REGLAMENTO Y ORGANIZACIÓN INTERNA DE LA SOCIEDAD DE CONCIERTOS.

National policy and the Department of Energy and Climate Change

The Energy Saving Co-op’s push-pull relationship with national policy and related tools created a variety of issues. On the one hand ESC was both inspired by, and emerged in anticipation of the upcoming Green Deal policy being launched: A national policy shift towards PAYS (now the ‘Green Deal’ finance mechanism) was beginning to address one of the most commonly perceived barriers to retrofit – the high upfront cost. All the

stakeholders in ESC were aware of the developing policy around this mechanism and believed that whether Green Deal was effective or not, the policy climate created a context into which a retrofitting business could step:.

“The Co-op came along as a precursor to Green Deal. The original concept came out of Green Deal and how it was going to work. We’ve known about it for two years now, we knew it was coming, but at the beginning of 2012 it started to get some structure”.- ESC Sales director

However, the relationship was in tension – there were multiple problems and issues with the financial elements of Green Deal nationally, yet being Green Deal accredited remained the only mark of quality assurance or reputability for retrofit professionals, which was important for leveraging funding and building partnerships. Consequently, the ESC

attempted to tread a fine line between working with policy – making contact with the then Energy and Climate Change minister, and gaining media representation in the Guardian’s

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Green Deal section (citation) - and remaining independent of it, being acutely aware that a lot of media attention on Green Deal was very negative.

“We are more driven by the broader energy transition than the Green Deal

specifically. Green deal is not a good proposition for customers – so we will become a GDP but we will be working on offering other financial incentives and products.” - ESC CEO

Certain key differences between the ESC’s services and the ‘Green Deal proposition’ included offering reduced mortgage rates linked to improved energy efficiency from The Ecology Bank instead of loan finance, and not limiting technological measures to those prioritised at national level (EWI, boilers and heating controls), allowing householders greater choice and better incorporation of energy efficiency with broader home

improvement plans. This attempted independence from Green Deal was enabled by the substantial initial funding sources ESC gained which allowed it to build a stable workforce and business plan rather than relying on conditional central government grant funding. ESC also had a turbulent relationship with the ECO. Ongoing attempts to negotiate a price for ECO from the energy companies fell flat, especially after changes published by DECC in guidance to suppliers in March 2013 significantly reduced the level of obligation on

suppliers. This caused significant problems for ESC and resulted in them having to end one of their key projects in Oxfordshire:

“British Gas gave us an offer of £7000 a home which gave us enough confidence that we could fully fund it. Then when the ECO changed in March they brought it down to £5400 which wasn’t really enough. And the question from the council was: is it fully funded or not? And we couldn’t give them that, so over the course of a month, we had to pull out and we lost the ECO offer and the opportunity to use the money.” ESC CEO

Co-operatives UK and the wider co-operative movement

The ESC’s relationship with the wider co-operative movement provided force and motivation behind this fundamental aspect of ESC’s branding and identity, which was designed with the goal of appealing to consumers who appreciated the values embodied in

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the co-operative organisational form. Internally, building connections with other co-

operatives such as gaining funding from a U.S. based co-op, having ESC partners nominated for awards at the UK co-operatives awards, and having the global president of the

International Co-operative Alliance give a speech at the ESC’s own AGM were all part of both building a visible reputation and providing motivation to the staff and the members that they were ‘part of a good thing’. These relationships were also useful in terms of funding, advice and organisational and administrative resources such as templates for co- operative rules, defining roles and responsibilities of board members and structuring the ESC’s share offer and reward structure.

However, this reliance on co-operatives as the primary source of support exposed the ESC to issues in the wider co-operative group: at the same time as the ESC began to lose the faith of its board, the co-operative group ran into a number of public scandals and funding for struggling startups such as the ESC became much harder to justify. With poor sales, no other source of financial support or funding in place and withdrawal of the Midland co- operatives funding, the ESC was no longer able to continue as a business.

7.5.2 Meso-level actors and relationships – Birmingham’s organisations