“It’s
not a demolition job I’m doing,” laughs environmental
consultant Donnachadh McCarthy. “I tell them ‘that’s
what you’re doing well, this is what you need to do
better’.”
Homelessness charity Centrepoint is understandably apprehensive
about McCarthy’s visit to its Berwick Street hostel.
Along with 11 other London-based organisations, it has accepted
a free of charge eco-audit to be carried out by McCarthy’s
business 3 Acorns. But the former deputy chair of the Liberal
Democrats, who has dedicated much of his life to campaigning
on environmental issues, reassures the charities he works
with that he will dish out carrots as well as sticks, highlighting
good practice before criticising failure.
The free audits were offered by grant making body Bridge House
Trust to 12 of its major recipients. It wants to help charities
understand the changes they must make to ensure that their
premises and practices are eco-friendly, and to advertise
the funding available to help pay for improved sustainability
across the sector.
Of its five key funding streams, the trust had little interest
in its environmental pot. McCarthy is not surprised, fearing
that charities’ environmental concerns are swallowed
up by other objectives. “Environmental issues are often
hijacked by social welfare and ordinary social investment
programmes,” he says. “I’ve seen that happen
again and again.”
To tackle the problem, Bridge House Trust drafted in McCarthy
to carry out the 12 audits within the pilot programme. He
was pleased to accept the contract and help charities to focus
on sustainability. “If you never do the environment
it never gets done,” he warns.
On this day, McCarthy is carrying out a single day assessment
of Centrepoint’s Berwick Street hostel in central Soho.
On arrival, the staff faces a series of initial questions
about utility providers, the number and age of the hostel’s
boilers and how cleaning services are procured. Support worker
Lee Howitt does his best to answer his questions but, like
so many front line operations in the sector, staff turnover
means that valuable information about the hostel’s basic
services (such as how to adjust the boiler water temperature)
is lost.
The fact-finding tour of the building starts on the fourth
and upper floor. A small loft is examined for sufficient insulation
and each window frame is opened and closed to check the tightness
of the fit. The bathrooms are next to face scrutiny.
Many of the taps are fitted with a spray mechanism, which
saves water. But Howitt, who was offered a full-time position
with Centrepoint after many hours of volunteering, has identified
another problem in his daily routine. “When you do health
and safety checks you do find that people leave their taps
on,” he says.
The Berwick Street hostel houses 28 residents between the
ages of 16 and 21. It provides emergency accommodation; the
young clients stay for a maximum of 28 days during which the
hostel’s staff help them to move onto more stable accommodation.
When it comes to green issues, they are a difficult group
to work with. “I did make a point of it last week, of
making sure that we put posters up in the rooms about saving
water and recycling,” Howitt says. “I’m
trying to get them to work towards independence and encouraging
them to do this when they move out, but you can’t always
be under everyone’s noses all day.”
McCarthy has a solution to the problem: push buttons to regulate
the amount of water passing through the tap. “With the
client base that you’re working with you can try and
do some bits of training but as they’re only here for
three or four weeks it would be better to install buttons,”
he tells Howitt. The shower system, refurbished last year,
already has these buttons; a green tick for the audit report.
The building that houses the hostel dates back to the 1700s
but McCarthy’s early investigations show it to be well
insulated, and the windows fit snugly, preventing heat loss
from the building. However, a problem is soon identified.
The major stairwell connecting all four floors is encased
in glass and, for the most part, naturally lit. But the lights
for the lower stairwell and corridors are connected to the
same switch, meaning all the lights are on almost 24 hours
a day, wasting considerable electricity. “You need more
switching,” McCarthy cautions. “There is not enough
differentiation, and you find that quite a lot in the sector.”
The next stop is a small room shared by two female clients.
The process interrupts their morning routine, but it raises
some interesting questions. The room is centrally heated,
with an opening window for ventilation, but the heating is
supplemented by an electric radiator. McCarthy is unsure this
is necessary.
The audit is certainly thorough; it even examines the type
of toilet roll, handwash and hand towels available in the
washrooms, and the provider of the tea and coffee. “I
do find it unusual how so few charities have switched over
to Fair Trade,” McCarthy says.
If there is one thing he wishes he could change it is the
unnecessary use of a water cooler. Centrepoint, like most
large organisations, uses them, but a simple device is now
available that filters and cools mains water, cutting down
significant amounts of plastic office waste. McCarthy recommends
the charity invest in this new technology.
Top
Five of the Centrepoint hostels will undergo this type of
thorough examination, and McCarthy will then carry out a similar
audit of the charity’s headquarters and present his
findings at a meeting with the senior executive team. A full
report will then be compiled, and the 3 Acorns team will return
in six months to monitor the charity’s progress.
“Measuring, and being accountable for what you measure,
is one of the most powerful tools, and that’s what I
want to leave behind with this project,” McCarthy says.
To this end, he will only take on a commission if the organisation
agrees to a return visit in six months. Putting a genuine
deadline in place means his report is not left to collect
dust on the already groaning bookshelf of the chief executive’s
office.
The pilot project backed by Bridge House Trust has not only
worked with public service providers like Centrepoint; the
RNID, CSV, Acevo and NCVO have all been subject to the environmental
interrogation. “If you do a good job and persuade them
then this tiny amount of money can start ripples throughout
the sector,” McCarthy says. “They can have a huge
effect on the policy agenda. NCVO has access to government
departments. It has the access that environmental charities
will never have. It’s far more powerful and has influence.”
McCarthy has already requested meetings with NCVO’s
policy team in an attempt to ingrain his message at the highest
levels before the pilot project is over.
Another organisation to go through the audit process, Merton
VSC, is already disseminating the lessons learned from its
report. It has begun collecting data from its funding applicants
about their work towards sustainability, and intends to reward
action on environmental issues.
But the Merton VSC report also highlighted some common issues
that can frustrate change within the third sector. For office-based
organisations, the cost of utilities such as lighting and
heating are often included in their rent and it can be difficult
to change suppliers to a green provider. It also means there
would be no financial incentive for the charity to limit the
resources it used.
Back to Centrepoint
After completing a full walkabout of the hostel, McCarthy
joins the hostel staff at their weekly team meeting. Before
he delivers his preliminary findings to the group, he presents
the challenge facing them as one that will have an impact
on the direct work of the charity – tackling homelessness.
He tells how many tens of thousands of families lost their
homes after the Bangladeshi floods just two years ago; floods
now commonly believed by the scientific community to be
a result of climate change.
He also is keen to point out that such a large sector, employing
1.2 million people and with six million volunteers, can
have a huge impact on the UK’s attempts to promote
sustainability.
Mary Blackwell, service manager, is very receptive to the
early recommendations made by McCarthy, to be fleshed out
in his report. But she warns that the charity lacks the
funds to carry some of them out. Old boilers, for example,
are costly to replace. “I think for most funders it’s
not the sort of thing that’s sexy,” Blackwell
says. And some decisions, such as whether or not the hostel
buys in recycled toilet paper, are entirely out of her hands.
She pushes McCarthy to raise these issues with Centrepoint
HQ.
Development worker Claire Hareven says she would be very
happy to make changes to her workday routines to improve
the hostel’s sustainability rating. “Once something
becomes routine it’s not difficult at all,”
she says. And cost savings could have a knock-on effect
for the work she can do with residents. “When you’re
told that you haven’t got enough money for something
in the project and then you look around and the lights are
blazing and the boilers are old, it’s annoying.”
McCarthy is optimistic about the role charities can have
in leading the rest of the UK towards a more sustainable
way of life. Some are already sticking their heads above
the parapet; CSV, for example, is building a new eco-friendly
headquarters.
“If you want us to reduce our emissions then there
has got to be something done about the third sector estate,”
McCarthy says. “But it’s absolutely the right
time. There is a real appetite now for change in the sector.”
Top
|
