Bright Now campaign manager Sharon Hall shares about our creative stall at this year’s Greenbelt Festival which featured our new climate solutions game, Greenopoly.
Poet and Greenbelt legend Harry Baker has a song about playing Monopoly. I’d forgotten this when we were developing the climate solutions game ‘Greenopoly’ to engage visitors on Operation Noah’s Greenbelt stall, but it came rushing back when a person passing the stall said ‘he’s singing about Monopoly!’, and then I was the one rushing to join the crowd.
Our game had been a hit on the stall, providing a fun way to talk about the many and varied climate solutions which can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global heating. Groups of adults, teens and younger children enjoyed moving round the board and choosing where to invest their money. Some of them were challenged to join in campaign actions or tried to avoid getting stuck in delays or greenwashing. More experienced campaigners were asking how to buy the game in order to engage their congregation or youth group!
We had conversations about what solutions might be most effective at reducing emissions and some of the problems of carbon capture and sequestration. The topic of investment came up as we agreed how important it was to deploy proven climate solutions, and how the Green Investment Declaration can help churches and faith groups on this journey.
As they finished the game, players were invited to ‘green their money’ by stamping a game note with one of our climate solutions stamps. Buses, trees and wind turbines were all popular choices. Early players had also been also invited to join the ‘Greening Our Money’ panel event on Saturday morning.
Chatting to Harry Baker after his show, I invited him to come and play, but he had such a packed schedule he wasn’t able to fit us in. It’s an open invitation though – not only to him but also to you. We’ll be making the game available to borrow so get in touch if you’d like to try it. We’ll also be investigating how to make Greenopoly available to purchase before too long, so watch this space!
