A Learning History of Low Carbon Innovation in Local Authorities

Learning History 'small group' work starts with Bath and NE Somerset Council

Working with Learning Histories at Bath & NE Somerset Council.

A cross-department group of officers from Bath & NE Somerset Council (BANES) have been brought together to participate in the research. The group will meet periodically and work in different ways with the Learning Histories asking what learnings are relevant to their own organisation. 

This is an exciting development for the research which has been exploring different ways of working with Learning Histories and assessing which approaches are optimal for inspiring and cultivating a culture of innovation. 

Single workshop events, such as the 2008 February workshop,  are inspiring but occur as a once-off; individual 1:1 work such as that carried out with Thurstan is empowering for the individual but is solitary and lacks support back in the organisation. The 'small group' work is collective and iterative and so offers real potential for deepening learning over time.

A series of 4 seminars organised around the Learning History work started in June 2008.

20 mini stories

Though the Learning History research started with 5 iconic stories, it is clear that these are not the only stories of innovation there are. During story circles at the Learning History workshop in February 2008, 25 short stories of innovation were told by people from across the country in Local Authorities or connected organisations. These two-minute stories were taped and, from the recordings that worked (!), 20 were transcribed. They are reproduced here to inspire and to show the breadth of things people are doing and thinking in order to innovate towards a more sustainable future.

Have you a story to tell? Write it down and send it to us and we can publish it for you. Or add it in directly yourself in response to this posting. 

1.Pyrolysis parade tells how an officer found out about a new compact Pyrolysis system that could transform waste management in the future

2. The Green Team Challenge tells of how a team are currently trying to address waste in the offices of central government bodies and the challenges they face.

3. Policy on the hoof tells of how, by gathering key politicians into a facilitated workshop setting, a group were able to get comitted buy-in to ambitious targets for carbon reduction. The process normally would have taken several months.

4. Giving Local Heroes a Voice tells of how some wilful individuals with a keen interest in alternative energy got their voices heard by using the strutiny process.

5. Lime Mortar's the wrong colour tells of how a Local Authority led a restoration project to show that conservation and carbon reduction can co-exist....well almost.

6. No-one ever asks us!  How a lone sustainability officer built a campaign to introduce sustainability measures in her Authority. Read how, starting with an inclusive Lunch, one step led to another and the chief exec ended up on his bike!

7. It's not me mate Read about a town in Russia where the politics and energy structures conspire to mean no-one can take a crucial decision. Result: A very cold February for inhabitants every year

8. Fourth Big Ambition Read a story that tells how, by getting a mix of people together in the same room, climate change and sustainability became the fourth big ambition for Sheffield.  

9. Long Distance Intimacy Read how a new generation Video Conferencing system is so realistic that one user sometimes tries to reach under a table 3000 miles away! The impacts for reducing business-related air-travel are very real for at least one corporate employee as well as his colleagues.

10. On yer bike! Read an inspiring story about how an innovative cycle centre in the town of Middlesborough not only got people on their bikes to work but also spawned new projects and increased wider awareness of sustainability and environmental issues. 

11. Grist to the Mill – Hydropower in South Somerset describes how Mill owners across Somerset were brought together to explore hydropower and what happened as a result 

12. Quality Counts – Taking contamination out of East London describes how the problem of contamination in recycling waste in East London was addressed

13. Talking Heads – Communicating Climate Science tells how a group of scientists were brought together with members of the public to discuss climate science there were some striking differences in how different scientists communicated about the issue.

14. For Peat’s Sake – Enhancing Carbon Storage in the Peak District What have degraded peat moorlands to do with climate change? Read how work to re-vegetate this land is important for increasing carbon storage potential and so all part of the rich pattern of addressing climate change.

15. Retyred – The story of my pencil case A practical, recycled pencil case is wearing well and reminds its owner daily of how well recycled products can be innovative, useful and practical. 

16. Local Lessons – Melting roads and open windows! Read how an assessment of Climate Change impacts (LCLIP) has been carried out and how it is being used to inform decision makers at a local level.
 


17. Be bold! Ask for a million £ A bold request for funding led to an energy efficiency project being run right across one Local Authorities LSP (Local Strategic Partnership) bringing them together around one table to discuss energy efficiency. Who knows where it might lead?

18.
Tapping into energy on energy Read how a group of sustainability officers capitalized on the growing interest in the Private sector for climate by bringing all the big employers together and offering them a means to start practically addressing carbon reduction.

19.
Going fishing – catching opportunity A sustainability director in a late starting Local Authority got good results by a combination of putting signals out into the world of carbon reduction as well as looking inward to capitalize and join up what was going on already.

20.
Waiting for the cows to come home – a cautionary tale
 An ambitious climate awareness campaign faced many stumbling blocks when it came to getting it ‘on the road’. Read about some of the familiar realities that dogged this innovative project.
 

 

Story Set: Down with Carbon

At the end of the story circle held at the Learning History workshop in Feb 2008, participants were asked to give each story they had told a title. And then each group (there were 5 in all) was asked if these stories were made into a book, what would it be called. This group called their imaginary storybook  - "Down with Carbon!". 

Here are their stories.

Grist to the Mill – Hydropower in South Somerset describes how Mill owners across Somerset were brought together to explore hydropower and what happened as a result 

Quality Counts – Taking contamination out of East London describes how the problem of contamination in recycling waste in East London was addressed

Talking Heads – Communicating Climate Science tells how a group of scientists were brought together with members of the public to discuss climate science there were some striking differences in how different scientists communicated about the issue.

For Peat’s Sake – Enhancing Carbon Storage in the Peak District What have degraded peat moorlands to do with climate change? Read how work to re-vegetate this land is important for increasing carbon storage potential and so all part of the rich pattern of addressing climate change.

 Retyred – The story of my pencil case A practical, recycled pencil case is wearing well and reminds its owner daily of how well recycled products can be innovative, useful and practical.

Return to the listing of 20 mini innovation stories

 

11. Grist to 

For Peat’s Sake – Enhancing Carbon Storage in the Peak District

This story was told in a story circle at the Learning History workshop in February 2008.

What have degraded peat moorlands to do with climate change? Read how work to re-vegetate this land is important for increasing carbon storage potential and so all part of the rich pattern of addressing climate change.

For Peat’s Sake – Enhancing Carbon Storage in the Peak District

A story told in the  “Down with Carbon” story circle

I was in Derbyshire for a long time as a Councillor and a member of the Peak National Park Authority. One of the most interesting features of the Peak is the Kinder plateau which if you have ever been up there, you may know is a totally degraded landscape.  It is just lots and lots - square meter after square meter - of peat basically, which is actually Sphagnum moss over many years degraded into this sort of brown-fryable substance.  There has been a problem in that, the rainfall in the area has been channeled down through the peat and is therefore not providing any present sort of nutrition on the plateau.

So, the National Park got a grant to do a number of things on the moors, it was actually called moors for the future.  And one of the things that they were doing was to try to replace some of the vegetation which had been burnt in a series of fires, some are accidental and some are purposely started.  And another thing was to look up ways of trying to retain the water on the plateau and to try and regenerate vegetation, moss and cotton grass particularly.

And if you are wondering what does it has got to do with carbon reduction.  Well, the point is basically that the peat and the vegetation can act as a carbon store in a very large scale.  So, people have been working to try to block off the various gulleys and channels through which water flows down to try and retain the water up there and to try to get the vegetation growing again.  The interesting thing was that they discovered that they were about to get some grants from airlines!

Because Airlines using Manchester Airport were obviously under pressure from the public about the carbon emissions from their aircraft.  And one way they were trying to restore their good image was to subsidize this sort of work because they could then say that we were doing something towards offsetting the flights. 

So, that is the sort of work is going on and I think it is interesting because it is not something that is normally thought of, as a source of carbon storage.  But, it is all part of the rich pattern of doing something about carbon reduction.

Return to the listing of 20 mini stories

Talking Heads – Communicating Climate Science

This story was told in a story circle at the Learning History workshop in February 2008.

Read how, when a group of scientists were brought together with members of the public to discuss climate science there were some striking differences in how different scientists communicated about the issue.           

Talking Heads – Communicating Climate Science

A story told in the  “Down with Carbon” story circle 

Obviously in the context that I am in, I do not have a story about innovation either in terms of reducing carbon reduction.  So I think that I will talk about a project that I have been involved in research project which I think has some relevance.  It was a project that we called “Deliberating the Environment” which we did a couple of years ago.  We got together scientist from the University with local people, and we tried to get them on a one-to-one basis with the facilitator to talk about environmental issues including climate change.

The idea was to see whether there is any potential for deliberation in that context. Deliberation is a key idea in politics and in political theory that you actually want to open up ideas and get that kind of discussion amongst people.  We had six scientist that we recruited from the University, natural scientists or engineers that had a clear interest in environmental issues. And then we just locally recruited people.  Actually, we have got quite a few older people who are interested in participating.  Some of them wanted to get off of the streets as well!

The conversations that they had were very important: one of the really striking things in trying to relate to these issues of carbon reduction or thinking about climate change generally….  One of the things that people talk a lot about is communications of these ideas, and what we have found was really interesting, was the different approaches that the scientist took to trying to talk about what were the environmental issues by diversity, climate change issues around water and energy, so different issues that we have picked up on.

And some of the scientists were incredibly willing to talk about the science behind the issues, but to make it real for the people that they were talking to.  Others wanted to stay very much on the surface and to talk about the issues very much in a way that was more just like an expression of opinion and pubchat in the same way that the member of the public might engage in that, so they were staying at that level.And some of those scientists just weren’t engaged deeply. So that was one really striking thing about the way that the scientists engaged in that communication process.  And the other really striking thing was that the individual personality was key, and that is the one thing that seems to come through in all of these cases* (Learning Histories featured at the workshop).  There were a couple of scientists among our group of people who were just very engaging personalities.

 

Return to the listing of 20 mini stories

Quality Counts – Taking contamination out of East London

This story was told in a story circle at the Learning History workshop in February 2008.

This story describes how the problem of contamination in recycling waste in East London was addressed by paying close attention to different ways of working with residents and trying to understand what approaches work best. This attention to quality led to much reduced figures of contamination in the waste stream.            

Quality Counts – Taking contamination out of East London 

A story told in the “Down with Carbon” story circle

My story is going to be another one from the recycling sector, but relating that to carbon.  I was recently in charge of a monitoring and campaign exercise in 2 East London Boroughs to try and reduce contamination.  They have got a 25-year purifying contract with Shanks.  And they have got a material recovery facility which recovers waste material after disposal and uses it to power concrete furnaces, all sorts of useful project like that.  The problem was that the contamination was through the roof and that was causing major issues. They were sorting processes out at the MRF* (Materials Recycling Facility) of them and that something has to be done about it.

We were enlisted by them to come aboard and work with the Boroughs to devise a scheme to monitor whereby we sent out teams with collection crews.  They would monitor any household causing contamination and then deliver targetted information to those households.  In addition, we also worked with collection crews themselves who could be a voice for, a sort of advocate for recycling and for messaging to the public. 

And  we retrained them across contamination areas on how to improve their recycling service; how to improve their customer service especially and to view things from the resident’s side as to why they are possibly making mistakes with recycling.  From following on from that campaign, we did it in two separate areas, contaminations was reduced from something like 15% of households down to about 1% and 4% of households.  It is really sort of measurable dramatic effects in the area.

We are currently looking into how we could extend that throughout the rest of the Borough.  We initially targetted contamination hot spots and we now want to take that forward.  Maybe we could look at different seasonal impacts because grass or garden waste was something that we did not included as it was over winter.

And how we can improve on the methodology. The approach we took in each Borough was quite different. One was quite simplistic – it didn’t get such good results.

The other one was much more sort of staggered approach like a yellow-card, red-card approach. The first one would be a leaflet drop; the second a visit from a recycling person and the third would be a visit from the enforcement officer of that Local Authority.  So, it was a very strong stance approach but one that was gradually building up allowing that resident the benefit of the doubt at the start. And it has worked very well, Quality is something that is coming through more and more in the recycling agenda: to improve the recycling rates and increase markets in the future and obviously therefore decrease carbon dioxide emissions.

Return to the listing of 20 mini stories

 

Grist to the mill – Hydropower in South Somerset

This story was told in a story circle at the Learning History workshop in February 2008.

Read a fascinating story of how Mill owners across Somerset were brought together to explore hydropower and how, enabled by funding, several installations took place. As enthusiasm for the idea has blossomed to adjacent areas and new groups have formed, problems with funding are now proving a barrier.                            

                              

Grist to the mill - Hydropower in South Somerset

A story told in the  “Down with Carbon” story circle 

When I was working as an environmental projects officer and I was looking for a renewable energy project to facilitate, first of all, I thought it was a big wind project that was going to make a really big difference. So I contacted farmers; I looked through the wind speed map and made lots of contacts.  But unfortunately politically, it just did not seem to work. It was very frustrating because it just did not work.  And then I hit upon the idea of hydro-powered historic mill sites and I thought that perhaps that might be an idea worth developing.

And then I had a chance conversation with our historic building’s officer..and she said “Well I have all the contact details”.  So quite methodically we rang them all them up and said, “Have you ever thought about hydropower?”  And most of them said, “Yes, I have thought about it but it is quite difficult.  It is expensive.  It is difficult to manage and I just feel daunted about doing it,” apart from one mill owner who was actually thinking of developing and who had done a lot of research already.

So then I started visiting these sites. At the first site - Gants Mill – the mill owner was thoroughly involved with milling, understood all the old machinery and was very enthusiastic.  Obviously talented, tenacious and he was willing to get involved in a larger project and be a good communicator.  And then the second visit: you knew what was going to happen as soon as you pressed the door bells! It is a huge historic Victorian industrial site really - this stone mill.  You press the door bell and it is an unlocker.  And as soon as you get inside, the whole building is like that, it is really innovative.  He has made his own equipment.

 So, we got a group together. I held a meeting.  We had someone from the environment agency come and talk about licensing.  I talked about what the council could do to help.  We had a hydropower expert to talk about how a project could be developed.  And I offered a hundred pounds for feasibility studies for each site if that was matched by site owners.  They all agreed so we had a group together. Then we got £95,000 of money from the Energy Savings Trust (EST) which gave the group a focus on something to discuss.  We met at a rotation of each other’s mill sites, about once a month and the group’s been going now for about four years.  And we have got six sites with installations and another four sites to go.

And adjacent groups have formed. There’s one in Mendip, one in North Dorset, on in Dartmoor and one in Exmoor. And we realized that there is a strategically significant amount of enthusiasm.  There are over 100 site owners actively engaged in developing hydropower at their own sites.  Either feasibility study or detailed design and it has really escalated.  But the key idea that we have got to now is that the £95,000 for the initial group that was for the first group. But for the rest, they do not have money to actually take the project through. The enthusiasm is there, but the money is not.

 

Return to the listing of 20 mini stories

Retyred – The story of my pencil case

This story was told in a story circle at the Learning History workshop in February 2008.

A practical, recycled pencil case is wearing well and reminds its owner daily of how well recycled products can be innovative, useful and practical.           

Retyred – The story of my pencil case           

A story told in the  “Down with Carbon” story circle

As part of my job for the last two years, I have attended the Chartered Institute of Waste Management’s annual beanfeast in Torbay. It is a week-long mixture of conference and exhibition.  And those of you who like spotting innovations in bin lorries would love it! And it is right by the sea, so that is fantastic itself.  For the last two years, myself and partners have had a stand and I have been so lucky because my stand – I could look through the door and I could see the sea from my exhibition stand…...

But within my tent - the marquee that I was in was basically a public sector marquee - was the department of environment for Northern Ireland.  Now maybe you know that Local Government is constituted slightly differently in Northern Ireland. So this is effectively central government function in Northern Ireland.  But as part of their stand, they were organizing waste partnerships, but they had some marketing things which I thought were very innovative.

And the thing that I took away was this sort of zipper pencil case that is made out of reused car tyres, and I use this all the time, it is in my case and I brought it with me now and in it, I have my headphones for my laptop which I copied over my CD’s onto.  And so, when I am on the train, I spend a lot of time on trains I can listen to the music.  I also have all the leads and connections that I need for my laptop and various other things in this zipper case.  But I have had it already for two years and it is showing no signs of wear and tear, that it is itself for a recycled product which I think is absolutely fantastic.

I have not pursued whether the zip is made out of recycled steel.  It did not occur to me perhaps I will check on it.  I bet Wastewatch does not have any giveaways like that!  What pleases me about this is the fact that it is really useful product and it is made from recycled material.  I am amazed what these days is made from recycled materials: pens and rulers from machine vending cups, I think the range of product that you can get available is quite substantial.  I am so compelled that I am going to get it out at the end of this and show it to you.  That is the range of recycled rubber products that I have in my possession!

Return to the listing of 20 mini stories

Story Set: Tales from the Carbon Face

At the end of the story circle held at the Learning History workshop in Feb 2008, participants were asked to give each story they had told a title. And then each group (there were 5 in all) was asked if these stories were made into a book, what would it be called. This group called their imaginary storybook  - "Tales from the Carbon Face". 

Here are their stories.

Local Lessons – Melting roads and open windows! Read how an assessment of Climate Change impacts (LCLIP) has been carried out and how it is being used to inform decision makers at a local level.
 
Be bold! Ask for a million £ A bold request for funding led to an energy efficiency project being run right across one Local Authorities LSP (Local Strategic Partnership) bringing them together around one table to discuss energy efficiency. Who knows where it might lead?
 
Tapping into energy on energy Read how a group of sustainability officers capitalized on the growing interest in the Private sector for climate by bringing all the big employers together and offering them a means to start practically addressing carbon reduction.
 
Going fishing – catching opportunity A sustainability director in a late starting Local Authority got good results by a combination of putting signals out into the world of carbon reduction as well as looking inward to capitalize and join up what was going on already.
 
Waiting for the cows to come home – a cautionary tale
 An ambitious climate awareness campaign faced many stumbling blocks when it came to getting it ‘on the road’. Read about some of the familiar realities that dogged this innovative project.
 

Return to the listing of 20 mini innovation stories

Waiting for the cows to come home – a cautionary tale

This story was told in a story circle at the Learning History workshop in February 2008.

           

An ambitious climate awareness campaign faced many stumbling blocks when it came to getting it ‘on the road’. Read about some of the familiar realities that dogged this innovative project.

           

Waiting for the cows to come home – a cautionary tale

A story told in the  “Tales from the Carbon Face” story circle 

I only know one story about Local authorities and carbon reduction because I have only been in my job for four months. And most of this story happened before I arrived!  So I’m going to have to be a bit imaginative.

About two years ago, someone in our partnership of Local Authorities wrote a funding application to DEFRA for over £300K to campaign on raising awareness of climate change and attitude shift in the whole of the Local Authority area, which is however many million people, I cannot remember now.  And this plan we have put together with a bit of trepidation and I suppose, quite a lot of courage and a lot of it is ambitious. We had this huge idea of websites and a touring bus and all the Local authorities working together. Bringing 20 different authorities with all the energy officers out there together and we would have a big launch event with these Authorities as well as in-house staff events and all that kind of thing. That we would draw in funding from I think British Gas and somebody else, Power Gen maybe—it was a big ambitious idea and it was quite exciting….

… and then the money actually arrived ….

and all sorts of challenges started appearing …and the people who did the of branding work who had been highly recommended, really just were not producing anything - it was rubbish! And that caused a huge delay in the project. And there was a really difficult time when the project manager had to go down to London and sack this group of people and tell them “that’s it! We’re not having you anymore”.  And we found a new lot who did some really good stuff. They were great at the branding and images and colours and all that….and then were really, really, really slow at producing a website! The website is really only ready now, 18 months into the project. Then there was a problem with the design of the bus: it works, it’s out there, it goes….but…it leaks! And initially it didn’t have an awning, it didn’t have a wind-turbine, it didn’t have solar panels. These were all additions. And then we found that people didn’t really like going on the bus! Because it’s kind of scary – it’s only got one door and you don’t know what is inside. So we found you need to bring everything out of the bus. What else…there was also the feeling that there were all these Local Authority partners out there who everyone thought – hey they’re going to do stuff and be engaged. And we’ve found that some of them are really great but others of them don’t really exist. So I think it has worked in a lot of ways, but there’s been huge challenges and delays and problems and difficulties.

So hopefully a good learning experience!

 

 

Return to the listing of 20 mini stories