June 2011 Archives

In the environmental third sector we've become used to working closely with government in all its forms: local, regional and national. They've been a source of moral and sometimes financial support to us, and we've helped them to meet a variety of statutory targets. It hasn't always been a happy marriage, and often we've thought that we had different agendas and different cultures of working, but we've stuck with it and usually made it work.

Now the private sector is taking on many of the functions formerly delivered by the public sector. Nowhere is this more the case than in carbon reduction. Unlike the Big Society approach to running libraries and leisure centres through an over-burdened group of mythical volunteers with no money, there is arguably more money in carbon mitigation than ever before, through Green Deal, Feed-in Tariffs, Renewable Heat Incentive, the Water Efficiency Obligation, and the forthcoming Energy Company Obligation, often in the form of 'funny money'. There is also an increasing understanding, partly thanks to the pioneering role of Birmingham Energy Savers, of the role of the environmental third sector in helping the private sector to spend this money.

Previously, the public sector mediated our role with the private sector. Now, we must work directly with the private sector - not only energy and water utilities, but other new entrants to the carbon reduction world: high street retailers, DIY chains, and construction companies. Once again, low carbon community groups, Transition groups and faith groups are faced with the challenge of working with organisations who may have a different agenda to us, and a different working culture. Third sector organisations such as Groundwork and Jericho Foundation, who work on employment programmes funded ultimately by Government but delivered by private sector prime contractors, have already had to adapt to this new way of working.

Should we spurn the opportunity to work with the private sector because they don't always share our values? If we do, quite simply, we will be marginalised and the delivery of schemes such as Birmingham Energy Savers will suffer as a result, making more difficult for them to meet their wider outcomes such as boosting local economies through local spend. We should continue to implement initiatives such as CORE, which are community controlled, but also look at what we do have in common with the private sector that enables us to work with them, rather than starting off with our differences. We might find that they aren't that different to the public sector, the major difference being that because they don't have the same procurement procedures as the public sector, they have more freedom to get things going and completed quickly. This will affect the way in which we have to make decisions, and we will need structures and volunteer roles that are based on service delivery as much as on campaigning and advocacy.

Are the private sector serious about working with communities on climate change? I think they are. They have already dipped their toes into the water in the shape of projects such as E-ON's Challenge 100, and British Gas Green Streets, in which SusMo was a regional winner. In future, we can expect these initiatives to become more mainstream and to access mainstream budgets. Like the public sector before them, they know that they have a lot to learn about us, as we do about them. That will involve cultural change on both sides.

Phil Beardmore is a guest blogger while Esther Boyd and her husband Howard are taking a well-earned holiday