1Oct 2019
Our Bright Future Programme mid-term evaluation report published

Our Bright Future Programme mid-term evaluation report published

CEP, with partners ERS, are undertaking the evaluation+ of the Our Bright Future Programme, which aims to empower young people to lead progressive change in their communities and local environment, through a portfolio of 31 projects across the UK, each with a duration of three to five years++.

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As part of this evaluation the mid-term report has now been published.  The report presents and evaluates evidence on what has been achieved since the beginning of the programme while promoting learning and supporting the ongoing delivery of the programme.  The report is structured around four programme themes: outcomes for young people; outcomes for the environment and communities; outcomes for policy and practice; and, outcomes of the youth led and partnership approach.

Selected key findings include:

  • The programme has directly engaged 85,788 young people, which already far exceeds the programme’s overall target of 60,000 young people participating in Our Bright Future activities

  • Young people have gained a range of knowledge and new skills both specific to environmental topics, and more general soft and transferable skills

  • Projects have improved participants’ self-confidence, wellbeing and mental health

  • The Our Bright Future programme is supporting a wide range of terrestrial and marine habitats, through a variety of conservation tasks

  • A survey of 450 young people involved in the programme found that projects have increased participants’ awareness of environmental issues and improved their attitudes towards spending time in the natural environment

Owen White is CEP’s lead for this project, please contact him for more information.

 

+The evaluation aims to:

  • Test whether the Our Bright Future Programme has achieved its long term ambitions

  • Provide better evidence on how young people can improve their local environment

  • Test and evidence whether a partnership way of working that invests in human, social and natural capital, is an effective means by which to deliver greater impact

  • Identify good practice and ongoing improvements

++The Programme is supported by £33 million of funding from the Big Lottery Fund, and is managed by a consortium of eight organisations led by The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts.

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11Sep 2019
CEP has contributed to new EEA report on Sustainability Transitions

NEW REPORT ON SUSTAINABILITY TRANSITIONS: POLICY AND PRACTICE PUBLISHED BY THE EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENT AGENCY

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The European Environment Agency has published a report developed under the CEP-led framework service contract which provides assistance on forward looking analysis, sustainability assessments and systemic transitions.  The report on Sustainability transitions: policy and practice, has been developed through three projects delivered under the framework service contract, which have brought together research on the implications of sustainability transitions and transformations for European policy and governance. 

The report development was led by the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester, with input from the Institute for Ecological Economy Research, Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex, Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT) at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Fraunhofer ISI and the German Environment Agency.  CEP has contributed to the report by coordinating the characterisation of three key ‘socio-technical’ systems (food, energy and mobility).  CEP also reviewed the report for quality purposes, overall coherence, and to ensure accessibility for the target audience.

For more information please contact CEP’s Owen White, the overall Framework Contract Manager.

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27Aug 2019
CEP co-authors on EU SEA Directive report

CEP co-authors of a recent European Commission ‘REFIT’ study on the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive 2001/42/EU

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The European Commission has recently published a report on the findings of a study to evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and EU added value of the SEA Directive. CEP was a partner in the evaluation (with Milieu Ltd) and led the development of report chapters on effectiveness and relevance as well as contributing to the rest of the report [1].

The ‘REFIT’ [2] report (published in June 2019) summarises the current implementation of the SEA Directive in EU countries and the outcomes from the analysis for each of the evaluation criteria. It also incorporates the outcomes of a stakeholder workshop to discuss the research findings.

The study found that the SEA Directive brings considerable benefits to the EU, contributing to wider goals on sustainable development and environmental protection through integration of environmental concerns into the appropriate plans and programmes. The study also identified some concerns around scope and efficiency, and a number of priority issues that should be considered for further action, including: the clarification of the scope of application of the Directive, a more strategic approach to scoping and the dissemination of good practices.

The report is available here.

For further information contact Dr Bill Sheate (Technical Director), Spela Kolaric (Senior Consultant) or Rolands Sadauskis (Senior Consultant).

[1] The authors of the report were: Jennifer McGuinn, Lise Oulès, Paola Banfi, Alicia McNeill, Sarah O’Brien, Zuzana Lukakova (Milieu); William Sheate, Spela Kolaric, Rolands Sadauskis (Collingwood Environmental Planning).

[2] A ‘REFIT’ study is an evaluation under the European Commission’s Regulatory Fitness Check and Performance programme, to ensure a Directive is ‘fit for purpose’ . It seeks to provide an evidence-based analysis as to whether EU actions are proportionate to their objectives and delivering as expected.

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22Jul 2019
CEP-LED CONSORTIUM TO DELIVER NEW EEA PROJECT FOCUSING ON SDG INTERACTIONS

CEP-LED CONSORTIUM TO ASSIST IN EDITING AND PUBLISHING A REPORT ON INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGS)

A new project has been awarded under the CEP-led framework service contract for the European Environment Agency (EEA) which provides assistance on forward looking analysis, sustainability assessments and systemic transitions.

The project will build on the outcomes of previous work to prepare a report based on an analysis of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) interactions. CEP contributed to this previous work by preparing a working note on the implications of SDG interactions for EU policy. The new project, led by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), will prepare a report that will provide an accessible presentation of the approach to SDGs interactions analysis and of the results and implications of the previous analysis. CEP will provide overall quality control for this work.

For more information please contact CEP’s Owen White, the overall Framework Contract Manager, or Rolands Sadauskis, Framework Contract Coordinator.

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15Jul 2019
CEP developing baseline social information for Marine Management Organisation

CEP is contributing to research led by ICF to provide baseline social information for the Marine Management Organisation

ICF, CEP and ABPmer were contracted by Marine Management Organisation (MMO) to undertake a study to support social baseline assessments for marine plans.

After an initial identification and prioritisation of social evidence needs, three research topics were agreed with MMO.   CEP is leading on two research topics: Seascape quality, value and links to sense of place; and Health and wellbeing benefits of coastal recreation and barriers to access.  Research on a third priority topic (Socio-economic deprivation in coastal communities) is being led by ICF.  CEP’s research involves literature review, focus groups, interviews and analysis.   For the Seascapes research, ABPmer developed a tailored-made online survey and map to gather the views of local residents about the coastal places that are special for them. 

The research topics will be published as separate reports later this year on the MMO’s website

For more information please contact CEP’s Paula Orr (Technical Director) or Sian Morse-Jones (Principal Consultant) for more information.

 

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10Jul 2019
CEP at the XV International Congress of Environmental Psychology 2019

DR CLARE TWIGGER-ROSS (CEP) PRESENTING KEYNOTE PAPER AT THE XV CONGRESO DE PSICOLOGIA AMBIENTAL-PSICAMB 2019 IN TENERIFE.

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross is giving a keynote talk on Tuesday 16th July at the XV Congreso de Psicologia Ambiental-PSCIAMB: Community, resources and sustainability: the challenge of territories. She will be presenting her paper Building resilience capacities of communities to flood risk: reflections on theory and practice in the UK. The paper draws on research that CEP and associates have carried out for Defra and the Environment Agency over the past decade.  

The conference is being held at the University of la Laguna, Tenerife from 16th – 19th July 2019.

For more information please contact Dr Clare Twigger-Ross (Technical Director).

Building resilience capacities of communities to flood risk: reflections on theory and practice in the UK

Summary:

Climate change will increase the frequency, severity and extent of flooding in the UK with the present 1.8 million people living in areas at significant flood risk predicted to rise to 2.6 million under a 2° scenario and to 3.3 million under a 4° scenario (CCRA, 2017). The health and social impacts of floods have been documented over a number of years (e.g. Walker et al, 2005; Tapsell and Tunstall, 2008) with recent robust studies on the effects on mental health (e.g. Public Health England, 2017;Miljevic et al, 2017) showing the impact to be quite considerable.   Given these negative social impacts it becomes even more important to understand how communities and individuals alongside local professionals (e.g. local authorities, emergency services) might be able to improve or develop greater community resilience. Dr Twigger-Ross together with her colleagues at Collingwood Environmental Planning has been working on projects for the UK government and its agencies since 2005 on aspects of flooding and this paper draws on that work within the framework of community resilience.   Community resilience is a way of thinking about resilience to flooding at a local and place based level, understanding that there will be multiple communities and social networks intersecting in a given flood risk area.  In this paper Cutter et al’s (2010) disaster resilience of place is drawn on to locate  community resilience which is defined as a “set of capacities that can be fostered through interventions and policies, which in turn help  build and enhance a community’s ability to respond, recover  from [and adapt] to disasters”(Cutter et al, 2010).   The capacities examined by Twigger-Ross et al, (2015) are institutional resilience capacities, social resilience capacities, community capital, infrastructure resilience capacities and economic resilience capacities and they will be elaborated on within this paper.  Importantly, in order to meet the challenges of climate change the type of resilience will need to focus on the proactive/transformative type of resilience rather than the reactive/defensive type of resilience.   A number of active interventions have been developed in the UK by to improve levels of resilience capacity, through government and charity funding, together with grassroots interventions emergent after a flood and the factors for their success or otherwise will be discussed in relation to the community resilience framework. Further, it is recognised that the concept of resilience is both complex and contested, not just the opposite of vulnerability and the paper will comment on that, specifically in the context of its use by UK government and its agencies.  Finally, the role and impact of “contract” research and the position of researchers within that will be examined through the paper.

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11Jun 2019
CEP attending Our Bright Future Annual Seminar

CEP HELPING LEAD A SESSION ON FINDINGS FROM THE OUR BRIGHT FUTURE MID-TERM EVALUATION REPORT AT ANNUAL SEMINAR on 19 June 2019

CEP’s Owen White is attending this year’s annual Share Learn Improve seminar in Belfast of the Our Bright Future (OBF) programme as part of CEP’s role in the evaluation of the OBF programme.  The seminar brings together all of the youth and environmental projects to discuss and share experiences and good practice in management and delivery.

As part of this seminar, Owen will be contributing to an interactive working session to engage participating projects in the findings of the Mid-Term Programme Evaluation Report, and identify specific actions and next steps for projects and the OBF Programme team.

The evaluation team is led by ERS with CEP and is carrying out the evaluation of the programme between 2016 – 2021. The Programme Evaluation seeks to identify, analyse and assess:

  • the collective impact of the portfolio of 31 projects;

  • the added value of the Programme i.e. what value has been derived from a programme with the Share Learn Improve, Policy and Youth Function and from the development of an Our Bright Future network/movement;

  • whether the Programme has achieved its long-term ambitions; and

  • best practice and lessons learnt, and provide evidence and guidance to support Programme learning and development.

Please contact Owen White (Technical Director) for more information.

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10Jun 2019
CEP running EEA workshop on urban sustainability

CEP DELIVERING WORKSHOP IN COPENHAGEN TO SUPPORT EEA’S ASSESSMENT OF URBAN SUSTAINABILITY

For the first time, the European Environment Agency (EEA) will be explicitly addressing urban sustainability in the European Environment State and Outlook Report for 2020 (SOER 2020). As part of CEP’s current framework contract with the EEA on forward-looking analysis, sustainability assessments and systemic transitions CEP, in partnership with LSE Cities, cChange and University of Utrecht, is undertaking a third contract to support urban sustainability assessments, building on previous contracts.

Specifically the project will deliver nexus analysis for urban sustainability assessments and  prepare a first draft of the 2020 Environmental Sustainability in Cities (ESIC) Report. Another important aim of this project is to develop an urban sustainability meta-analysis exercise of the drivers of urban sustainability transitions.

On Wednesday 26th June, CEP’s Ric Eales and Rolands Sadauskis together with partners from LSE Cities are running a one-day workshop in Copenhagen involving experts form EEA and European Topic Centres to facilitate their input to the ongoing work.

For more information please contact Rolands Sadauskis (Senior Consultant).

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7Jun 2019
CEP at Flood & Coast 2019 conference

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross (CEP) a panel member at the 2019 Flood and Coast conference.

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross will be presenting, on 18 June 2019, a short paper on community resilience to flooding at the 2019 Conference panel session Climate change – how do we overcome the physical, political & societal barriers to meet the challenge.  The other members of the panel are:  

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Convened by the Environment Agency, the Flood & Coast conference 2019 is a unique event that advances the debate about flood and coast erosion risk, resilience and response between government bodies and local authorities with business, major infrastructure and asset managers, as well as affected communities. 

For more information please contact Dr Clare Twigger-Ross (Technical Director).

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21May 2019
CEP delivering EKN training

Incorporating natural capital and ecosystem services into environmental assessments: Exploring best practice

Two dates for this course in 2019:

  • 26th June 2019, Leeds (Coth Hall Court, LS21 2HA).

  • 27th November 2019, Central London (Cotton Centre, SE1 2QG)

This course, which is now in its third year, will equip you to inform clients or colleagues on the merits of including the ecosystem services and natural capital concepts in environmental assessment processes. There is now strong interest in what ecosystem services, natural capital and nature-based solutions mean for Environmental Impact Assessment, Strategic Environmental Assessment and Sustainability Appraisal.  The course is delivered by Dr Bill Sheate and Spela Kolaric of Collingwood Environmental Planning and organised by the Ecosystems Knowledge Network.

Find out more and book at: https://ecosystemsknowledge.net/events/training-environmental-assessment

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