Mapping the Big Green Challenge - The Skills & Learning ...

Mapping the Big Green Challenge 1137.6.3.3 Sustaining and TransferringThe majority of these proposals are discrete projects to refurbish or build one or more specificbuildings, with the additional features of providing a community resource or providing an exemplar forothers to follow. There is, consequently, little attention given to how the central idea can be taken upby others. In the externally driven proposals, such as that of a Rural Community Council to work withvillage activists in a number of locations (Community Catalysts, 183), the approach is to develop atoolkit and methodology that can be used by other villages, and the intention is to continue to promotethe conversion of community buildings in other rural settlements after the initial pilot. In most othercases, and in all Special Building cases, the development of the identified building is the end point of theproposal. Where an advice centre or other community resource has been created, it is most often theimplied intention of the Challenger group to continue tomanage the resource, or to develop it as a self-sustaining socialenterprise, but often this is not discussed in the application. Inthe majority of cases it seems that the Challengers areexpecting the existence of the building to be sufficient tocontinue to have an impact after the project is ended. Thereare very few suggestions for a directed diffusion of theinnovation, in common with other geographical communityprojects – the profile is very similar to Carbon Reduced Zonesand Projects.Chart 80 – Low Carbon PublicBuildings, mode oftransferability, 34 proposalsDirected18%Growth3%These are six examples of Challengers proposing a form ofdirected diffusion. All six are part of strong national or regionalnetworks: two Community Associations, a Rural CommunityCouncil, a Transition Town, a church and a CommunityDevelopment Trust. For example:Undirected79% Puff (128): A Community Association, with a proposal to install renewable energy equipment intheir village hall, then extending this to provide power for the school and whole village.Included in the project is provision of information to managers of other similar stone buildings,with advice on retrofitting them with renewable energy systems (both web based and at theresource centre) based on actual energy readings from the project. They make provision fordiffusion of their project to other communities through a development trust.7.6.4 Examples to Illustrate Different ApproachesIn looking at the range of behavioural change mechanisms, we have excluded the proposals labelled asProduct only, leaving 22 with an intended aim of behavioural change. Even with the product onlycategory removed, this Proposal type does not come out overall as well as some other types in terms ofbehaviour change. In particular, the Values element is not engaged by many despite the opportunitiesto use the iconic value of the building, which some of the Ideas do very well. Similarly some proposalsembraced the need for community engagement much more effectively and imaginatively than others. Llanidloes Energy Solutions (728) have a proposal to renovate a number of communitybuildings which is centrally linked both to wider regeneration via appeals to the town’s historicstatus and to widening the climate change mitigation impact by making links to emissions fromthe wider community.Appleby Ltd July 2009