'Heroic Amateurism' at the Low Carbon Communities conference - and funding success for Birmingham

Over two hundred people attended the Low Carbon Communities Network conference in Oxford on 14 January. The mood of the conference was upbeat despite the cuts in the feed in tariff, showing that the will of ordinary people to move towards a low carbon society is unstoppable.

Opening presentations included Rebecca Willis from Co-operatives UK talking about research she had done into community energy co-operatives - a subject close to our hearts in Birmingham as CORE50 has recently come into being and as Birmingham Churches Green Group look to set up a co-operative to bulk buy energy.

Rebecca said that many energy co-operatives suffer from 'heroic amateurism'. This struck a chord with me because I have long argued that community energy groups can learn from social enterprises in having leadership and management skills on a par with the private sector without compromising on our values. I often think we need to spend at least as much time on honing our learning and management skills as we do discussing the location of bike parking stands. Abraham Lincoln once said that if he had eight hours to cut down a tree, he would spend the first six sharpening his axe. The low carbon movement attracts a lot of people who are younger than I, which is excellent. I learned most of my leadership skills from being an activist, not from a textbook. The low carbon movement needs to become an academy of leadership skills for green leaders. It will make our edge a lot sharper if we can become more professional without losing sight of our values.

It was a busy conference for those of us from SusMo and other organisations in Birmingham such as Localise West Midlands, Balsall Heath is our Planet, Energywise and CORE50, with Kathy Hopkin and myself delivering sessions on Communities and Green Deal, and how Social Enterprises can work with the private sector.
One of the attendees at our workshop on Green Deal suggested that LCCN should play a role nationally in helping low carbon and transition groups to 'meet the buyer' - i.e. to negotiate with Green Deal providers over how we work with them, and at what price. This is an excellent idea. Birmingham Social Enterprise Energy Network has played this role very well in Birmingham and has helped low carbon groups and social enterprises to bid together instead of in competition with each other. This has led to a situation where third sector organisations are the providers of choice in Birmingham City Council's 'Stay Warm, Stay Well in Birmingham' fuel poverty programme, delivering energy and income maximisation advice to vulnerable people whose health is at risk due to cold, damp homes.

The conference ended with Jonathan Porritt, who as always, was provocative and challenged the thinking of everyone present, to remind us that we continually need to question ourselves about whether we are doing the right thing. He also mocked Greg Barker MP, much to the amusement of the audience, and also criticised him politically, which I thought was far preferable. There was a lively debate over working with the private sector, with some delegates thinking that we can have nothing to do with them whatsoever. There is a 'small elite group' mentality among some people in the Transition movement, who given a choice between compromise and irrelevance, would seemingly choose irrelevance.

The conference took place as the results of the DECC LEAF fund were announced. We were delighted to learn that two bids from Birmingham - a south Birmingham consortium bid led by Balsall Heath Is Our Planet, and a Northfield Ecocentre bid - had been successful.