黑洞社区

Isabel Dedring is a trilingual Harvard graduate with a degree in Russian, but her current job has presented her with a whole new set of linguistic challenges. As the Greater London Authority鈥檚 environment adviser, she has to convince everybody from householders to banks to play their part in realising the capital鈥檚 ambitious green targets.

鈥淚t鈥檚 all about identifying exactly who you are talking to and choosing language that will resonate,鈥� she says. As an exercise in communication, it sounds about as easy as translating the collected works of Tolstoy, particularly as these are issues that people, in general, are not interested in listening to. So, with London committed to reducing carbon emissions 60% by 2025, how does she plan to get the various interest groups on side?

The Dedring way

Since she became the GLA鈥檚 environment adviser in September 2008, Dedring has been responsible for delivering several key programmes to meet London鈥檚 highly ambitious green targets. These include extending the capital鈥檚 10 low-carbon zones, improving its green spaces, and delivering the flagship homes retrofit programme. Pivotal to the success of all of these programmes is the 38-year-old Dedring鈥檚 ability to convince London鈥檚 7 million residents and many thousands of businesses that making London greener matters to them personally.

鈥淵ou have to communicate on a level people will get whether they are householders, huge companies or banks,鈥� the former policy unit director of Transport for London says from her office in City Hall. 鈥淚n many cases, the best tactic is actually to deprioritise the green agenda altogether and go with saving money. Instead of, 鈥橸ou must do this to save the planet鈥�, 鈥橳his will save you money on your bills鈥� can be much more effective.鈥�

Another factor when dealing with big businesses, she says, is competition: 鈥淚n London the big players all know each other and you don鈥檛 want to be the one guy at the table who hasn鈥檛 done your bit. Big developers like Land Securities, Heron and British Land are egging each other on. It鈥檚 good to play on that, use it as an incentive rather than this 鈥檇o the right thing鈥� narrative.鈥�

Not if, but how?

Dedring is confident that the environmental goals set out by London mayor Boris Johnson in early 2008, including that 60% target, are achievable: 鈥淎ll the policy and programmes we have in place can get us to the main commitments,鈥� she says. 鈥淭his isn鈥檛 about 鈥檞e need new policies鈥�, but the delivery of the ones we have got.鈥�

Chief among these is the flagship programme to retrofit homes. Existing homes emit 38% of London鈥檚 carbon dioxide, and Dedring sees reducing this figure as a battle to be fought on two fronts: the first with the public and the second with investors.

Dedring regards the programme鈥檚 pilot phase, which is being funded by 拢9m from the London Development Agency (LDA) and includes work on 10,000 homes across nine London boroughs, as pivotal to getting more home owners on board. The scheme currently operates on a door-knocking basis and offers home owners a survey by an energy assessor and up to 15 鈥渆asy to install鈥� free energy efficiency measures.

Dedring says: 鈥淲e asked ourselves questions like, what鈥檚 going to generate the take-up rates you need? Should we call people, leaflet houses or knock on doors? What sort of measures are likely to be taken up by people to install in their homes? Will people actually use the things? All these issues are being tested at the moment to monitor how things work.

鈥淭hen we can go to people running the energy efficiency programme and say, 鈥橪ook at this research. We now know that you can get into one in three homes by doing x, y or z.鈥� Then they believe in it. You just have to demonstrate it to people.鈥�

Dedring says that, as the programme widens, the competitive element comes in once more, as householders don鈥檛 want to be the only ones in their area not signing up.

The money men

But wooing London鈥檚 householders will be a waste of effort if Dedring fails to win over the banks. The GLA aims to retrofit 200,000 homes by 2012 and 1.2 million by 2015, expanding the programme to deliver measures such as solid wall insulation and renewable technologies.

While the plan is to develop a pay-as-you-save solution for homeowners to pay for the measures through their energy bills, start-up funding is still needed. The LDA already has a fund of 拢100m set to be released by the end of the year to part-fund projects and is expecting a further 拢500m of leverage from the commercial sector. But to make sure targets are hit and that the programme expands quickly enough, millions more pounds of funding is required.

鈥淚f you approach a bank, you are not going to get put through to a guy who knows all about energy saving and deals with these systems all the time鈥�

This is easier said than done when most of the big banks still don鈥檛 even have an energy efficiency financing department: 鈥淚f you approach a certain bank or maybe a big commercial firm, you are not going to get put through to a guy who knows all about energy saving and deals with these systems all the time,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t is all still this weird, weird product and there are issues over which department it should be given to, so it鈥檒l end up being bounced around lots of different people. The message we are promoting to try and change this is that energy efficiency is commercially attractive.

鈥淚n the case of the public sector building programme [the 黑洞社区 Energy Efficiency Programme] that we鈥檙e doing, on the first 42 buildings you will get a 拢7m payback over seven years and 23-30% carbon savings. That鈥檚 clearly a business case that stacks up and is worth doing. But it鈥檚 down to this issue of an upfront payment.鈥�

She adds that talks with banks and commercial firms about funding are going well and that, once again, it comes down to finding the right language: 鈥淚n business you can鈥檛 just say, 鈥橦ere is the logical way to do this, so we鈥檙e going to go and do this鈥�. Organisations don鈥檛 work like that; they鈥檙e not quite that rational. The strategy involves being much more nuanced about the arguments that work for different groups and recognising that people are not convinced by facts alone - they are convinced by what they鈥檙e going to be able to get out of something. So if we can show banks that energy efficiency is commercially viable, then we will be a step closer to trying to get them to help make our programmes free upfront.鈥�

Despite concerns over how little grasp of the green agenda some big players have, Dedring says that one of the best engaged sectors is construction. 鈥淪ome of the ideas we put in the London plan revisions [the draft of which was published in January], were based on suggestions that came from the industry,鈥� she says. 鈥淨uite a lot of people seem keen to see a 106-based buy-out approach, for example - so, if you can鈥檛 deliver the carbon savings in a particular location, you are able to actually pay into a fund for carbon reductions elsewhere. We have said in the plan that we would like to see more planning authorities taking that kind of approach.鈥�

In terms of new build, she highlights air quality as a major issue: 鈥淲hen the industry picks up again with a number of large central London developments, and Crossrail, we鈥檒l be focusing on air quality and hoping that construction firms sign up to an approach that tries to minimise air pollution from building sites where possible by considering off-site construction.鈥�

A word of warning 鈥�

Boris Johnson said recently that if environmental issues in London were not tackled quickly, then the capital would be looking at a future of 鈥渇lood and drought鈥�. Dedring points out that, actually, this is a scenario we are already dealing with. 鈥淟ondon is drier than Rabat in Morocco for a capital and we already have a lot of surface flooding around the Thames and its tributaries. Tens of thousands of homes regularly experience flooding in London. This whole 鈥檌t will be fine now but terrible in the future鈥� is wrong. That鈥檚 why it is crucial to get the public, as well as key players like the construction industry and the banks, on board promoting the programmes, and funding the schemes - even if the hook has to be what it can do for their bottom line.鈥�