Growing green?: co-creating an evidence-based model of SME engagement

Topic: This paper reports on our experiences in running a pilot ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) project that addresses the issue of ‘sustainable growth’ by engaging SME owners and managers in facilitated workshop discussions on this important, yet highly contested topic. If the UK and other countries are to meet their carbon reduction obligations, it is clear that SMEs will need to make significant, and in some cases radical changes, not only in terms of their day-to-day operational practices but also in their longer-term trajectories. However, policymakers face substantial obstacles in communicating with this audience, including: the scale and diversity of the SME population, competing priorities, competitive pressures and resource constraints. This project combines published research on SMEs, their growth processes and environmental behaviours, with specialist expertise in SME engagement and climate change communication. Aim: The multi-partner collaboration is designed to co-create new knowledge on environmentally sustainable growth in SMEs. Its primary aim is to help SMEs and intermediaries gain a better understanding of sustainable growth and its implications for their businesses. The team designed and trialled an innovative approach engagement, based on facilitated workshop discussions, creating an initial evidence base that will be coupled with a set of practical recommendations. The project builds on the academic and external partners’ complementary research insights into SMEs, organisational growth, climate change communication, energy use and associated policy-making. By incorporating the expertise of the practical insights of practitioners and intermediary organisations, the project seeks to initiate a vigorous knowledge exchange about the conceptualisation and practical application of sustainable growth. Methodology: Prior to engaging with SMEs, the team conducted a review of the literature on sustainable growth, which informed the engagement phase of the project. We also conducted a small survey of SME owners and managers and engaged in an informal consultation with stakeholders that informed the design and contents of the pilot workshops. Two half-day workshops were organised with SME owner and manager participants, facilitated by the communications specialists, Climate Outreach, and drawing on previous engagement projects with hard to reach groups. The workshops provided a forum for participants to engage in grounded, ‘peer to peer’ discussion about sustainable growth, expressed in their own terms and drawing on their own values and narratives. Audio recording of the workshops provided the basis for a thematic analysis, which has been combined with the other sources to construct this working paper. Contribution: The project is generating new insights into SME perspectives on sustainable growth that are grounded in relevant theory and evidence, coupled with practical tools that will be of value to practitioners and policymakers. The project team has also developed audio-visual resources, which will be used to raise awareness and help to provide the foundations for future engagement activity. The aim of the next phase of the project is to further refine this approach to engagement in the form of a more fully developed ‘toolkit’ and associated resources

Emerging models of environmentally sustainable enterprise: a comparative study of low-energy housing retrofit organisations in the UK and France.

Objectives: This paper examines emerging models that are being adopted by organisations engaged in the low carbon transition, with a particular focus on the role played by social enterprises. It presents a case-based comparison of recent efforts by industry actors in the housing retrofit supply chain to deliver low-energy retrofits (or refurbishments) of existing housing stocks in the UK and France. Prior Work: The study adopts a multi-disciplinary approach which makes connections between three broad strands of research: (1); energy policy, with a focus on energy efficiency in buildings (e.g. Fawcett and Mayne 2012); (2) social and sustainable enterprise (e.g. Blundel et al. 2013, Gibbs and O’Neill 2012); (3) socio-technical transitions (e.g. Geels and Kemp 2006; Smith 2007, Killip 2013). Approach: The issues are examined through a comparative study of the low-energy housing retrofit policy environment and of current organisational structures and practices in the building industries of the UK and France. Industry responses to recent policy signals are explored in case materials that are based around reviews of published evidence and a series of semi-structured interviews with designers and contractors who have direct experience of innovative, low-energy refurbishment projects in each country. Results: The case study evidence suggest that while the two countries have comparable long-term policy goals for CO2 emissions reduction, there are important organisational differences displayed in the more immediate initiatives being undertaken by industry actors involved in delivering retrofitting of the housing stock. The discussion section indicates possible explanations for these differences and highlights issues requiring further investigation. Implications: The transition towards a more environmental sustainable residential housing depends largely on social, as opposed to technological, innovation. Policy-makers need to address specific organisational constraints, including the longstanding fragmentation evident in this part of the UK building industry. The cases suggest that there is considerable scope for reconfiguring traditional networks and for giving greater emphasis to collaborative arrangements involving private sector firms, social and community based enterprise. Value: The study provides new empirical insights into the organisational dimensions of an important sustainability transition. It also makes a contribution to theoretical development by combining insights from several distinct disciplines, and by applying concepts from energy research, organisational studies, social entrepreneurship and socio-technical transitions to recent development in the UK and French building industries. It also identifies several implications for future research policy and practice

Geographies of hope: reflections on the creation of the Museum of Climate Hope

Amid growing concerns about climate anxiety in young people, researchers and practitioners in climate change education (CCE) have called for pedagogies of hope. The Museum of Climate Hope emerged from interdisciplinary conversations at the University of Oxford about creative approaches to CCE in both formal and informal educational settings. This article explores the geographical aspects of this initiative, from the physical experience of walking a museum trail across Oxford to the digital experience of ArcGIS StoryMaps linking stories of climate resilience, innovation and transformation across time and space

Climate justice and energy : applying international principles to UK residential energy policy

There are ethical, legal and strategic/pragmatic reasons why it is important to ensure a just approach to climate change mitigation, both internationally and within nations. Ethically, low income countries or groups can be considered to suffer an injustice if they contribute least to climate change while still suffering from its effects, and yet also have little influence in international decision making around mitigation and adaptation responses (Preston et al, 2014). Legally, equity is embedded in the ‘common and differentiated responsibility’ principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and in the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol (e.g. see Soltau, 2008). In the European context, the Aarhus Convention lays out rights to access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters.2 Pragmatically, people are more likely to accept climate change mitigation and adaptation policies if they reflect a fair balance of responsibility, capability, and need (Gross, 2007; Aylett, 2010), and wider participation and fair process can help with management of conflict and help to build consensus (Aylett 2010). Buell and Mayne (2011) also argue that just approaches to climate change actions have strategic and practical advantages because they can help ensure political support, mobilising hidden assets and generating wider socio-economic benefits than approaches based solely on narrow economic or financial criteria at lower financial cost. As recent public debate over fuel bills in the UK shows, there are strong public concerns about the fairness of energy policy, particularly where it affects energy prices, which in turn influence policy desig

Growing Greener: Creating a New Values-based Environmental Engagement Toolkit for SME Intermediaries

This paper explores a radically different way of facilitating energy and environmental initiatives in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In terms of energy policy, smaller firms in Europe are exempted from most of the major fiscal and regulatory mechanisms that are applied to larger organisations. Policies to reduce energy demand and associated carbon emissions in SMEs are largely based on providing incentives, such as face-to-face support and grants for energy efficiency in buildings. Energy advisors are therefore key intermediaries, providing advice and encouraging the uptake of low carbon technologies and practices by SMEs. Previous studies have found that advisors often find it difficult to engage effectively with SME owners and managers, and that traditional ‘win-win’ messaging can have limited impact, resulting in implementation problems such as under-investment in energy-saving technologies, reluctance to adopt new environmental practices, and a tendency to revert to previous ways of operating once the incentive is removed. Recent research also suggests that SME owners’ and managers’ personal values play an important mediating role in their response to environmental issues, acting in combination with more established factors such as educational background, access to resources and the views of customers and suppliers. The implication is that policy interventions in this area could be delivered in more cost-effective ways if accompanied by a more nuanced, values-based approach to engagement. This paper reports findings from ‘Growing Greener’ a UK multi-disciplinary project that aims to equip advisors and other types of intermediary with the skills, knowledge and understanding they need in order to incorporate a values-based approach into their existing interactions with SMEs. It opens with an overview of the policy context and a brief overview of the relevant research literature. The main section explains how the research team co-produced a values-based engagement toolkit in conjunction with a group of energy advisors and external specialists. The design process included a series of facilitated ‘narrative workshops’, where advisors shared their experiences and experimented with early versions of the engagement tools. This is followed by an outline of the completed engagement ‘toolkit’, which includes free-to-access online course, a communication guide and an interactive engagement tool. These three inter-related components are designed to help advisors to engage SMEs beyond a narrow, cost-benefit framework, and in turn help SME owners and managers to connect low carbon choices with the personal and business values that are important to them as individuals. Our findings indicate the potential for more effective, longer-lasting interventions beyond the low hanging fruit of building efficiency measures