CAG Consultants have been commissioned by Power to Change to undertake a study to scope the opportunities, considerations and areas of focus for the design of a community business climate action programme.
The study found that many community businesses are aready taking climate action, but many want to do more and there was overwhelming evidence of need for a wide-ranging programme of support, inlcuding a fund, to support community businesses to do this.
It identified three priority impact areas identified to frame the programme and contribute to a shift to a fairer, greener economy.
- Social justice – working towards a more equal society, where the adverse impacts of climate change are not disproportionately felt by the most vulnerable
- Carbon emission reduction
- Systems change – bringing lasting change by altering underlying structures and supporting mechanisms, which may include policies, relationships, resources, power structures and values
The study went on to identify a range of potential opportunities that could form part of the programme, which will be explored in more detail in the next design phase, including:
- Providing financial and capacity strengthening support to enable community businesses to take climate action
- Working with groups that have been under-represented in previous Power to Change programmes
- Supporting the development of community business climate entrepreneurs and leaders to develop their knowledge and skills
- Enabling learning – sharing of information, lessons learned across community businesses that is properly resourced to enable maximum learning and engagement on climate action
- Providing support for projects to build carbon emission savings into their projects at an early stage and enable monitoring
- Networking to facilitate collaboration, replication of good ideas and avoid re-inventing the wheel
- Exploring supporting the development of 15-minute neighbourhoods.
The study showed the importance of Power to Change working with partners to pool and coordinate the resources available to community businesses to scale and join up community climate action and Power to Change are keen to explore opportunities for partnership working and several organisations involved in the study indicated they would also be interested in this.
More information on the study can be found on the Power to Change website and the report can be found here.
