Prof Richard Blundel

tbc This proposal specifically builds on the work funded by an ESRC Kick-starting impact grant: ‘Achieving growth in a low carbon economy’ (1609-KICK-231, Jan-Nov 2017) . That project demonstrated the value of Climate Outreach’s ‘narrative workshop’ method to individual SMEs in reflecting on their own business practice and values, and learning how to communicate pro-environmental values to customers. It also confirmed the difficulty of working directly with SMEs, the low priority attached to environmental impacts by many businesses, and the key role of low carbon advisors in mediating the engagement process. This project therefore aims to have greater impact by influencing low carbon advisors. In addition, doctoral research by Sam Hampton (Oxford) during this period has shown that while low carbon advisors often have strong pro-environmental values, they suppress them when talking to their SME clients, and would welcome ideas on how to engage in more productive, values-based interactions. By delivering this innovative environmental engagement toolkit, we will enable these intermediaries to engage with SMEs beyond a narrow, cost-benefit framework, and help SME owners and managers to connect low carbon choices with the personal and business values that are important to them as individuals . Improving the intermediaries’ effectiveness will have direct environmental benefits by encouraging more rapid adoption of pro-environmental technologies and practices amongst their SME client base. Developing new ways of engaging SMEs with low carbon policy is particularly timely given the government’s new Clean Growth Strategy, which sets as a priority engaging with stakeholders on how to improve the provision of information and advice to SMEs so that they take up energy efficiency measures.

This collaboration will co-create new knowledge on environmentally sustainable growth in SMEs. The team will design and trial an innovative approach to engaging SME owners, managers and intermediaries in facilitated discussions with academic experts. It will generate an initial evidence base, coupled with a set of practical recommendations. In order to probe these complex issues in sufficient depth, the pilot project will target businesses with some pre-existing awareness of, and interest in, environmental sustainability. However, the partners envisage that the outcomes will provide a suitable foundation for a larger follow-on project, capable of addressing a much broader range of SMEs.

The purpose of this seminar series is to provide a nexus for bringing together academics and practitioners with an interest in environmental innovation in the broadest sense. Termed green innovation, the nexus will provide a forum for the interchange of ideas and research findings between academics from different academic disciplines and institutions, and practitioners working in different fields like energy and transport which have significant environmental impact, in order achieve a dialogue between them. The aim of the series is to bring about a shared vision and understanding of the nature of green innovation. At the same time it will provide a means to propagate knowledge about the institutional changes and infrastructures required for the effective dissemination and diffusion of green innovations.

Dr Richard Blundel's role is to lead the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team on this two year, DEFRA-funded action research project. The purpose of the Greener Living Fund is to support projects or programmes that have the capacity to influence pro-environmental behaviours in the wider population. The accountable body for the project is COIN (www.coinet.org.uk), an Oxford-based environmental NGO with several years' experience in running community-based projects, and the main delivery partners are UK trades unions, including CWU, PCS, NUT and UCU. The M&E team comprises Dr Richard Blundel (OUBS), Dr Tina Fawcett (ECI, University of Oxford) and Dr Matias Ramirez (SPRU, University of Sussex). Our tasks include: designing the M&E plan, data collection and analysis methods, refining the plan in conjunction with DEFRA's support team, liaising with the COIN project team to organise data collection by third parties (including on-line data capture via a COIN-funded website, analysing data, and drafting interim and final M&E reports. We will also be liaising with the GLF Programme-level evaluators, Brook Lyndhuyrst and attending peer-to-peer evaluation workshops organised during the course of the GLF programme. Because most of the M&E data collection will be undertaken by third parties, and via the COIN-funded website, the costing comprises the number of days allocated to the project, plus associated travel and subsistence costs (e.g. to attend team meetings and to conduct a small number of face-to-face interviews). Dr Blundel will not require access to any specialised software or equipment, beyond that available in the normal course of his duties. Dr Blundel and the other M&E team members do not anticipate that they will incur any additional costs as a consequence of participating in the project.