Green Libraries Week 2026

Blog series Knowledge Matters

Climate facts for a greener future

We’re looking ahead to this year’s Green Libraries Week (21 – 28 October), a celebration of libraries across the UK with a focus on sustainability and the climate. We’ll be taking part by hosting a full programme of events and activities here at the Library.

This year’s theme is Climate facts for a greener future: Navigating mis- and dis-information. This goes right to the heart of the role of libraries: guiding people to reliable and trustworthy sources of information. So, as well as events, during the week we will be sharing new resources compiled in our Green Library Hub.

Events and activities

Throughout the week, you’ll find a wide variety of bookable events at the Library, including a screening of the short and powerful documentary the People’s Emergency Briefing.

You can also enjoy talks on traditional passive architecture, beans in Britain, and how to set up a staff sustainability network, webinars on international climate action and sustainable collecting, and we’ll be celebrating purpose-led entrepreneurship with our Start-up Stars event.

You can come to a choral reading of the work of John Berger, climate fiction writing workshops for adults or young people, and a zine-making workshop inspired by colonial food-growing in Jamaica.

There will be collection displays in the Business & IP Centre and Science Reading Room (which you can access with your free Readers Pass) and a photo display in the Entrance Hall.

You can pick-up a copy of our new wildlife trail from the Information Desk, and during half-term, our Family Station will have Green Libraries themed activities for kids.

On the Upper Ground Floor gallery, there will be a sustainable food showcase from our caterers Graysons (22 October 11.00 – 14.00) and seeds and used coffee grounds for your garden can be collected from Origin Coffee (Entrance Hall cafe, while stocks last).

Our Learning Team is also busy, because we also have three full days of events for schools, including the launch of our new programme for secondary schools and an author talk with Richard Lambert.

Our Green Library Hub

Whilst Green Libraries Week is the busiest time of year for our sustainability team, through our Green Library Hub we offer activities and resources all year round.

The Green Library Hub is a National Lottery-funded programme to support people to live more sustainably and take climate action.

We’re working in partnership with the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) and Camden Libraries to connect global climate challenges to local priorities in St Pancras, Somers Town and King’s Cross from energy efficiency and food resilience to healthier neighbourhoods and community wellbeing.

During Green Libraries Week, look out for the launch of our new resource guide, helping you spot climate mis- and dis-information and find trusted sources of information.

Celebrating progress

This is also a chance to reflect on our progress since last year’s Green Libraries Week. We are now two years into delivering our Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy (PDF, 4.3MB).

We’ve been busy since then, with teams across the Library all playing their part, including our estates, exhibitions, research, collection management and learning teams. Below are a few examples of the progress we have made on all four of our strategic priorities.

Sustainable places

• Our new passive storage building on our Yorkshire site is nearly complete, and we’ve installed air source heat pumps and solar panels on one of our existing storage buildings to significantly reduce our carbon emissions
• We’re embedding stretching environmental goals in the design of our St Pancras extension
• We’ve withdrawn single-use cups from staff catering outlets and launched a new returnable cup scheme at St Pancras
• Our commercial events team and our shop have published their sustainability commitments.

Sustainable purposes

• We’ve created the Green Library Hub project, including running our first climate café and supporting small community groups through micro-grants
• We’ve run our learning module for primary schools throughout the year, and are now launching one for secondary schools
• We created two new post-doc fellowships and offered two PhD placements on different aspects of environment and sustainability
• Our Sustainable Collecting Group created new staff training and new principles that will guide our collection development.

Sustainable partnerships

• The touring version of our Unearthed: The Power of Gardening exhibition inspired over 800,000 people across more than 80 libraries around the UK, with our impact report showing the engagement and action generated by the exhibition
• We’re working with partners to research the impact of digital versus physical items through the ReVerDi project
• We collaborated on delivering a major conference, Climate Resilience for the Culture Sector
• We are active partners in numerous partnerships, including the local Knowledge Quarter Net Zero Carbon Group, the UK-wide Green Libraries Campaign, and the international EnSuLib committee of IFLA.

Embedding sustainability

• We embedded sustainability in the procurement of key contracts and we began engagement with major suppliers on carbon reporting
• We updated our approach to climate risk, carrying out an assessment on the impact of a changing climate on the Library, creating an action plan, and a new Extreme Heat Response Plan
• We continued to deliver carbon literacy training, with over 150 staff now accredited
• We reported our performance publicly, across energy, carbon, water, waste, climate risk and more, through the Library’s Annual Report and Accounts (PDF, 5.6MB).