Net Zero Champions

Herts Go Green and Grow update

The HGG&G Group is getting to grips with all kinds of issues from how to change behaviours for long-term sustainable transformation, to how to identify digital pollution and pooling our various collective tree-planting resources into Hertfordshire based sites.

On October 3rd, we

heard presentations by Emma Cantu at Borough of Broxbourne on the Hertfordshire Climate Change Sustainability Partnership and Leanne Kenyon from Project Match who focused on the importance of behaviour change and intrinsically motivated teams to drive real change. Purposeful organisational culture is fundamental to retain and attract new staff, vital for business growth and hitting management KPIs yet finding the measures for this are not as easy.

The cross-industry nature of the group, which meets every month, provides different perspectives, different knowledge bases and a safe space to discuss and share the spectrum of challenges presented in uncertain and fast-moving times. We are working together to develop our understanding of the challenges, beginning to recognise our strengths and ability to influence in wider circles. Several members visited the NetZero Festival on 27th and 28th September. It was reassuring to hear from Chris Skidmore, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Environment, that the Net Zero review announced by the new government will not derail our Net Zero commitments. In fact, after over a decade of government policies and corporate action it may be a sensible thing to do.

The debates, however, revealed that there’s still a high degree of uncertainty about the “how” of the net zero. Familiar themes prevailed – the role of offsetting and carbon capture, just transition, scope 3, scaling up green innovation, challenges with green finance, quantitative lack of skilled green workforce, tension between green activism and steady transition, unintentional greenwashing, etc, albeit with higher degree of clarity.” Whilst the Government are getting to grips with net zero, we can all contribute. Of course, affordability and scale are key, but marginal gains, lots of tiny changes by all of us can and will make a huge difference.

If you would like to join the group and discussion, please contact Herts Chamber at enquiries@hertschamber.com

#keeptheheartinherts #hertsgogreenandgrow

We are working together to develop our understanding of the challenges, beginning to recognise our strengths and ability to influence in wider circles.

Several members of the group presented at the Hertfordshire Chamber of Commerce Sustainability Conference on 21st October including group founders, David Hawes from Net Zero International, Simon Littlewood from ESTU Global and Fiona Edwards from JPA Workspaces. Also, look out for COP 27 coming up in early November following on from COP26 in Glasgow last year. What progress will our world leaders make and how can we influence them?

DEVELOPING PEOPLE’S

PLACE in the business of climate action

Organisations taking sustainability seriously will at some point need to widen their thinking to include the psychology behind what they are asking their staff to achieve. And if they are savvy, they will also want to understand the effects that sustainability practices HAVE on their staff.

One key challenge

for getting companies on board with sustainable practices is the cost. Spending thousands (or hundreds of thousands) not on growth, but on replacing current ways of working with a more costly, but more environmentally friendly option seems like a bad move.

At the same time, companies will pay many thousands of pounds developing people performance programmes, employee engagement initiatives, recruitment and re-recruitment.

It’s time to start realising how much these things overlap. In August this year, Leanne Kenyon, Founder and Director of ProjectMatch launched their People & Planet programme, a year-long initiative to encourage both businesses and students to tackle environmental and sustainability issues, by focusing on the effects on, and opportunities for, people in work.

They are doing this by offering a 50% discount on research briefs for projects on a sustainability topic and all projects conducted on the theme in the year will also enter a competition, where the top three student projects will win a collection of prizes. In addition, as part of this programme, for every matched project they will also donate a tree to the Forest of Marston Vale.

Briege Leahy, CEO, Hertfordshire Chamber of Commerce commented: “As we continue our support for the county’s businesses to take on the challenge of Net Zero, we believe this work from ProjectMatch to bring an understanding of the psychology underpinning sustainability action will be an important step and of great help to many businesses in Hertfordshire and surrounding counties.”

ProjectMatch is a member of the Herts Go Green and Grow group. For more information about the initiative and details on how to join the group please contact enquiries@hertschamber.com #hertsgogreenandgrow