Rural Community Carbon Network

I applied to Artist’s Project Earth (APE) last month for funding towards the training element to the network; to run a series of workshop sessions on Web 2.0 and how community groups can learn from each other using this technology and by maintaining their own web space (like Tracey Todhunter and Transition Town Stafford).

This is disappointing news as I believe that the online aspect of networking is under-valued - it would add huge value to the enormous amount of activity that is going on within so many community groups.

We will continue to apply to other organisations - thank you to the CarnegieUK Trust and Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for their continued support.

We also heard the other week that our second round application to NESTA’s Big Green Challenge did not make it through. We had the following feedback:

“Our Reviewers believe that your approach could support the adoption of wider behavioural/lifestyle change through sharing practice and building networks. Reviewers commended your strong links with individual communities, and the role these communities will have in taking a lead and having ownership of the approach. Our Reviewers feel that the strength in your approach is currently in the detailed promotion of existing carbon saving projects, rather than directly facilitating new action.  Our Reviewers advise that your growth plan could be clearer in terms of your steps and targets towards building the network developing and the numbers of organisations you will support.”

The Network is about community empowerment and knowledge transfer.  As such we could not easily demonstrate carbon savings as part of the project either - this was a priority for the BGC team.

Good luck to Ross Weddle from CoRE and Adam Kennerley from Light Foot - who were both selected to present their projects to a judging panel.

The O2 Energy Saver Fund is a joint initiative between O2 and the Energy Saving Trust. It has been designed to help local communities of between 10-25 households to install energy saving measures in their home that will help in the fight against climate change.
If an application is successful a “hit squad” will be sent into individual’s homes to install priority insulation measures.

For more information on the initiative please see the CAfE website:

The Energy Saving Trust also runs the CAfE (Community action for Energy) programme. CAfE is a network of people who share a common interest in community energy projects and ideas. Membership of the network is free and by joining you can keep up to date with news on community-based energy initiatives, as well as hearing about funding opportunities, training sessions and other news from the network.

Finally public sector and not for profit organisations can apply for funding through the Low Carbon Building Programme Phase 2 (managed by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) which offers funding for micro generation technology.

Before Christmas I entered the Rural Community Carbon Network in to NESTA’s Big Green Challenge.

From over 350 initial applicant, I am really pleased to tell you that we have been selected to go forward as one of 100 projects that have made it to Stage 2 of the competition

This means that we are a little bit closer to winning - but we can also benefit from accessing NESTA’s team of advisers and attending some workshops.

We will know if we have made it to Stage 3 in October 2008.

Take a look at the other projects and groups who have made it to Stage 2 here.

 I have just come across funding pot:

Bio-Energy Capital Grants Scheme - Round 4 Open to Applications with a total fund for 2008/09 of £4 million.

The scheme aims to support projects that will:

•     deliver capacity on the ground to create an initial market for biomass fuel, installation equipment and services, to stimulate the UK renewables industry;

•     provide learning benefits that will help accelerate the industry and achieve more efficient and cost-effective use of biomass for heat and electricity;

•     contribute to the UK’s targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing renewable energy.

Community sectors in England are invited to apply, including schools and charities BUT householders and individuals are not eligible.  Capital grants of up to £100,000 per installation are available at a variable rate of up to 40% of the difference in cost of installing a biomass boiler or combined heat and power (CHP) plant compared to installing the fossil fuel alternative.

The community sector may apply for single or multiple installations of:

• heat boilers with a rated output of less than 45kW thermal, fuelled by biomass other than wood;
• heat boilers with a rated output of 45kW thermal or more, fuelled by any eligible biomass;
• combined heat and power plants of any size fuelled by any eligible biomass;
• anaerobic digestion plants of any size fuelled by any eligible biomass where the primary purpose is the generation of heat or CHP.

The deadline for applications is 20 May 2008.

Subject to funds being available, there will be a further application round in autumn 2008 and several rounds in 2009 and 2010.

The Big Lottery has just (today) announced a multi-million pound scheme to help enable communities across England to reduce their carbon footprint.

BRE (Building Research Establishment) will manage the £10.1 million Community Sustainable Energy grant scheme. The award comes from BIG’s Changing Spaces programme, which aims to improve rural and urban environments and enable communities across England to lead healthier and more environmentally sustainable lifestyles.

Q. Is this good news?

(more…)

I am really happy :-)) We have heard from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and they have agreed to fund part of the pilot stage of the RCCN. This is fantastic news and reflects 7 months of dedicated fundraising efforts. The grant will allow us to form the RCCN ‘Consortium’, which will consist of community advocates, experts and academics who will help to drive forward the initiative. The grant will also support the establishment of a multi-user blog-based forum which will form the foundation of the RCCN. We would like to thank the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for this grant and the support that they are giving to this initiative.

More on this development soon!

I read a very interesting article last night in the Society supplement to The Guardian. Titled ‘Donors fight shy of green campaigns’, it provides some remarkable statistics on the amount of funding environmental causes receive as a percentage of total donations. According the the article, Green Philanthropy estimates that less than 2% of charitable
grants in the UK go to environmental charities. It also found that funding directly tackling climate change is just
8% of the environmental grants made by the larger trust funders, with projects most likely to receive funding being “practical conservation work” and educational projects.

The coordinator of the
Environmental Funders Network, Jon Cracknell, says that sums up the problems facing the
environment sector. “Trust funders remain daunted by the scale of the
issues these groups are tackling. And they’re unsure about how to
measure their impact.”

The words of Jesse Roberts, senior development manager at Global Witness, are particularly noteworthy:

“Climate change is such a huge issue that it’s only through taking it
down to the micro level of recycling and reducing how many long-haul
flights we take that we’re able to understand how to handle it.”

* * * * *
Another source of interesting information on this issue is the recent report ‘Funding for Community Energy Projects’ (March 2007). Presented to the Education and Community Group of the Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes, the report examined the current trends and opportunities within the funding sector for supporting community energy projects. It found that a fraction of the large charitable trusts supported projects under the headings of climate change, energy efficiency and renewable energy. The report speculates it could be due to:

• a belief that this sort of work is the responsibility of government;

• a lack of knowledge about these issues;

• a view that energy projects are too technically complicated;

• a belief that they can already support this worth of work under their current guidelines;

• a lack of evidence that there is a demand or need for this sort of support from the voluntary and community sector.

To view the full report click HERE.

I received a letter this morning from the Community Energy Efficiency Fund department within Defra stating that we have not been successful in our application to the fund. We applied to them for funding to support activities within the the RCCN which would provide the resources to help tackle rural fuel poverty.

This is disappointing of course, but it has not put us off and we will continue with our applications to funders and speaking to corporates…

I have requested feedback from them - more on this when we hear!

Esmée Fairbairn Foundation is one of the largest independent grantmaking foundations in the UK. The Foundation make grants to organisations which aim to improve the quality of life
for people and communities in the UK, both now and in the future. They
like to consider work which others may find hard to fund, perhaps
because it breaks new ground, appears too risky, requires core funding,
or needs a more unusual form of financial help such as a loan.

One of the current funding priorities of the Esmée Fairbairn Environmental programme, is ‘Low Carbon Economy”. We believe that the innovative RCCN meets the aims of the ‘Low Carbon Economy’ funding priority particularly well, by addressing an idenified need - and gap - which will support
existing grass-roots community action to take the lead in reducing
carbon emissions through a collective and sustainable approach. The RCCN initiative has been in development for over nine months and as such, it has gained significant support; from communities, agencies and other climate change programmes.

We will hear from Esmée Fairbairn in September 2007.

Our application went into Defra Community Energy and Efficiency Fund last Friday (the 13th July …unlucky, for some - not us though, hopefully!).

We have applied for funding to deliver the aspect of the RCCN which will address fuel poverty in rural areas. National Energy Action research [Rural Fuel Poverty, March 2005] reported that less than 10% of Warm Front grants are claimed by people living in rural areas, even though 27.5% of all fuel poor households are located there. According to the interim report ‘Quantifying Rural Fuel Poverty’ [William Baker & Ian Preston, Centre for Sustainable Energy, interim report for Eaga Partnership Charitable Trust] the take-up rate of Warm Front grants in urban areas is over twice the rate in rural areas across 5 regions (4.4% and 2.0%, respectively). Funding from Defra CEEF will enable activity to start taking place which will highlight fuel poverty within rural communities and provide resources that will help to eliminate it, through the grass-roots RCCN approach.

We will hear if we have been successful late August.