Empowerment workshop on environmental education attended by
volunteers with Beijing Friends of Nature Charity Foundation.
Beijing Friends of Nature Charity Foundation (FoN) is one of China's oldest social organisations for environmental protection. It is dedicated to building platforms for public participation and to nurturing 'green citizens'. PCD has been supporting its innovative Public Climate Action Project (PCAP), the country's first endeavour initiated by a social organisation focusing on citizen action on climate change. FoN responds to the macro environmental issue by anchoring PCAP at a daily life level — a bottom-up approach, developing volunteer groups and enlisting support from many organisations. By mid-2025, it had provided 1,300 PCAP applicants with green learning as a foundation for their actions, and further supported about 100 outstanding applicants with small grants to take actions in their everyday lives. They had also formed 23 volunteer groups across 20 cities for organising activities on various environmental topics.
As time went on, FoN realised the importance of peer support and community building. The FoN team therefore facilitated both on-line and off-line interactions within the peer community to develop platforms for exchange, to nurture spirit, and to build friendly, mutual support. The volunteer groups are learning from each other, such as about ways of operating groups effectively. The peer community formed by the 170 'green citizens' from different walks of life — individuals, facilitators and experts on climate change — has become an important source of support.
An artist who has adopted 'Monkey' as her nature name joined the third PCAP cohort. She had been creating with discarded materials since 2018, and her Rubbish Artist proposal was selected for small grant support in 2023. Through the support of facilitators and partners, Monkey developed a more complete plan for her art actions. "With the support of the project," she said, "I'm able to do most of what I had imagined at the start. Courses, workshops and exhibitions — I can combine all of these for optimal results." To raise public awareness of the links between one's lifestyle and climate change, she organised workshops and invited participants to join in and observe the process of waste transportation and landfill dumping. Monkey's artwork was selected for the 2023 Beijing Design Week, attended by tens of thousands of people. At her exhibition, she welcomed visitors to express themselves through using waste materials. Monkey appreciated the opportunity to meet so many people, face-to-face. "The opportunity allowed me to understand more about whatothers have been doing about climate change, making it possible for joined efforts in the future. I also received good advice from peers with different backgrounds and skills."
Public Climate Action Project cohort gathering at a flea market.
Another initiative to support community building and sustainable living was FoN members' visit to Transition Town (TT) in Fujino, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, in 2024. The TT movement originated in the early 2000s in Totnes, UK, and is now active in more than 40 countries. In Fujino, TT was initiated by Hidetake Enomoto and partners and has grown to over 60 districts. Essentially, TT advocates citizen-led activities to redress the over-dependency on unsustainable fossil fuel and to respond to the climate crisis. The core actions are on saving energy, recycling resources and developing local food systems.
Upon returning from Japan, FoN shared their experiences with PCAP participants. They also applied their learning into their community building work, which has yielded encouraging results.
We have further supported FoN's synthesis of learning, which has been nurturing green citizens. Reviewing their own experience, the project team has realised that personal needs for growth and a community's need for development are equally important. Like two legs, they walk together for sustainability and green citizenship — a journey motivated by many environmental actions.