THE BBfG UPDATE
September brings new BBfG Verified members, practical Sustainability Challenges and plenty of opportunities to bring the BBfG community together.
We're also looking further ahead, with five packs from Basingstoke & Deane Scouting booked to take part in Power Your Pounds.
And we're heading towards an important milestone: 30 BBfG Verified organisations by the BBfG Awards in November, and 40 by the end of the year.
This month we're also celebrating member recognition, looking back at some of the experiences that have brought the community together, and sharing a few things worth watching and getting involved in.
Monthly Sustainability Challenges
Cheryl from BBfG Verified member Understanding HR shared her foraging experience — and turned her haul into lots of lovely homemade goodies.
If you're taking part in September's challenge, share your photos in our People Planet Pint WhatsApp, on your LinkedIn profiles or our Facebook page. Let everyone know where you've found some good local picking spots too.
Share your foraging findsWant to see what's coming next?
Find and download the full calendar of 2026 Monthly Sustainability Challenges set by BBfG.
See all 2026 Sustainability ChallengesGo foraging
September's challenge is to discover what's growing around us.
Blackberries are an obvious starting point, but local hedgerows and green spaces can contain far more than we realise.
See what you can find, learn something new and share your discoveries with the BBfG community.
Please forage responsibly and only eat something when you're completely confident it has been identified correctly.
Swap one everyday purchase
Next month's challenge is about where our pounds go. Pick something you buy regularly and investigate whether there's an alternative that better reflects what's important to you.
It could be changing your toilet roll to Who Gives A Crap, reviewing the cleaning products you use or looking again at something your business buys regularly.
The Yuka app can also help you look more closely at ingredients in food and personal-care products and compare alternatives.
Welcome to our new BBfG Verified members
We're delighted to welcome three more organisations to the growing BBfG Verified community.
Example IT, Understanding HR and Victoria's Promise have all joined the community, with Victoria's Promise also becoming our first BBfG Verified charity.
We also have a host of other organisations currently in the pipeline, so the BBfG community continues to grow.
Our goal by the BBfG Awards on 10 November.
Our goal by the end of 2026.
Know a good business that would fit into the BBfG community?
If you work with, supply, buy from or regularly meet an organisation that you think shares the BBfG approach, we'd love an introduction.
Introduce a business to BBfGThe Great Big Basingstoke Charity Style Off
What happens when a group of local businesses accepts a very different kind of challenge?
On 30 September we're joining forces with St Michael's Hospice for the Great Big Basingstoke Charity Style Off.
Taking part so far are: Cornerstone Nurseries, Brevity Marketing, Richard Pearce Wealth Management, The Last Word, Stronger Together Forum and Metro Bank.
It's another example of what can happen when local organisations get involved, have some fun and use their people and networks to support the wider community.
Congratulations Patricia
A huge congratulations to Patricia Fox of Figure Fox, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to the community over the past twenty years.
Recognition like this matters because it celebrates what sustained local contribution looks like — not one event or one initiative, but years of showing up, helping others and strengthening the community.
And another reason for BBfG to celebrate
Better Business for Good was also a finalist in the Business and Community Award.
It's a lovely recognition of the businesses, charities and individuals who are helping turn BBfG into practical local action.
Spending time in nature
Back in June, we swapped meeting rooms and networking tables for something rather different: a Forest Bathing Experience.
BBfG members Patricia from Figure Fox, Elizabeta from Piece of Cake Accounting, Mark from Stronger Together Forum and Jill from The Last Word Copywriting were among those who joined us.
Experiences like this are part of what makes the BBfG community different. They give people space to talk, connect and try something they might not otherwise make time for in the working week.
Sometimes the best business conversations happen when you change the setting completely.
BBfG Quarterly Meeting
Our next Quarterly Meeting brings BBfG Verified members together at Worting House.
It's a chance to hear what's developing across BBfG, exchange ideas with other members, look ahead to the next few months and identify opportunities where we can work together.
Power Your Pounds is heading to Brighton Hill
Power Your Pounds is reaching more young people later this year, with two packs from Brighton Hill Scouting booked to take part in the maths literacy workshop in December.
Power Your Pounds takes practical money and maths skills into a setting where young people can get involved, ask questions and build confidence.
Bringing two more packs into the programme means more young people will have the opportunity to develop useful financial skills they can take into everyday life.
A big thank you to Alex Morris from BBfG Verified Touchdown PR.
Alex helped open the door to Basingstoke Cub groups and played an important part in getting the original Power Your Pounds pilot off the ground.
That first pilot - led by Richard Pearce Wealth Management - helped show what the programme could achieve, and it's great to see the idea continuing to reach more young people.
Read about the first Power Your Pounds pilotHave you seen the People's Emergency Briefing?
At the end of August, Kaia, Jill and Patricia attended a screening of the People's Emergency Briefing in Chineham.
The film brings together scientists and experts to explain what the latest evidence on climate and nature means for everyday life in the UK, including our food, health, homes and communities.
Rather than trying to condense that conversation into a newsletter paragraph, we'd encourage BBfG members to see it for themselves.
Screenings are taking place in communities across the UK, so have a look and see what's happening near you.
Find a screening near youPower Station
Another film that has caught our attention is Power Station.
It follows a community attempting to turn its street and local schools solar — including the financial, practical and human complications involved in trying to make change happen together.
Can't see the trailer above?
▶ Watch the trailer on YouTubeWhat makes it particularly relevant to BBfG isn't simply the subject of solar power.
It's the idea that practical local action can start with a relatively small group of people and become something much bigger.
People Planet Pint meets the BBfG Awards
Our November People Planet Pint will be a little different, because we're bringing the BBfG community together for the BBfG Awards.
It's an opportunity to recognise organisations and people taking practical action, celebrate what the BBfG community has achieved and bring businesses and community organisations together in the same room.
