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The Camden Climate Change Alliance (CCCA) is used as a case study to explore the attitudes of the representatives of small organisations towards their uptake of micro- generation. It also provides a platform to comment on the significance of such environmental alliances for increasing the uptake of micro-generation in small organisations.

Camden is pioneering the way for local authorities as it is unique not only in London but in the UK for setting up an environmental alliance of small organisations sharing ideas for combating climate change through improving environmental performance. The CCCA is an alliance of small organisations from all sectors in the London Borough of Camden with the collective goal of reducing carbon emissions from the Borough‟s non-domestic sector by 10% by 2012 (CCCA website: www.betterclimateforcamden.org). Since the setting up of the CCCA in November 2008, its membership has grown to 130 organisations at the time of writing (CCCA website, 2010).

Camden Council manages the alliance, supporting its members through the provision of free environmental workshops (such as on energy management and green travelling) and awarding Marks of Achievement to those organisations that have empirically shown great commitment to reducing their carbon footprints. The alliance holds an annual event where EECO (Environmental Excellence in Camden Organisations) awards are given (determined by the strength of the applications). Such awards include:

Greatest improvement in environmental performance, Innovation in energy efficiency and carbon reduction and Exceptional contribution by an individual to their organisation‟s environmental performance.

The total carbon emissions equivalent (CO2e) of the Camden Borough is ~1.8

million tonnes per year (mtCO2e/yr) (CCCA website, 2010), with the non-domestic sector

making up the greatest proportion of this at 64% (~1.15 mtCO2e/yr – CCCA website,

2010). The significance of this value for setting up the CCCA was conveyed in the interview with one of the initial Managers of the alliance:

We recruited 35 organisations in our first year and we took the carbon footprint of as many of those as we could – it‟s hard information to get out of people – about 50% submitted

their carbon footprint to us and it came to about 91,000 tonnes, which is 7% of Camden‟s non-domestic emissions – Camden‟s total emissions is about 1.8 million tonnes as a whole Borough – 64% of that is about 1.2 million tonnes...they all committed to a 10% reduction target that we asked them to, so if we get there we‟ll save 91,000 tonnes per annum by 2012 and that‟s just with our initial 35 members – obviously we want to increase the number of members and the number of people submitting their baseline to us, because they have committed to doing it by signing our „Climate Commitment‟.

(Camden Council interview, February 2010)

He further states how the CCCA was originally formed:

We did this through the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) of key statutory bodies, which is made up of the council, the fire brigade, the police, the NHS, representatives from the voluntary sector, the business sector – it‟s supposed to be an overall picture of the local authority area...those organisations signed up to it to work together on this – they were the initial partners...then we started recruiting other organisations in Camden.

(Camden Council interview, February 2010)

The representatives of two of these initial CCCA partners from the Local Strategic Partnership, NHS Camden and the London Fire Brigade (there are four fire stations in Camden), were interviewed. Fifteen other representatives of CCCA small organisations took part in the research and all were responsible for the environmental management of their organisation. The small organisations that they represented tended to be environmentally proactive as they had to sign a „Climate Commitment‟ to reduce their carbon emissions when they joined the alliance (CCCA website, 2010). A central part of the commitment, conveyed in the quotes above, is that members must submit their carbon footprints to Camden Council annually in order for the alliance to accurately monitor its overall CO2e emissions. Despite this, the quotes show the difficulty in obtaining this

information from some members. A highlighted annotated copy of the CCCA Climate

Camden Climate Change Alliance

Climate Commitment

To do this, we will:

• Identify the sources and scope of our carbon dioxide emissions, understand the causes of these emissions, and quantify our carbon footprint

• Set an appropriate and challenging target for the reduction of emissions and adopt an action plan for its achievement

• Embed best practice environmental and carbon management into our daily activities, supported at a senior level

• Communicate and interact with the Camden Climate Change Alliance and our own stakeholders, reporting performance annually and sharing knowledge and expertise for the mutual benefit of all

In return, the Camden Climate Change Alliance will:

• Support the process of quantifying organisations’ carbon footprints

• Help organisations to identify practical emissions reduction measures and set a realistic target • Organise events to share best practice and to introduce new carbon reduction solutions • Hold workshops to build the capacity of organisations to manage and reduce their emissions • Manage an information resource to share case studies, register emissions reductions, and keep

members informed of new developments

Organisation...

Signatory Position...

Date...

As members of the Camden Climate Change Alliance, we are confident

that we can make a positive contribution towards achieving a joint

carbon emissions reduction target for the London Borough of Camden.

www.betterclimateforcamden.org

Figure 16: the CCCA Climate Commitment, which all members sign when they join (please note that I have altered the design slightly in order to make it clearer, but the

text and general layout are the same)

The Climate Commitment makes three points of interest, which I have highlighted in different colours. It is surprising to see that the text in the blue box is not consistent with the 10% CO2e reduction target stated in the quotes previously. However, from working

seen first-hand how the council frequently recommends a 10% target to its members. The text in the green box portrays the importance of getting support from senior management when implementing environmental measures. In the smaller organisations (<10 employees) the Senior Manager tends to be the person responsible for environmental management, so this point is particularly crucial for larger organisations where the environmental responsibilities tend to fall within middle management. In an influential paper on implementing environmental management systems, Welford (1992) notably argued that:

“To be successful, systems truly need to be company-wide and therefore commitment is required from the Chief Executive as well as the whole workforce. Middle management has an important role to play in not only grasping the concepts themselves but also explaining them to the people for whom they are responsible.”

The text in the red box ties closely with that in the blue box. In the quotes cited previously, the Camden Council representative admits that only around 50% of the members submitted their carbon footprints in the first year. Performance reporting is a key part of determining what the CO2e emissions from Camden‟s non-domestic sector are. This

highlights one of the current weaknesses of the alliance, which is clearly an area of priority that the CCCA management team wish to tackle.