I struggle to understand why environmental politics are traditionally regarded as left-wing.  They are not.  The environment is the only place that we have.  The place where we live matters to us; in our local communities and in the wider world.  It is all about respect and stewardship.

Disputes about the science of manmade climate change may be rife, but they are entirely irrelevant.  It might be suggested that only a brave or very foolish person (or a publicity-seeker) would take issue with the consensual opinion of the world’s leading scientists – but in the end this too is irrelevant.

The point is this:  waste of any kind is a bad thing, so we must stop wasting energy, food and material resources.  Fossil fuels are finite, so we must find ways of being less dependent upon them, and sooner rather than later.  Natural resources are limited, not limitless as we in the West have implicitly regarded them for two-hundred years, so we must start trying to obey the laws of Nature.  If Nature goes bust, there will be no bail out.

Conservative-minded people can embrace our current environmental challenges wholeheartedly, passionately and with every confidence in a right of centre political inheritance and vision.

We believe in the merits of order and security: two benefits of civilisation, which are threatened by environmental disruption and the pressure of global population growth.

We recognise the responsibility of stewardship.  We respect the past, and hold the present in trust for future generations.  As Margaret Thatcher said: “Mankind has no freehold on the Earth, only a full repairing lease.”  We need to look after the place where we, and all other creatures, live; not just for ourselves but for those who will come after us.

We understand the need for global action and diplomacy in order to ensure advantages at home and around the world.  In world affairs the conservative approach is pragmatic rather than ideological.

We believe that local actions, in our own communities, rather than Big Government initiatives, can help make changes for the better. The environment is both local and global, and a passion for local solutions can help build and strengthen our communities.

Finally, the conservative understands that whilst politicians have a vitally important role in shaping the framework for action on green issues, only the market can deliver the results.   The paradox is inescapable; it was the power of the market which, through driving unsustainable growth, created the problems mankind now faces. But it now offers the only sure way out of them.

Meeting the various challenges presented by environmental pressures is already creating huge market opportunities for those with the vision, technology and access to capital to seize them. According to HSBC, global turnover in low carbon goods and services last year overtook the value of the defence and aerospace industries. This is no cottage industry.

An unhelpful tendency exists to lecture people on the need for “behavioural change”. Of course those who have made changes in the way that they live in order to reduce their impact on natural resources should be applauded; people who, for example, have determined to drive less, recycle more, buy ethically sourced products, install micro-renewable energy systems, or switch off the lights when leaving a room. I have tried most of these things myself; but we are part of a small minority which has, by and large, made a deliberate political or social choice.

Human behaviour will only naturally change on the massive scale required when change is cheaper or more convenient than sticking with the status quo. Most people don’t want to make deliberate political or social choices; and why should they? It’s what they elect politicians to do. If heroes are to emerge from the battle to manage and defeat environmental damage they will not be eco-warriors, but engineers, physicists, designers, inventors and entrepreneurs. The true friends of the Earth are gradually emerging, and they are not those who spend their time screaming at the capitalist system. They are those who respect our duty of stewardship over the natural environment we have inherited, and embrace capitalism as the most powerful tool for change on the planet.

You can visit the CEN’s website or join their Facebook group

I do find it depressing to continually read headlines basically hinting that Tories don’t care about the environment. It’s simply not true. It is getting boring to regularly write on here why, even if you don’t believe climate change scientists (and – let’s be fair – many of their recent antics have undermined their authority), many of the ways in which we can act against climate change are also beneficial in financial terms.

Given our current economic malaise, though, we do have an amazing opportunity at the moment. It’s not the answer to all our problems, and it won’t cut our emissions by anything like enough, but as they say in the ads, every little helps.

There are two key points here – firstly that the Tories are thinking in very serious terms about how to encourage green growth.  And secondly, that being energy efficient and thereby reducing your carbon footprint has the fantastic side-effect of reducing your bills.

None of this is rocket science. Being a bit greener does not mean living in a cave. New technologies are only expensive to install at the moment because they are not used widely enough to make them more efficient both in operational and in installation terms (ie the more people use them, the better they are and the easier it is to use them – a classic virtuous circle). Reducing your energy consumption will (generally) reduce your energy bills.

So I do wish people would return to the previously much-vaunted “Politics of And“. In this area in particular, it’s there, it’s sensible, and it works.

Look at this initiative from former Governor Jon Hunstman (R-OH – yes, a Republican governor of Ohio). It’s a fantastic, multi-stranded initiative: by encouraging state employees to compress their work into a four day week (so instead of working 9 til 5, they work 8 til 6 and have Fridays off), by carpooling, and by tripchaining (ie making one trip with several stops, rather than going backwards and forwards from home several times a day), the programme has cut a million miles of travel and saved over 50, 000 US gallons of petrol. 

But another key benefit is that state workers are reporting higher levels of job satisfaction, better family relationships, fewer sick days and greater availibility of state services (partly because the state offices are open at times when people can actually get to them).

This dual purpose is what the “Politics of And” is all about. Quality of life, environmentalism, reducings costs… It’s what we can and should do here.

On a slightly different note to what I  normally write about…

I had heard about this but yesterday went to see it. The Living Wall in the new Anthropolgie store on Regent Street is amazing. The shop itself is full of slightly odd things, but they have an amazing three-storey high wall of plants growing inside.

These photos don’t really do it justice – it is enormous! Apparently there are fourteen different types of plant in it.

I suppose it’s really not that different to having a load of pot plants, but it’s a great way to decorate and be green. It’s fed with rainwater from the roof, so is completely self-sustaining.

I’m thinking of trying the same thing one day at home. I suspect it’s more complicated than just attaching some pots to a wall. But a study from NASA has found that indoor plants can improve your air quality significantly. So what isn’t to like about a decorative feature that also improves your environment?

In 2006, an email with a very limited distribution list was leaked from inside CCHQ. It wasn’t a very important email and didn’t let out any big secrets so it wasn’t really the end of the world. But quite interesting nonetheless…

At the time, the BBC was showing  ’The Amazing Mrs Pritchard‘ which was about a complete political novice who had somehow ended up as Prime Minister (I seem to remember there was a great degree of disgust at the political classes… sound familiar?!), and she was a sort of common sense, get on with it, localist Prime Minister, who was worn down in office by great disillusionment and despair.

The email which was leaked went something like: ‘We’re looking for ideas to show how individuals, communities, and international actors can take different types of similar actions to make a contribution to the fight against climate change. For example, on Mrs Pritchard last night, she banned all cars for a day.’

I can’t quite remember what we ended up doing for this particular idea – I think it developed into the Climate Change Bill Now campaign (for which I still have a campaign tshirt).  But the important thing was this: there are actions which can be taken in varying degrees of commitment by anyone, no matter how small they are.

I was reminded of this by the huffing and puffing over the prospect of no cars being allowed into London in order to meet emissions regulations – reading about it, there wouldn’t be many days, and actually when I lived in Paris it was really nice not having cars everywhere on Sundays (lots of streets are closed to traffic).  Obviously there would need to be exemptions for some, and clearly it would mean that people would need to plan their time carefully to minimise their need to take the car. But I like the fact that Boris seems keen to investigate the idea.

I know that the person whose email was leaked was absolutely incensed by it (lack of trust, zero public interest, someone trying to make a name for themselves by having ‘insider’ information). But maybe it was a good thing after all – the very fact that people are now talking about the idea as a possibility shows that it wasn’t so crazy after all.

This year’s British American Project (BAP) conference in Edinburgh focused on Sustainability and Development. At a time when the world is facing a crisis in terms of global warming and depleting natural resources, this conference could not have come at a better time. As some of the leaders of tomorrow it is imperative that we instigate debate and pool ideas as to what we as individuals and collectively should and could be doing.

I organised a panel debate for this year’s conference, simply because I didn’t want the conference theme to be solely about the planet (climate change and the green agenda). In my world of Social Firms it is also about people. I’m forever talking about the need to create sustainable, paid jobs for people who are too far removed from the open labour market to compete in the mainstream. These are mainly people with mental health problems, learning disabilities, other disabilities, ex-offenders (90% of whom have one mental health problem and 70% apparently have two), homeless people and ex-drug and substance abusers.

Alan Baker & Paul Miller, Brighter Future Workshop

Mental illness is the common denominator within the latter groups. Add this to their situation and they don’t stand a hope in hell of getting a job with the average employer (according to a recent survey, 60% of employers admitted they wouldn’t consider employing someone who’d had a mental health problem²). The jobs aren’t there for individuals facing such significant barriers to employment – especially now other job seekers have risen in numbers and ability. It is surely wrong to consign more than a million people who grapple with these disadvantages on a daily basis – yet who want to work – to the scrapheap of unemployment for the rest of their lives. It is simply not a sustainable route forward.

This is where the ‘development’ bit comes in – Social Firms are market-led businesses that compete in the open market but which are set up specifically to create paid, sustainable employment for people with severe disadvantages. These are businesses which re-invest their profits back into achieving their social mission of creating jobs for people who would otherwise struggle to get work. A quarter of the workforce needs to be employed from this group if they are going to be regarded as a Social Firm. We have printers, website design companies, guest houses, travel agencies, recycling companies, contract gardeners and caterers….market opportunities are seized for social good.

It works too! We’ve grown the number of Social Firms from 5 in 1996 to more than 170 today and all without any central Government intervention. My message is: imagine what more we could do to help our economy save money and sustain our communities if we managed to co-ordinate some support from Government in order to grow the number of Social Firm businesses.

For someone to be really empowered economically and socially they need to have a paid job. There’s no point creating short term, unsustainable jobs to help people with multiple disadvantages move into employment; the groups we’re talking about need ongoing support to enable them to maximise their own potential within the workplace. But one thing’s clear – this support is still cheaper than that person being unemployed for the rest of their lives. The tangible benefits that this has for both the individual and society far outweigh the investment in this model as a sustainable option.

The guesthouse in Edinburgh, for example, alone saves the NHS approximately £21k per year for every person with a mental health problem that they employ within the business. Collectively, all the Social Firms and emerging Social Firms in the UK save the Government approximately £30m in benefits alone because of who they create employment for. Let’s remember that otherwise, these individuals are more likely to be unemployed than in an open labour market job because of the complexity of their support needs.

Nathan Dobie & Mick Parker, CREATE Liverpool

Social Firms are one type of social enterprise and the simplest definition for social enterprise is ‘any business that trades for a social and/or environmental purpose’. They reinvest their profits back into meeting this purpose and whilst the specific purpose of Social Firms is to create paid jobs for severely disadvantaged people, other types of social enterprises have a very broad variety of missions. So the Eden Project is a social enterprise, for example, as is Café Direct and Coin Street Community Builders on London’s South Bank…all with their own particular mission. What links them, however, is a drive to tackle social or environmental issues through enterprise and beyond a doubt this has got to be the most sustainable route to improving the world in which we all live.

I am passionate about the value of social enterprise (and of course Social Firms in particular) to this country and indeed the world. It was a privilege to be able to bring this passion to the BAP conference in Edinburgh via my panellists talking about the question of sustainability and development – it certainly sparked debate throughout the few days that we were all together.

So find out more about social enterprise – you can’t help but be inspired. Here are just some websites to whet your appetite and help your learning – or you could just pick up the phone and talk to me!

Social Enterprise Coalition: www.socialenterprise.org.uk

Social Firms UK: www.socialfirmsuk.co.uk

National Visit Programme: www.visitsocialenterprise.co.uk

Posted by Administrator on behalf of Sally Reynolds, CEO, Social Firms UK. If you would like to talk to Sally, she is happy for us to share her phone number so please email us at info @ platform10.org