We find and map them
EnviroWatch, our community environmental-monitoring tool, lets anyone report a local problem — a polluted burn, fly-tipping, a damaged habitat — and pin it on a map, so it can be seen clearly and acted upon.
Our mission
Care for one, care for the whole
Sustainable Planet exists to help the Earth remain a place where all living things can thrive. The care we show for one person, one street and one river is the same care the whole planet needs — so we work at both scales at once: rooted in Forres, helping people live well, and building the practical projects, in water, energy and climate repair, that fix environmental problems at source. What we do for one, we do for the whole.
Registered Scottish Charity SC053575 · Forres, Moray
The position we're in
Why we exist
The Earth is changing quickly, and in a direction that makes it harder to sustain human life and the life we share the planet with. August 2026 was the joint-hottest month ever recorded, 1.65°C above pre-industrial levels, with the oceans warmer than in any August on record. Fossil-fuel emissions reached a new high in 2025. In Britain, the Climate Change Committee expects most homes to overheat, rivers to flood harder, and the public water supply to fall short by billions of litres a day within a generation. Forres knows this already: the town has built flood defences — on the Burn of Mosset and the River Findhorn — to protect homes from waters that now rise higher than they used to.
People disagree about how we got here. We do not need to settle that argument to act. Whatever anyone believes about the cause, the position we are in is measurable, the fixes exist, and what is missing is the will to do them. Sustainable Planet welcomes everyone who wants to fix the position we are in, and asks no one to sign up to a view of the past before they help with the future.
1.65°C
above pre-industrial — August 2026, joint-hottest month on record
38.1bn t
fossil CO₂ in 2025 — a new record high
up to 45%
higher peak river flows expected in the UK by 2050
What drives us
What we believe
Humanity is a rich tapestry of cultures, beliefs, faiths and political traditions woven across the planet's surface. We reach every part of it, from deep underground to the upper atmosphere, and that reach carries a duty of care. We believe every person has the right to live with dignity, secured by the abundance the Earth provides — clean water, clean air, warmth, shelter and food — and that where those things have become scarce, it is nearly always because the systems that should deliver them have been neglected, not because the abundance has gone.
We also believe that a species which has become too busy to notice its own habitat relearns attention the same way a person does: close to home, one relationship at a time. The patience it takes to help one child find their footing, the respect it takes to let older people age with grace, the stillness a group practises together — these are not a sideline to environmental work. They are the same skill, practised at the scale where people can actually feel it. A community that has learned to notice and care for its own members is a community that will notice and care for its river.
In practice
What we do
Our work has two strands, and each feeds the other.
Rooted in Forres
We support the wellbeing of the people around us — helping neurodiverse children and their families (with Minds Eye and the National Autistic Society), older people who want to age well through Ageing Gratefully, and groups who gather to reflect and connect, such as the Heartfulness meditation circle. This is where our volunteers come from, where our projects are tested, and where we are accountable. It is also where the problems we work on become visible: the flood that reached these streets, the river these children should be able to swim in, the homes these elders cannot afford to heat.
We fix environmental problems at source — and we've already started
We design and build working solutions
Community energy and solar (including our Common Good Solar Farm and the AES Solar project); a greywater recycling system and an edible wall at Auchernack House; orchard restoration through RLOOF; and a community tool library that helps people repair and reuse instead of buy and bin.
We fund the next fix from the last
Wherever a project can earn a modest surplus, that surplus seeds the next one — a funding loop that turns each success into the start of another, and keeps a free offer available for those who cannot pay.
We are not a relief charity: we do not hand out food or fuel. Where a community lacks clean water, we help build the system that cleans it; where it lacks affordable warmth, we help build the renewable supply. The lasting fix is the project.
How we work
Our values
Evidence-led
We say what the science supports — and correct ourselves when it doesn't.
Inclusive
Open to people of every culture, faith and viewpoint, including those who doubt the cause but want to fix the position.
Rooted
We serve a real place and real people, and our ambition grows outward from them.
Practical
We measure ourselves by problems actually solved and lives actually improved.
Self-renewing
What our projects earn goes back into the next project, so good work funds more good work.
Hopeful
The Earth's abundance is real, and a fair, sustainable share of it for all living things is achievable.
Our vision
A planet kept in the condition that lets life flourish, cared for by communities who have learned that looking after one another and looking after the Earth are the same work.
On the register
Our charitable purposes
The OSCR register lists Sustainable Planet's purposes as the advancement of environmental protection or improvement and the advancement of citizenship or community development. This mission maps directly onto both: the community strand sits under community development; the find-map-fix strand under environmental protection and improvement. Because we repair systems rather than provide food, fuel or shelter directly, we do not stray into the separate purpose of relief of those in need.
Evidence-led
The evidence behind this mission
The figures below are checked against their sources; we update them as the science moves. The mission does not change.
The evidence — where we are now
The planet is warming, fast. The Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that August 2026 was the joint-warmest month on record (tied with July 2023), at a global average of 16.96°C — 1.65°C above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial baseline, with record August sea-surface temperatures. Source: Copernicus C3S.
Emissions are still rising. The Global Carbon Budget 2025 found fossil CO₂ reached a record 38.1 billion tonnes (up ~1.1%), with the remaining budget for a good chance of holding to 1.5°C at about four years of current emissions — "virtually exhausted." Source: Global Carbon Project.
The trajectory. The UN Environment Programme's Emissions Gap Report 2025 projects about 2.3–2.5°C by 2100 if every national pledge is met, and up to 2.8°C under current policies; holding to 1.5°C would need emissions cut 55% below 2019 levels by 2035. Source: UNEP.
The United Kingdom. The Climate Change Committee's A Well-Adapted UK (May 2026) expects, by 2050: up to 92% of existing homes liable to overheat; peak river flows up to 45% higher; and summer water shortfalls that could exceed five billion litres a day. Without adaptation, the welfare cost could reach 1–5% of UK GDP by 2050 even at 2°C (£60–260 billion a year), against about £11 billion a year of needed investment not being made. Source: Climate Change Committee.
Water under commercial ownership. Parliament's January 2026 debate on Thames Water set out a company carrying around £20 billion of debt, losing about 592 million litres a day to leaks, amid more than 3.6 million hours of sewage discharged into English waters in 2024 while shareholders took some £1.2 billion in dividends; Ofwat imposed a record £122.7 million fine in May 2025. Source: UK Parliament (Hansard).
A great eruption, measured against humanity
Mount Pinatubo (June 1991) was the second-largest eruption of the twentieth century and the best-measured — a fair test case. Using US Geological Survey figures:
| Measure | Pinatubo, 1991 | Humanity |
|---|---|---|
| CO₂ released | ~0.05 bn tonnes (~9 hours) | 38.1 bn tonnes in 2025 — Pinatubo's total every ~12 hours |
| All volcanoes, per year | ~0.2–0.4 bn tonnes | matched by humanity every ~2–3 days |
| Human : volcanic CO₂ | — | well over 100 : 1 (about 145 : 1) |
| Effect on temperature | cooled ~0.5°C for a year | warmed ~1.3–1.65°C since 1850–1900 |
| How long it lasted | 2–3 years, then recovered | CO₂ persists for centuries; warming still rising |
A giant eruption's net climate effect is a short cooling, not warming — its sulphur haze reflects sunlight, and its CO₂ is a rounding error next to ours. But Pinatubo proved the climate responds quickly and measurably to a change in the energy balance — which is exactly why cutting emissions works. Source: USGS / NOAA.
A look into the future
If nothing changes, the realistic planning assumption for a charity founded today is a world passing 1.5°C on a sustained basis in the 2030s and heading for 2°C or more within the lifetime of a child born now — summer heatwaves that endanger the elderly, winter floods on rivers running 30–45% above old peaks, hosepipe bans as a fixture while a quarter of treated water leaks away, and rivers that should be a free local abundance becoming unswimmable in summer. The people hit first and hardest are those with the least. This is why we exist, and why we build — one community, one project, one river at a time.
Help us fix it at source
Your support funds real, local action — and every contribution goes straight back into charitable work in the community.