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Community action/Hackney

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Community gardens plot in Clissold Park, part of the successful Growing Communities social enterprise project through which local people can get involved in growing and distributing produce via organic veg box schemes, a farmers' market and a range of urban gardening sites. Attribution: ceridwen

The aim of this page is to recognise, celebrate and encourage the self-empowerment of community agency networks (CANs) and community groups' activism for climate, environment and many other sustainability topics across Hackney.

Location data
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Location London Borough of Hackney, London
Coordinates 51° 32' 55.97" N, 0° 2' 51.61" W
Hackney
London
UK
Europe
Cosmolocal
  • News Amid energy market turmoil, the people taking power into their own hands, positive.news (Mar 19, 2026)
  • News East London is at high risk of extreme flooding – here’s how to limit the damage, theconversation.com (Feb 11, 2026)
  • News The London solar project slashing bills for vulnerable residents, positive.news (Nov 03, 2025)
Read more
  • News How London’s low emissions zone is helping children breathe easier, positive.news (Sep 01, 2026)
  • News Call for right to grow food on unused public land, BBC News (Aug 14, 2026) — Campaigners have called on City Hall to introduce a London-wide "Right to Grow" framework to help communities turn unused public land into food gardens
  • News The climate cafe where misery is 'empowering', BBC News (Jul 26, 2026)
  • News Plans for major overhaul of councils halted, BBC News (Sep 07, 2026)
  • News Sardines are having a moment but could this humble fish turn the tide for the UK’s local fisheries?, wickedleeks.riverford.co.uk (Sep 03, 2026) — Can the UK learn from Iberian traditions and turn its booming love for tinned sardines into a lasting win for coastal communities?
  • News Andy Burnham announces thousands of new homes, but is the government much closer to its target?, theconversation.com (Sep 02, 2026)
  • News European farmers face ‘unprecedented crisis’ after successive heatwaves, theguardian.com (Aug 17, 2026)
  • News Europe’s rivers are running dry, and the knock-on effects are disastrous, Yiannis Baboulias, theguardian.com (Aug 05, 2026)
  • News How Australia combines modern tech and Indigenous knowledge to fight wildfires, BBC News (Aug 01, 2026)
  • News Why I choose to build commons, rather than being an ‘activist’, growingcommons.substack.com (Sep 06, 2026) — And why I think you should, too, Dil Green
  • News What Brazil’s supercentenarians can teach us about living to 120, positive.news (Sep 02, 2026)
  • News How a South African town cleaned up its polluted river using stones, wood and sand, theguardian.com (Aug 31, 2026) — Scientists say system to treat contaminated wastewater offers a model for ensuring food security in a fast-warming climate

Networks and sustainability initiatives

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UK and international events

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UK events

  • Event Sep 7 - 11, 2026 (Mon-Fri) — Zero Waste Week, zerowasteweek.co.uk
  • Event Sep 11 - 20, 2026 (Fri-Sun) — Heritage Open Days, celebrating our fantastic history and culture. Your chance to see hidden places and try out new experiences – all of which are FREE to explore, heritageopendays.org.uk
  • Event Sep 18 - 27, 2026 (Fri-Sun) — Great British Beach Clean, mcsuk.org

UK community action events

Global or international events

  • Event Sep 15, 2026 (Tue) — Free Money Day, Global invitation for people to explore, in a liberating and fun way, what it might be like if our relationship to money was a little different. Sep 15, annually, freemoneyday.org
  • Event Sep 18, 2026 (Fri) — Park(ing) day, global, public, participatory project where people across the world temporarily repurpose curbside parking spaces and convert them into public parks and social spaces to advocate for safer, greener, and more equitable streets for people, myparkingday.org
  • Event Sep 21-27, 2026 (Mon-Sun) — Global Week Of Action For Peace And Climate Justice, climatemilitarism.org
  • Event Sep 21, 2026 (Mon) — International Day of Peace, Globally shared date, Sep 21 each year for all humanity to commit to Peace above all differences and to contribute to building a Culture of Peace, internationaldayofpeace.org

2021-2030, UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, International community action events

CDC videos

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Cosmolocal discovery club

Each week 3 different short videos from across the UK or world.

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Moray Ocean Community film
Authors: Moray Ocean Community, 4.38 mins.
Date: 2025-12-13
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The John Muir Trust: Our Wild Places
Authors: John Muir Trust, 6.50 mins.
Date: 2025-02-17
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Malmesbury School- Connecting with Nature
Authors: John Muir Trust, 2.20 mins.
Date: 2024-12-05

Community action/Moray, Rewilding Scotland, Community action/Wiltshire / ...This week's featured Global videos / ... read more about Cosmolocalism

Hackney video

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Communities online

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Shakepeare Neighbourhood and Butterfield Green

Food activism

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Made In Hackney Community Cookery School
Authors: MadeIn Hackney, Aug 3, 2020
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Tackling climate change through food and farming
Authors: growcomm, Oct 20, 2020
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  • Made in Hackney, pioneering eco-community kitchen that offers food growing and cooking classes to groups such as young carers, low-income families, people in care and people with long term health problems. Since launching in October 2012 the team have worked with a number of national and local organisations such as Action For Children, Off Centre, Inspire!, Catch 22 and Hackney Social Services to offer courses to their service users in healthy, affordable cookery skills.

Made in Hackney offer classes which include bread making, healthy baking, preserving, raw foods, family meals for £3, localised versions of international cuisine, home herbalism and even how to make non-toxic natural cleaning products and cosmetics.

Made in Hackney is an eco-community kitchen, all food waste is composted and taken to a local community garden, cleaning products are made from scratch using natural materials, shelves are made from reclaimed scaffold boards and counter tops are made from melted plastic vending machine coffee cups. They also use an ethical bank and renewable energy provider....Made in Hackney Press Release 3rd February 2014

Hackney City Farm

Hackney City Farm is a city farm and independent alternative school in Haggerston in the London Borough of Hackney. It is situated at the junction of Hackney Road and Goldsmith's Row.

The farm was established in 1984 as a community and educational resource and to give borough residents, particularly young people, experience of animals. The facilities at Hackney City Farm include a farmyard, area for grazing, garden and a tree nursery with butterfly house.[1] The amenity encourages children to learn about the natural environment, growing vegetables and caring for animals. The farm is home to a range of animals, including poultry, sheep, rabbits, bees, pigs and a donkey. Animals can be adopted at the farm, and free range eggs are for sale.

Hackney City Farm is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee. It runs educational projects, exhibitions, courses in crafts and farm trails, and operates a café, Frizzante, which won a Time Out award for best family restaurant in 2004. In 2008, the cycling shop Bike Yard East opened in the farm, selling cycle products and offering repairs.

In 2015 Hackney City Farm registered with Ofsted as an independent alternative school. The farm has places for up to 10 pupils aged 13 to 17. W

Other Food initiatives

Social inclusion

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Every ward remains among the 10% most deprived in the country, with 47% of children living in low-income households. W

Community resources

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Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle

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Recycling and Waste, information from Hackney Council

Climate action

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  • Zero Emissions Network, zeroemissionsnetwork.com, "multiple award-winning air quality business liaison initiative... helps businesses and more recently, residents in London's City Fringe area save money, reduce emissions and improve local air quality.", added 15:25, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Sustainable transport activism

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  • Footways, network of quiet and enjoyable routes for walking in London. Free printed maps or follow routes on your phone. Maps include Central London Footways, Camden Green Loop, Hackney Central Footways, and London Nature Trails. added 08:36, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

65% of households in Hackney are car free. W

The Lea Valley Walk is a 50-mile (80 km) long-distance path located between Leagrave, the source of the River Lea near Luton, and the Thames, at Limehouse Basin, Limehouse, east London. From its source much of the walk is rural. The walk was opened in 1993 and is waymarked throughout using a swan logo. W

Regent's Canal is a canal across an area just north of central London. It provides a link from the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, 550 yards (500 m) north-west of Paddington Basin in the west, to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in east London. The canal is 8.6 miles (13.8 km) long. W

Cycling activism

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Hackney has the highest rate of commuters travelling by bicycle in London as of the 2011 census. W

Cycle routes in or around Hackney include National Cycle Route 1 W Due to the increase in cycle commuting since the 2005 London Bombings and increasing environmental awareness, the Regent's Canal's towpath has become a busy cycle route for commuters. National Cycle Route 1 includes the stretch along the canal towpath from Limehouse Basin to Mile End. British Waterways has carried out several studies into the effects of sharing the towpath between cyclists and pedestrians, all of which have concluded that despite the limited width there are relatively few problems. W

Urban sustainability

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Play streets, Hackney Council, Hackney Play Association

Biodiversity

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Woodberry Wetlands is a nature reserve and designated Site of Metropolitan Importance on the site of the East Reservoir in Stoke Newington, Hackney. The site opened to the public for the first time in 200 years on 1 May 2016. Covering 4.5 ha (11 acres) and situated close to the Lee Valley, Woodberry Wetlands was acquired as a nature reserve in 2014. The site is owned by Thames Water and run by London Wildlife Trust. W

Open spaces

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Parks and open spaces in the London Borough of Hackney, (category) W

News archive

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  • News The London solar project slashing bills for vulnerable residents, positive.news (Nov 03, 2025)
  • News Rewilding sees animals rebound in Hackney Marshes, BBC News (Feb 21, 2025)
  • News ‘I call it botanarchy’: The Hackney guerrilla gardener bringing power to the people, theguardian.com (Sep 28, 2023)
  • News ‘Real’ public engagement must be prioritised for path to net zero to succeed, climateoutreach.org (Sep 05, 2023) — the UPPER Coalition Reports include examples of successful co-designing and collaboration with local citizens, including Camden Think & Do’s programme, Kendal’s Climate Jury, and initiatives in Hull and Hackney
  • News Amazon's e-cargo bikes and walkers to eat into London carbon footprint, newatlas.com (Jul 04, 2022)
  • News More flowers, fewer cars: the rewilders turning parking spaces into parks, The Guardian (Jun 22, 2022) — Across the UK and Europe, the ‘parklet’ movement is gaining pace, transforming dead spaces where cars used to be into pockets of green
  • News Now Building On Planet A, Alternative Editorial (Apr 03, 2022)

Community food systems should be part of the new normal – here's why, New Economics Foundation, Apr 26, 2021...neweconomics.org

Community parklets: Locals invited to apply as council reopens trial programme, Aug 7, 2019...@hackneycitizen

  • This firm is launching the UK's first energy trading community in Hackney, Nov 22, 2017...@CityAM
  • We Went To London's First Zero Waste Shop And This Is What We Found, Sep 13, 2017...sourced.huffingtonpost.co.uk
  • Campaigners demand 'mini Holland' in Hackney after Walthamstow success, Nov 11, 2016...@hackneycitizen
  • Pedal power: kids set world record for annual Bike Around the Borough, Jul 8, 2016...@hackneycitizen
  • Theatre's green dream boosted by cash for carbon-neutral heating, October 22, 2015...hackneycitizen.co.uk
  • Hackney estate's solar project starts 'community energy revolution', October 6, 2015...hackneygazette.co.uk
  • The Edible Map of Hackney, August 30, 2010...Mikey Tomkins

About Hackney

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The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough in Inner London. Hackney is bounded by Islington to the west, Haringey to the north, Waltham Forest to the north-east, Newham to the east, Tower Hamlets to the south-east and the City of London to the south-west. Hackney was one of the host boroughs of the London Olympics in 2012, with several of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park venues falling within its boundaries. W

Page data
Keywords London borough, Library of things
SDG SDG11 Sustainable cities and communities
Authors Phil Green
License CC-BY-SA-3.0
Language English (en)
Related 0 subpages, 2 pages link here
Redirects Hackney, Hackney community action
Views 60 page views (analytics)
Created March 8, 2014 by Phil Green
Last edit March 27, 2026 by Phil Green
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