Anna Mahtani reports from the London Eco Champion Awards

Prizewinners at the London Eco Champion Awards — Eco champions posing with Deputy Mayor Mete Coban MBE (centre) – (Credit – London Clear Air)

Four Barnet residents bagged prizes at an awards ceremony to celebrate London’s local climate champions last month.

The activists were rewarded for their work on issues ranging from making sure to turn out the lights to composting and planting to setting up the largest charity-owned solar panel array at the London Eco Champion Awards, hosted by charity London Clean Air (LCA) on 19th November.

Categories up for grabs included Mini Warriors (5-11), Junior Heroes (11-18), Local Leaders, and Super Schools – and the event was filmed as part of Groundswell, a documentary about global climate activism for Amazon Prime.

Young Barnet residents Mathilda Avery and Tadgh Doyle took home third and second place as Mini Warriors, while Lee Crocker and Gus Alston won second and first place respectively in the Local Leaders category.

Mathilda from Holy Trinity CE Primary School helps conserve energy by holding teachers to account and helping the eco-coordinator promote environmental awareness.

Mathilda was all smiles with her gummy bear earrings and a wonderfully sparkly jumper. She told Barnet Post: “I feel impressed that I did that. I didn’t really feel like it was a big deal but now I’ve got my medal I can actually notice it.”

Mathilda won a trip with her family to the London Wetland Centre and was keen to thank friend and fellow climate enthusiast Bella Lai.

“I feel very excited and honoured,” said Tadgh Doyle. As part of Sacred Heart RC Primary School’s gardening group, Tadgh helped develop a school compost bin, recycle water, sown wildflowers, and planted a vegetable plot. He thanked his teachers, his nan, and especially his mother for getting him into looking after the planet: “Every year me and my mum makeover the garden: plant new plants; cleaning it; making sure it’s safe for cats.”

Lee Crocker, a caretaker at Christ Church Primary School for ten years, has set up an eco-committee and a gardening committee, organised the installation of an electric charging port on school grounds and planted over 400 trees.

“I might be the one receiving the award, but it is very much a team effort,” he said. “I really just hope that the stuff we’ve done inspires loads of local people, and provides a lot of opportunity for young people to take action.”

Gus Alston, who is CEO of Stonegrove Community Trust in Edgware, was the biggest winner of the night. In September, Gus secured funding for and installed solar panels for their community centre. The panel array consists of 210 panels, fully powering the centre’s usage and saving 14 tonnes of carbon annually. That’s the equivalent of planting 637 trees every year. It is currently the biggest charity-owned solar panel array in London.

While he praised the works of the night’s winners he insisted on the importance of collective action: “Climate change is a global challenge. It needs everyone involved. We need to do things that inspire others to take action. It’s not an individual effort, it’s collective.”

This is the first year that Camden-based LCA has opened its awards to the rest of London. Valeria Pensabene, programme director, was impressed by the quality of Barnet’s nominees. She told Barnet Post: “Barnet was the most represented borough by a mile.

“Judging from the winners and the nominations that we received; it seems like there’s a genuinely well-knitted together community in Barnet that people can rely on.”

Georgina McGivern co-founder of London Clean Air added: “Barnet [residents] did themselves proud. They were all amazing and all doing very different things in their own small communities.”

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