co-Op has started a Crowdfunding campaign so they can stay open after the loss of their main backers almost sank the project.
The SHRUB Co-Op in Edinburgh runs a Zero Waste Hub as well as their “Wee Spoke Hub”.
The Zero Waste Hub on Bread Street is both a vegan café and a swap shop. Customers can use the business to donate items in exchange for tickets that they can then use to pick up items other people have donated or to collect food from local supermarkets.
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They believe their philosophy can help cut down on the amount of waste created by people and “work towards a circular economy.”
The Wee Spoke Hub is a bike shop with a twist. They run DIY workshops where people can learn to repair their own bikes as well as volunteer and fix up old, donated bikes to give them a new life.
However, the future of the co-operative was put at risk of closure after their main funders were forced to back out. Putting the project at a real risk of closing for good.
For the past three years, SHRUB has been operating with the help of the Climate Challenge Fund, a Scottish Government scheme that ran since 2008 with total funding that exceeded £111 million.
The CCF was created to support community-led organisations in Scotland to tackled climate change with projects that lower local carbon emissions. It funded more than 1,150 community projects across 32 local council areas. However, this year the fund closed following a government review decided the scheme "needed to be revised."
The co-operatives communications manager, Mary, said: "for the last three years we have been funded by Keep Scotland Beautiful's Climate Challenge Fund however, this fund has come to an end and CCF no longer exists..
"One of the obstacles we face in our project is generating revenue as we aim to make our events, swapshop, and foodsharing hub as accessible as possible meaning that we charge a minimal amount or suggest our community make a donation if they can. This means the majority of our food and events are free therefore our income is not very high."
Thankfully, prospects appear to be improving for SHRUB after The National Lottery agreed to give them their Community Let Grant. The £8,000 grant would help keep their doors open but they still need to match the funding themselves and now the co-op have started a Crowdfunder to raise the rest of the money.
They posted the announcement to their social media last Thursday, encouraging people to continue to donate so they can raise the £8,000 needed to unlock the grant. Currently, SHRUB are just over half way to their goal with 20 days of the Crowdfunder left, having raised £4,341 so far.
Speaking to Mary, the co-operatives communications manager, she said:
“We have been blown away by the support from our community and it has served as a reminder of how important our services are not only for tackling the climate emergency but also for mental wellbeing, ensuring community members have access to food, and making environmentalism accessible to a broader demographic.
“We have managed to divert over 15 tonnes worth of items from landfill so far this year which is the equivalent of 75 tonnes of CO2. Last year we saved 28.59 tonnes of stuff from landfill, which meant we saved 154 tonnes of CO2. These are huge achievements and really show how tackling the climate crisis on a small scale can make a real difference. We are community-led and currently have 405 active members, it is thanks to our amazing and dedicated volunteers that we are able to divert waste from landfill on this scale!
“We were very worried for a while that we would not secure funding and that we may have to wind down our project so we were so happy to hear that we had been successful with our National Lottery Funding. This will enable us to employ an Events Coordinator, a Volunteer Coordinator, it will also support us with a small amount of our rent and core role costs such as our Finance Coordinator.”
