About fifty people enjoyed FEB at the gorgeous fabulous Seckford Hall yesterday a
s part of the SABRE close-out event. You can read the conclusions yourself (SABRE Evaluation Report) and it’s interesting to compare and contrast this with the Alternative Report on the earlier Low Carbon Champions (LCC) programme. This hypothesised a few improvements (LCC Evaluation – An Alternative Review) which SABRE usefully tested out including…
Holistic approach works (1). LCC and earlier research (e.g. Parker, Redmond & Simpson, 2009) which suggests that individual drivers (e.g. grant funding) are necessary but insufficient to ensure successful outcomes in low carbon projects. A holistic approach where audit, action plan and support combine to achieve success is needed. SABRE was a lot less holistic than LCC which had training, grants and charter in its toolbox but this was partly due to the (correct) decision to pre-select candidates.
Long hanging fruit selected (3). SABRE was more effective as only organisations which had been involved in earlier schemes were invited. It helped fulfil the project targets but does leave about 28,505 SMEs in Suffolk untouched (Suffolk Observatory, 2013)!
SME diversity needs programme diversity (4). This was recognised and more succinctly summarised as ‘Horses for Courses’ by Ben Coulter who acknowledged that different companies needed different assistance.
So how could such schemes be improved further? Three further ideas are put forward
Target support on company type. Environmental / commercial attitude matters and our Wizard of Oz metaphor helps here e.g. Lions, Scarecrows and Tin Men (see Alternative Report). Profiling these companies early will allow better combinations of packages to be devised.
Consistency in support. Lack of continuity is blamed on the vagaries of staccato EU funding streams but at least the Low Carbon Champions CIC aims to overcome this (see CIC Briefing Paper). LCC is a community interest company that aims to provide a first stop shop for Suffolk SMEs seeking sustainable business advice. We can but try.
Overcome funding term gaps. A big problem in renewables is the length of the investment (up to 15 years) compared to the length of income streams (6 months). Such schemes need to target landlords or businesses that own their property or find ways to bridge the funding term gap. We’re working on the latter at Neutral Territory and launching on October 17.
All these ideas are being explored as part of the action research programme at Business Critical where we put critical management theory into practice. Please visit if you want more background information.