GoodGeist
A podcast on sustainability, hosted by Damla Özlüer and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network. Looking at sustainability issues, communications, and featuring global guests from a wide variety of sectors such as business, NGOs and government.
GoodGeist
Margins to Mainstream, with Louise Marix Evans
The quest for net-zero emissions takes on a local flavour as we explore the essential role of community leadership and inclusive planning with our guest Louise Marix Evans, a sustainability consultant with a rich background in human rights and corporate responsibility, and sustainability.
She shares her transition from the corporate sector to freelancing, working closely with NGOs and local authorities to combat climate change at the grassroots level. Listen as she explains how local initiatives can influence national strategies, breathing life into the sustainability movement. Using Greater Manchester as a compelling case study, we highlight the intricate dance between partnerships and shared visions in driving sustainable change.
The conversation takes a serious turn as we discuss potential risks, such as community disengagement, if positive impacts aren't felt. We also celebrate the global spirit of sustainability through the Ashton Awards, spotlighting ingenious climate solutions from around the world, and stressing the urgency of embedding sustainability into everyday roles.
Don't miss out on this engaging episode that promises to leave you with fresh ideas and renewed hope for a sustainable tomorrow.
Follow GoodGeist for more episodes on sustainability, communications and how creativity can help make the world a better place.
Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello everyone, you are listening to Good Guys, the message on sustainability which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place. This is Damla from Mira Agency, istanbul, and.
Speaker 3:This is Steve from Creative Concern in Manchester. This podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicated and what creativity can do to make positive change happen.
Speaker 2:So in this episode we're going to talk to Louise Marie Evans, a director at Quantum, a sustainability consultancy founded in 2003 to help organizations tackle climate change and become part of the low-carbon economy. Louise is a climate change and sustainability consultant with over 20 years of experience of supporting local authorities, businesses, community and energy groups and universities. She likes to work out how strategy and policy actually make things happen and translates this into details about delivering net zero in local places with real people. She specializes in research, stakeholder engagement, training and facilitation. Oh my God, I did it again.
Speaker 3:Keep going, Danla, you're almost there.
Speaker 2:Project design and planning.
Speaker 3:This is too much. It's too. It again Keep going, Dan. You're almost there. Project design and planning. This is too much. It's too much in Louise's resume, frankly, and she also recently did some really interesting work with the Committee on Climate Change on the role of local authorities. So I'm going to stop the resume there, Louise, even though it could keep on trucking to your campaigning days. We could go on forever, but we won't. We'll start talking to you instead, Louise. Thank though it could keep on trucking to your campaigning days. We could go on forever, but we won't. We'll start talking to you instead, Louise. Thank you so much for talking to Danmar and myself.
Speaker 4:Thank you for asking me.
Speaker 2:It's great to have you here with us today, Louise. First of all, a set up question what's been your journey through the magical land of sustainability? How did you end up doing all the lovely things that you do today?
Speaker 4:Well, I started off doing an Arabic degree, so it seemed like a good idea when I got to Leeds University and then that launched me into working at Amnesty International on human rights in the Middle East. Then I worked on Mines Advisory Group, another NGO working on humanitarian landmine issues which has been in the news this week, actually, as Joe Biden's sending them to Ukraine. And then after that, a lot of travel to Iraq and Cambodia and places like that. I fell in love and had a baby and then I stopped doing that work. So I stayed in the UK more and did a little stint in the corporate world looking at corporate responsibility, as it was called back then in the 90s sort of late 90s which was really useful insight into what makes big companies tick. And then I went freelance into what makes big companies tick. And then I went freelance and that is when Steve came along. I think we met I don't know how we met somewhere in Manchester, anyway.
Speaker 4:So I started doing a load of work around ethics, supply chains, women's rights and stuff like that in the UK and abroad, stuff like that in the UK and abroad, and ended up sort of moving into the climate change piece working again.
Speaker 4:Steve, your fault was. There was a piece of work around talking about what climate change meant to local authorities in the northwest and I ended up working on that, delivering climate change briefings to these different 44 local authorities across the Northwest in the days of when Al Gore was doing An Inconvenient Truth, and I've never really stopped working with local authorities and at that local level ever since. So I moved on through doing that but also kept up sort of work in community energy and setting up local initiatives. So there's very much doing stuff in my community setting up allotments, setting up a repair cafe, doing things on the ground and then really understanding how that translates up through what local councils or municipalities can do and then how that fits into the bigger jigsaw of the national picture. So that's been my journey, with all its general highs and lows.
Speaker 3:Oh, louise, that's lovely. Well, yes, we did. I was going to do a disclaimer on the fact that you and I have been fellow travellers he says with a wink for quite some time, haven't we? And I think it was just after you'd finished being corporate and started doing the transition through business in the community, if you remember.
Speaker 4:That's right. I did a year with them on digital inclusion.
Speaker 3:That's it. That's the one, Anyway. So I wanted to ask you, with that sort of long trajectory of moving from human rights into sustainability, and a good 20 years on sustainability in the climate crisis, how do you think our narrative to give it a long view, how do you think our narrative on saving the world has changed over those years?
Speaker 4:Well, I was remembering back Steve to that slogan that used to be around when we were young Think global, act local. Do you remember that?
Speaker 3:I do A classic.
Speaker 4:I think that that actually still rings really true and I did wonder whether we've gone from that sort of activist work on environment and climate change being very much on the margins and in the role of activism. Has that been mainstreamed? And I think in many ways parts of it has been mainstreamed into what organisations and companies and charities all talk about. But I think there's still a really strong role for activists in this narrative and that sort of sways to and fro where we've got backlashes against it, so we get some advance and it becomes normalized that corporates or FTSE 100 or cities talk about climate change and embed it into everything they do and then it gets marginalized to the sides again and so the activist role has to come in and we have to push it back again and that seems to ebb and flow and I think that must be because of vested interests and the lobbying body who lobby politicians and rattle their cages and exploit things that don't go as well as planned and go oh, this is because of net zero, it's going to cost us a fortune, and you look at who's losing wise and who's who's kind of going. Ah, I'm reading the writing on the wall. Things are changing. I'll put money into this and make a new business out of it and innovate? Um, so I think, yeah, I was thinking about following the money and looking at who loses. So I think I think has it changed? Everyone knows what it is now, but it really comes and goes.
Speaker 4:And then, lastly I was just reflecting on this is the role of activist legal cases. I think are really important and they go back quite a long way. I think I haven't had time to research them, but I was thinking about the work that Client Earth has done in the UK. This is and Forums for the Future. They took the government to court a long time ago on air quality and got legislation and practice changed. And more recently they took the government to court again on their net zero plans.
Speaker 4:Around one of the six was it the six carbon budget? I can't remember which one, but there was a plan the government came up with and formed for the future. And client earth just said this is rubbish. It says what you did do. It doesn't give enough detail. Therefore, it doesn't meet the UK Climate Change Act law. So we'll take you to court. And sure enough, the judge threw it out and said go away and do better. I think they took the next one to court as well. I might be wrong on that, but yeah, I think that mainstreaming, that activism, I'd be really interested in what you think's changed actually, but I feel like we do go in circles with it yeah, I mean, before Damla comes in.
Speaker 3:I, yeah, I agree, in fact, would you believe? Um, when we met and I was at a think tank for our listeners called Sustainability Northwest, I wrote a report called from the margins to the mainstream, which is all about how we should stop having sustainability departments, teams, offices, directors, and true success will be when everybody has it in their job description and as part of their daily role. So, but the ebb and flow is absolutely spot on, louise.
Speaker 2:Damla. Well, I just want to say that I have a bit of a pendulum here going right and left and right and left, and sometimes I feel like you, like we're all going in circles and nothing is happening and we're tired. But on the other hand, sometimes, when I can just get up and see things a little bit far away, I just feel that there is change. The only thing is, our lives are so short and the climate crisis is so, so close. That pace may not be enough, but still, this is a pendulum going there and there. But this is a totally different discussion. So I'm going to ask you another question. In recent years, and with the UK Climate Change Committee, you've been focused on local leadership, on net zero. So I know it's an impossible question and you can thank Steve for this, but what for you, should the local playbook look like on climate action?
Speaker 4:yes. In a nutshell, um, yeah, I think my report I wrote about this was quite long. Um, yeah, I had a little think about this question. So, working backwards, I think those local areas and I mean we see this across Europe too and across the C40 cities, you know, the global cities tackling climate change there's very much something about very strong leadership and a strong positive vision being put in place, something to aim for, but then, critically, having a really joined up, well-sequenced plan to deliver so that things are planned across that whole place and sequenced in the right order. And I think that that's one of the challenges we face in the UK, where we're very centralised as a nation, much more centralised than other places, other places, so our cities and local councils don't have as much ability to say over the long term, we will spend this, we will do things in a certain way, because they have to chase little pots of funding and we have a disjointed policy environment. But if you could join it up and get the sequencing right so you can plan that change in a coherent way, so people can see how it makes sense, and then there's less room for people to kind of be against it and say it's damaging the economy.
Speaker 4:I think very much focusing on the extra benefits or co-benefits that climate action brings, so how it improves our entire quality of life, whether that's from jobs and skills through to cleaner air, through to beautiful. Whether that's from jobs and skills through to cleaner air, through to beautiful, greener, flowery places, lovely parks, all that kind of stuff. No-transcript ride without being squashed. Is there somewhere to park? When you get there, can you drop the kids on the way and then really listening to people without being defensive? So it's a whole place kind of set up for that playbook.
Speaker 4:And, critically, it involves working across partnerships. So we see this in Greater Manchester, don't we? Steve? You've got to bring a lot of different people together to make the whole thing happen and again, they've got to have this sort of shared vision and mission and if it's not sort of delivering the co-benefits for some people, then they'll pull away from that and do something that undermines it and that takes a lot of backbone and a lot of staying power and a bit like relationships. It's going to go through rocky times and then better times and change is hard and I think the roles that you do in your network, that how it's communicated honestly and genuinely um, but also inspiringly and unapologetically. I think it's really important that's.
Speaker 3:That's what we do, louise, every day. That's dana and I get out of bed uttering those same words as a morning mantra to get our juices flowing. The? Um. Do you know? I was thinking while you're. While you're talking there, louise, you're so right. The?
Speaker 3:I think, more than ever, that local dimension of seeing change and seeing what all of that sort of sustainability hyperbole looks like when it makes your life better. It's so critical right now. We're at that point where people need to feel it, don't they? It cannot be theoretical anymore. They have to feel positive change happening. Otherwise, I think we do see ourselves at a critical juncture where disengagement could be widespread if we don't start to see things making a big difference. But that wasn't where I was going. Actually, I was going to swing the pendulum once again louise, from the local back up to the global accent. The lovely ashton awards, um, because they're great examples of tangible sustainability in action. You're a trustee of it? Um, tell us what they are, give them a shameless plug and tell us about any particular award winners or examples yes, please.
Speaker 4:So ashton yeah, ashton is a climate solutions charity, so it's, it's based in the uk but works um, internationally, um and oh it's, and it's. What's lovely about it is it looks for solutions. So so traditionally it was set up. I mean, the awards are sort of the pearl in the crown. Is that what you say? Jewel in the crown?
Speaker 3:No, jewel in the crown is the pearl in the shell. Oh yeah, it's one of them. Anyway, it's a really nice thing.
Speaker 4:The Ashton Awards are the pearl of the climate awards. So they highlight and explore people who are coming up with actual, real solutions and doing real stuff and through demonstrating that, showing by doing that it's possible to tackle climate change and make the world a better place at the same time. So there's a set of international awards and a set of UK-based awards every year. So these incredible organisations apply and then Ashton puts them through a fairly rigorous judging process, makes some lovely films about them too. So go on the Ashton website, have a look, and they range from all sorts of things. So they've been going.
Speaker 4:I think we're coming up for our 25th anniversary of the Ashton Awards this year I mean in 2025, which is really exciting. So some of the ones I wanted to tell you about so sort of looking across to Africa, we've got the Kakuma Ventures. So that's a solar powered setup working across refugee camps so that if you are a refugee stuck in a refugee camp somewhere, you can get power and set up a business and crack on with your livelihood. So you're not sort of stuck there taking a handout. You're there being an entrepreneur, making stuff happen and making things a better place in your refugee camp. Similarly, we've got Solar Sister 10,000 female entrepreneurs trained up, selling solar products across Tanzania, kenya and Nigeria.
Speaker 4:And then an award winner from our last set of awards was Go Go Electric. So in Uganda, instead of hopping in a car type taxi, you hop on the back of someone on a motorbike and they whisk you to where you want to go, and all very well, and all very diesel-y and smelly and hideous. So go go electric. Change those motorbikes to electric. And then you don't want to waste time charging because you're self-employed, basically taxi driver. So you go to a go go electric swap station and they swap your battery for a charged battery and off you zoom, clean air, happy people for a charged battery and off you zoom, clean air, happy people, low carbon. So all absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 4:And then, closer to home, one of again this year's award winners was the community energy organisation, energise Barnsley. So they have been putting in solar and battery into older people's homes and social housing and those people have really got it. And I think, steve, that's an example of people saying well, this green or this low-carbon transition can work for me and I can be included in it and benefit from it. It's not just for high-tech people who are always on their phone or whatever. So they've got all sorts of people who've tuned into how to use this technology, make it work in their houses.
Speaker 4:And then, lastly, our good friends in again back in Manchester Carbon Co-op. They were winners in 2021 for a lot of the work they do around training builders and suppliers in how to retrofit our homes. So I mean there's a wealth of award winners there across sort of farming, across nature, training skills and renewables. So that's really exciting. And if you're ever feeling a little bit, you know, oh, it's so hard this work is. Come to the Ashton Awards ceremony or have a look on the website and you'll see. And if you've got a project and you're proud of it and it's doing well, apply. So I don't. I should know when the awards are open for next year. Bye now.
Speaker 2:Visit our website. Well, a little bit of a confession now. When I was listening to you and when I was just scourging to the website of the awards, I just thought that, oh my God, this is like yellow pages for our next guests. Absolutely Get out of the bag, steve. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:That's fine. I'm sure Louise can help us out with their email. I will.
Speaker 4:I'll put you in touch with our head of comms.
Speaker 2:Wow, Okay, we got that promise but we have to go on. So still staying global. I know before the recording we were talking and you said that. Don't ask me about COP now, because I always look at it afterwards per se, but we see a great deal of flashback from the global politics, global leadership, and it's kind of frustrating and also heartbreaking to see that now we were taking a step back. It seems like that. Do you agree? How does the global narrative on climate action is affected by the recent political events? Plus, how can big organizations like COP, big meetings, help us to get through these leadership issues?
Speaker 4:It's so hard, isn't it? I mean, I feel awful confessing that I don't for the last few COPs. I've just thought I'll wait for somebody else to write me a synopsis, because I don't want to doom scroll during COP. So there's a few people. I thought, oh, I will read Ashok Sinha, who's our chief exec at Ashton. Actually he was going to do a LinkedIn blog at Ashton. Actually he was going to do a LinkedIn blog, but I've been really busy and I haven't been reading about it because I just want to crack on with what I'm trying to do here.
Speaker 4:But I did go to COP26 up in Glasgow and it was interesting watching everybody together and watching that back and forth of negotiation and I mean, I think there is an important role for it because when they committed to the 1.5, that's what we've hung a lot of our policies on and people have got to deliver. So you've got you know you've got where you have got a country that's acting. They are dragging people in the right direction and Keir Starmer has announced the 81% reduction target by 2035, which is brilliant. So we've put our marker in the sand and we'll have to deliver on that.
Speaker 4:But I think for me the trouble is when some are backing out and backing down and this is the worry, with Trump coming in, is will China step forward and go ah, you're so old-fashioned, we're going low carbon and grab that and all the opportunities that come with it and bring maybe India and other places with it. That could be brilliant because that makes our arguments easier at home, actually, because people say why should we do anything when China's building coal-fired power stations? I mean, of course, they are building absolutely masses of renewables too. So yeah, I kind of duck out of the global piece and I just concentrate on what I can do. Otherwise I don't think I'd be, very happy.
Speaker 4:So I'm really sorry, that's not a very good answer.
Speaker 3:I think. The other thing about it, though, is Is it a surgical analysis of the day-by-day, I would say, the?
Speaker 4:money again if you follow where the money is being invested. Our policy environment back here in in the uk was very poor and that's why people were taking money out the uk and investing in other places. And so we need strong policy here because we want that investment here so that we can we can tackle our own low-carbon economy, get that investment in, come up with stuff we can export and then also we can sort of speak for the rest of the world. But we're still, you know, I hope that we're pushing others and I think just as big companies. If we have carbon border adjustment taxes or whatever they're called and I think the eu's bringing that in is, you know we can. We can tax the high carbon stuff and and then shift towards a better, circular, lower carbon economy, which all sounds so far, so vague and that's not really my cup of tea. I like to see what it really means for us locally really so louise.
Speaker 3:One last one before damla will ask a final question for you. Um, but back on that sort of local action and we did. Uh, we, we worked together on a lovely toolkit for c40 cities, didn't we? On women and leadership in in the climate space, which I thought was excellent, and there was lots of top tips in there on engagement and leadership styles and things what you know. Briefly, before we wrap up how do you engage people in a climate conversation? What are your top tips for bringing it to life for people?
Speaker 4:I think the showing it by doing it, showing by doing so it's not just a load of talk and convincing rhetoric, it's we did this and look what we've achieved, look how it was possible, showing how it can be paid for as well, or what the benefits of doing it are, I think are really important. It's that it's not just a sort of worthy cloak you wear. It's kind of like look what we set up, look what we made happen. Isn't it gorgeous, isn't it fantastic? Oh, oh. And it sucks up water. It looks beautiful. D ducks can float around on it and it may, you know, and it makes the investment community happy or whatever is. Is you know that multiple co-benefits kind of message?
Speaker 4:And then I sort of thought to myself how much do I talk about it? I'm really, really ambitious, so I'm not very diplomatic, so my style of leadership is quite blunt, kind of why can't we do that? What can we change? How can we make it happen? Which can put people on the back foot? But sometimes I just sneak it in as well. So I might sneak it in as a conversation where it's like oh, yeah, well, look at Valencia and the floods there. So it's kind of like just dropping evidence in to get people to start thinking about it themselves rather than going in guns blazing, campaigning on climate change for it. But yeah, I think that's how I do it A bit of each, a bit of each a bit of each approach yeah, damn low.
Speaker 3:You're on mute. We'll edit that bit out okay.
Speaker 2:so I was just saying that things that give you result and things that make make you go hmm and feel good, they're not always exactly the same, right, okay? So final question, louise, our network is ironically called Do Not Smile, because we need to make sustainability a subject that brings happiness into the world. So what object, place or person always makes you smile?
Speaker 4:Our repair cafe makes me smile and it makes everyone who visits it smile and because it's just this hive of 20 or so volunteers. It's got tea and cake and it's free and you make a donation and it's full of people repairing stuff that people thought was broken or torn. And we mend toasters and kettles and coats and teddy bears and you name it. We've mended it and I thought it was a kind of a thing that was save waste and reduce carbon emissions and it's just this group of fantastic, lovely people and happy customers and it's amazing and every time we run it I'm smiling loads.
Speaker 3:I love that Damla the repair cafe. I have to admit, louise, I've started sewing quite a bit excellent yeah, um, I like to do it. Uh, on the sofa. I've got a little sewing kit on the coffee table in front of me on the sofa and Anne, my lovely partner, brings me things that need to be sewn.
Speaker 4:So you mend things or you're making new things.
Speaker 3:No, I'm mending things, mending things. And yeah, I think I need to take a visit to your repair cafe.
Speaker 4:Come and visit. We thought the other day too, I was wearing nice top, uh, in the carbon co-op office and we thought maybe we have a sewing day where we bring our sewing machines and some nice material and try and make some stuff together. Oh, in the winter come along, steve to the sewing, sewing bee right, I am going to wrap us up, though.
Speaker 3:Louise, that would be wonderful. Talking to you about all of that and, and particularly now that I'm focused on sewing and cakes and tea, it's perfect, perfect end to this conversation. So, damla, you want to wrap us up? So thanks to everyone who has listened to our good guys podcast, brought to you by the do not smile network of agencies and make sure you listen to future episodes, where we'll be talking to more amazing people about how we can work together to create a more sustainable future. So see you, Damla, and see you Louise.
Speaker 4:Thank you Bye.
Speaker 1:Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability Hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network.
