Should the countryside fuel our cities?

On Monday, I went to St Michael's Mount for a roundtable discussion involving the Prince of Wales on land use in Cornwall.   It is a complex and potentially contentious issue.  Already the county council has had 30 PV developers approaching them to create solar wind farms to take advantage of the feed-in-tariffs. The county also has a number of wind farms with more in the pipeline. 

Competing for this land use is the desire and need to grow more local food, a realisation that water resources are under pressure, a growing population requiring more houses and the very real and obvious need to preserve the beautiful and diverse landscape that makes the county so popular with tourists.

The discussion was kicked off by the Chief Scientific Officer for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), Professor David MacKay, who presented the options in stark, hard numbers, using the same approach he takes in his excellent book ‘Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air’. 

There then followed a wonderfully eclectic and stimulating discussion amongst the diverse group representing the views of the renewable energy industry, regulators, the council, farmers and academics. 

There is clearly a genuine concern that Cornwall’s fields might get covered in PV panels with the negative impact this could have on the landscape, agriculture, soil quality and even water run-off. 

When the renewable industry countered this by saying that sheep could graze under the panels they were quickly told by the farming contingent that the county didn’t want more ‘white lice’.

Pulling together themes from the discussion was difficult.  Everybody realised the complexity of the issue and the need to ensure that the local community is involved in creating the solutions rather than having them imposed upon them. 

How this need for community engagement links in with the requirement for large-scale answers wasn’t addressed.  There are also many easy things that can be done without causing conflict, for example by putting panels on industrial or agricultural roofs. 

For me, it is essential that the county seeks to keep the profits generated by renewable energy within the local community and uses it to invest in the skills and training that will be needed to revitalise the economy.  It was also a relief to go to a meeting where I didn’t need to repeat my name numerous times to bewildered on-lookers! 

Changes at Defra

On Wednesday, I went to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for a meeting with the Civic Society Strategy Board.   At the meeting, we were presented with the departments targets within their new Structural Reform Plan.  The department will be concentrating on building a Green Economy that is resilient to the impact of Climate Change, farming/sustainable food and biodiversity. 

The department is clearly facing difficult times and is scenario planning for cuts that are likely to be between 25 and 40%, although they have also been asked to put forward a 50% option.  Operating within these fiscal restraints it is crucially important that activities are clearly focussed and there is no doubt that the proposed plan provides this degree of focus.

What wasn’t discussed – and what is a more interesting conversation – is what work won’t be done by the department but will be done elsewhere and what will quietly fall off the Government agenda entirely. 

On first glance at the new departmental targets, it is interesting that there is no direct mention of climate change mitigation (which presumably now sits exclusively with DECC). It is unclear what the split will be between urban and rural activities, there is no mention of fairness and equity and the section on food concentrates; mainly on farming and business, again with no mention of the huge upsurge in community food initiatives that has occurred over recent years. 

The terms 'sustainable development', 'sustainable consumption' and 'sustainable production' are also absent, which is probably why the Sustainable Development Commission’s future looks shaky.

The department is also considering its relationship with what are called its ‘arms-length bodies’ - organisations like the Environment Agency, Natural England and British Waterways. 

As part of this assessment, they are considering what work could be done more cost effectively by charities.  In the case of British Waterways, this might involve removing it from Government control all together.  Any of these changes will have to be handled with acute sensitivity.  Charities must not be seen as the cheap and easy option by Government. 

My fear is that some charities will be so desperate for funding that they will take on commitments that they are inadequately resourced to deliver, which would have a massively negative impact on the environment, our sector’s reputation and the people directly involved.

Falling off a cliff

Virtually every day we receive news that will make it increasingly difficult to sustain Global Action Plan beyond March 2011.  This weeks news included proposed changes to funding from the London Councils, which are currently helping us to deliver fantastic school projects across the capital, and also that charity funding to the Big Lottery is likely to be reallocated to sports and heritage slicing another 10% from this pot of money.

On Thursday, all our staff headed off to Charney Manor in Oxfordshire for our annual conference where I presented them with the bad news in a session that was called ‘State of the Nation’ but should have been called ‘The Nation's in a State’.   

It is increasingly difficult to know where to turn when faced with the onslaught of funding cuts.  I know other charities within the sector are feeling exactly the same and it does make me wonder exactly how the Government is expecting its Big Society plans to be delivered.
 
I have decided that the best approach is to be completely open with staff about the situation and to involve them, as much as I can, in helping us to find a way through the problems.  Following the discussions we had, I have no doubt that we have the creativity and joint desire to succeed.  What does worry me is that we will have to act incredibly quickly and we will have to pick the right winners.  The scale of the task is daunting.

Green ICT

On Friday, I was asked to give the keynote speech at a Green IT event run by Business in the Community.  I was a little concerned that I would be presenting ‘old news’ to a group of specialists as some of our research in this area is a couple of years out-of-date.  However, rather depressingly judging by the feedback, this wasn’t the case.

Global Action Plan played a leading role in kick-starting the debate on Green ICT with the launch of our Inefficient Truth report and the creation of the Environmental IT Leadership Team. 

I am really proud of what we achieved and since then there have been a plethora of reports and conferences on the subject.  However, with a few very notable exceptions, action on the ground has not moved as quickly as it should.  I am amazed that at a time of soaring energy prices many organisations are still using ICT equipment massively inefficiently. 

Capital expenditure decisions are still being made based on initial costs rather than considering energy use, ICT Departments are still not an integral part of many companies' CSR strategies, employee engagement programmes are still poor and highly inefficient data management is still the norm.

These are the real basics that need to be sorted.  The fact that progress is so slow in this area doesn’t inspire confidence in the speed that more complex and collaborative solutions will be implemented, which could deliver services more efficiently and substantially cut carbon.

Follow Trewin on Twitter.

Contact Trewin

Do you have a question for Trewin? Send him a message using our contact form.

Do you want more?

Trewin has been blogging for Global Action Plan for the past few years. If you enjoyed this week's blog you can find more here.

• Email this page