A new study calls for ‘smarter’ more ‘holistic’ funding to address the climate change threat that it says will affect not just the environment but ‘all of civil society’. Here we feature extracts from soon-to-be launched  report New Times, New Connections: Civil Society Action on Climate Change by Green Alliance, that works to bring environmental priorities into the political mainstream.

“While diverse civil society organisations are already recognising and responding to the impacts that climate change will have on their work and  the ability to meet the needs of beneficiaries, understanding the relevance of climate change is not always an easy process to find time or support for and many organisations continue to see it as an issue with no connection to their immediate concerns," says the report, authored by Faye Scott.

Finding and funding time for support to help ‘mainstream’ action across civil society is a priority.

In addressing the funding situation, it says many organisations still find that proposals mentioning climate change are seen as ‘environmental’, instead of funders recognising the work is relevant to their existing funding priorities. The funding community is working to address this but more is needed if we are to see action on climate change mainstreamed, it says.

Many organisations cited funding pressures as a key reason for not being able to find the time to take a more strategic look at the links between climate change and their core work.

There is recognition of the potential of umbrella bodies to cascade activity and learning and a group of funders are currently in discussion about funding a climate unit based within NCVO. This could provide organisations with focused support and start building ‘a critical mass of experience’ of how climate change relates to core work in different areas of civil society.

The potential for funders to drive progress on climate change by requiring action of grantees came up repeatedly but viewpoints differ. The City Bridge Trust asks grantees what they are doing to reduce their carbon footprint and monitors action. To support grantees they have been offering eco-audits since 2008. They see them as a good way of encouraging progress and are currently evaluating the degree to which the behaviours suggested have been sustained.

But some say requiring grantees to demonstrate environmental progress adds a barrier to accessing funding and could see organisations divert resources from core work to meet criteria that end up being nothing more than a tick box exercise.

If demonstrating action on climate change does increasingly become a condition of funding it is essential that funders frame this as widely as possible, says the report.

Any support they provide should encourage organisations to explore the intrinsic links between climate change and core issues, as well as focus on reducing their environmental impact, it adds.

Organisations noted that funding can be very ‘siloed’, with grant givers wanting to put organisations into an ‘environment’ stream or a ‘social’ stream, rather than recognising the ways that cross-cutting work meets their priorities.

This leaves work that is tackling climate change as one of a set of integrated objectives vulnerable to a lack of funding. For example, one development organisation interviewed for the report said it found it difficult to access a grant as they weren’t known to the funders, who seemed more comfortable dealing with the environmental groups they are used to.

Another issue highlighted was the type of activity that gets funded. Organisations mentioned that activity to raise awareness with leaflets or handing out light bulbs etc. can seem to get funding more easily than work taking a more substantive look at the links between climate change and different issues.

Others noted the frustrations of being able to get money for capital improvements, but not the time needed to develop the projects.

Encouragingly, it reports, activity is underway to promote a more holistic approach among funding organisations. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Carnegie UK, the Baring Foundation and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation have all supported work taking a joined-up approach to climate change and its links with other issues.

And Clare Thomas, chief grants officer at the City Bridge Trust and former chair of the Association of Charitable Foundations (ACF), has been doing a lot of work to raise awareness in the funding community of ways that they can support progress on climate change across civil society.

This has led to productive discussions and greater engagement with climate change in key networks like the Intelligent Funding Forum, the Woburn Place Collaborative, London Funders and the Environmental Funders Forum.

“Funders could lead as they can hold a lot of sway over organisations and can provide forums for sharing knowledge and encouraging behaviour change,” says The Young Foundation, quoted in the report.

NCVO suggests a more radical course of action, “It might be nirvana but we should be persuading grant givers to give a proportion in addition to their grants to make sure that people are doing the right thing. So if they give an organisation £10,000 they should look at where they are in terms of their understanding and action on climate change and work to help them identify what more they could do, with 10% extra upfront to spend on that and incentivise action.”

“When you are dealing with community action, with people doing things that help tackle climate change as well as benefiting social and economic objectives, bidding to a fund that is only interested in environmental outcomes is fraught with difficulty. Smarter funding would mean that investment in greening social action would not get siloed in the environmental field,” says ACRE,  that aims to put rural communities in a leading role in ensuring the social, environmental and economic well-being of all their residents.

In the report, Green Alliance explores the landscape of civil society action on climate change. What activities are underway? Do they reflect awareness of the links between climate change and core missions? Are they influencing decision makers?

This national study covers 222 organisations and 242 activities. It draws on a comprehensive survey, a one day workshop, desk research and 36 in-depth interviews. It has also been informed by Green Alliance’s experience in other key initiatives exploring how to mainstream action on climate change.

In addition, it conducted two local studies that produced online maps of climate change activity in inner-city Newcastle and rural north Dorset.

The New times, New Connections report will be launched on 28th October, between 3pm and 5pm (registration from 2.30); where its key messages will be shared, and attendee will hear from two of its case studies and debate the challenges of mainstreaming action on climate change across civil society.

Speakers include:

• Ben Kernighan, deputy director, NCVO
• Matthew Smerdon, deputy director, Baring Foundation
• Richard Boyd, chief executive, Disability Essex
• Ben Todd, executive director, Arcola Theatre
• Faye Scott, senior policy adviser, Green Alliance (chair)