Supplying school and office supplies to those in need

Hosting an event as large as the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) required an enormous amount of equipment to make the project functional across 2 weeks of live sessions, an excess of 3 months of set up and 1 month of breakdown.

While the world leaders were discussing global projects, staff were scurrying away in the background to keep the show running. The event site became home to eight large production offices and many smaller, satellite offices – housing the Identity team. Leftover items from the operations team included key tags for the hundreds of on-site doors, cash boxes for petty cash and last-minute purchases, whiteboards for scheduling and shredders to dispose of sensitive information responsibly. Once they were all finished, Event Cycle repurposed them with five local charities.

Some stationery and cash boxes were given to the Jeely Piece Club, a charity with roots in Glasgow’s south side. The charity aims to provide play and learning opportunities for all children aged 0-12. The Jeely Piece Club’s mission is to increase life chances and opportunities for children, adults and the wider communities. The stationery and money boxes are being used by the charity workers in their day-to-day duties and have enabled the charity to divert budgets for stationery supplies to other activity costs resulting in a huge saving.

Key boxes, shredders, 15 whiteboards and several battery recycling tubes were donated to Transition Stirling. The environmental charity aims to help the people of Stirlingshire achieve a more sustainable way of living, as well as provide a positive, local response to climate change. Most of the goods will be made available to the local community through the Stirling Reuse Hub, a project set up to encourage the reuse of materials by reducing the need to buy items brand new when they can be bought nearly new at the store. The shredders and battery recycling tubes will be used by the charity themselves.

1,000 key tags, a bunch of Thank You cards, several spray paint cans and two desktop easels found a new home at the Glasgow Play Resource Centre. The organisation trains schools and community groups on the importance of play in education as well as providing play activities for children. The materials donated will be made available for organisation members to access in addition to being used in various projects, craft sessions and activities that promote reuse and recycling.

The Springburn Park Men’s Shed received padlocks and chalkboard paint. The Men’s Shed initiative aims to give men a community space to connect, converse and create. The shed helps with community projects, one of which is the redecoration of the Springburn Parish Church. The paint and padlocks will be used as part of this project whilst the stationery will be shared between the church and the shed.

Finally, a shredder or two were donated to World of Wings, home to Scotland’s largest birds of prey collection. Situated just outside Cumbernauld, World of Wings houses hawks, eagles, owls, falcons and other exotic birds of prey. The charity would much prefer to spend their funds on protecting the wildlife they look after so the shredders came as a welcome gift on what otherwise would have been an expense.

-Original content courtesy of Event Cycle –


To find out more about the legacy of COP26 and the work EventCycle have continued to undertake post-event, visit their website or contact the sustainability and social values team at Identity.