1. Engagement of and support to the third sector to take action on
climate change
Scope of paper
This paper provides a briefanalysis of the support available in Wales for the third
sectorto take action on climate change, in particular the support for non-engaged,
non-environmental organisations. The aim of this analysis is to informthe
Commissionabout WCVA‟s experience in this area1, the issues identified and
recommendations for next steps.
WCVA asks the Commissionto consider the issues and support further analysis2 to
feed into the Climate Change Commission‟s Annual Report.
Third sector and climate change
The third sector has a crucial role to play in tackling climate change.Third sector
organisations and groups need to understand what these impacts will be, how they
will impact on the people and communities they support and consider what needs to
be done to address these impacts. The third sector needsto be supported to do this.
The sector then needs to be supported in taking suitable actions. Areas of action
include:
• Develop the infrastructure and social capitol that supports behaviour change and
sustainable living
• Support behaviour change in way that clearly links to the issues the beneficiariesand
communities already care about as trusted intermediaries
• Protect or support it‟s beneficiaries to cope with the changing weather patterns and
extreme events
• Reduceorganisational carbon footprint contributing to Wales 3% reduction target
• Campaign for a more sustainable future, including consideration of social justice
issues within policy and support
There is huge potential for the third sector to tackle climate change, both in the size of
the sector and its breadth in areas of interest. The variety of the third sector ranges
from local community groups active in climate change e.g. Transition groups, groups
of volunteers supporting energy reduction, through to national organisations and
1
includes work with Climate Change Leadership Group, events held across Wales, evidence/research
reports, work with networks and engagement with other key stakeholders
2
Further analysis could include Round Table Discussion with key stakeholders to be held in November
supported by Commissioner and Commission secretariat; additional mapping of support provided by
agencies across Wales
1

2. networks interested in areas such as children‟s rights (see Annex A for details of third
sector). Categorisation can also be made as “communities of interest” (organisations
acting on a particular area of interest, for example older peoples‟ welfare) and
“communities of place”(organisations working with a place based focus e.g. CVCs,
development trusts, Communities 1st).
The scale of challenge of climate change requires that all areas of the third sector are
all engaged and supported to take action, not just environmentalorganisations working
in their local area. It is particularly important that the organisations which support the
groups most vulnerable to climate change are engaged in order to help facilitate a just
transition to a low carbon Wales and ensure that the already disadvantaged are not
disproportionately impacted.
Scale of action in third sector
Environmental organisations in the third sector are already doing a lot of work to
tackle the impacts of climate change and mitigating future damage. There are
however, no comprehensive figures on the scale of this activity in Wales.
WCVAfiguresidentify 33,087 organisations, branches or groups in the third sector
(July 2012). Of these, 1,637 are classed as having an interest in the environment
(biodiversity, conservation, sustainable development). This is approximately 4% of
the third sector.This highlights the large scale of potential activity on climate change
within the third sector fornon-engaged, non-environmental organisations.
It is not clear how from our categorisation many of these environmental organisations
are taking action on climate change or how many non-environmental organisations
are also taking action. WCVA is unable to identify alternative sources of this
information although there are pockets which hold relevant information. For example,
local infrastructure organisations (CVCs), national resources (Welsh Government
/Environment Wales/Ground Work/Cynnal) andprojects (Pathfinders). There are also
some local projects whichhave already mapped activities which offer an insight to
what could be achieved. E.g. Cardiff Transition‟s Sustainable Cardiff map
http://cardifftransition.com/mapping
Recommendation
1. Work with agencies to identify the scale of action across the third sector via
collating existing sources of information and identifying where further data
collection is required.
Support for action on climate change
Generic support for the third sector to take action can be classified as including:
• information (meaningful and accessible)
• capacity building and training
• networking
• grants/funding
2

3. • development (tailored, ongoing support development support and
advice that deepens with progression)
• voice (local and national)
This range of support needs to be available for the thirdsector to access at the point
when it‟s needed for any givenorganisation‟sparticular journey.This should include
non-engaged, non-environmentalorganisationswanting to know how they can take
first steps to tackling climate changethrough to environmentalorganisations
undertaking complex behaviour change projects.
Meaningful engagement for non-engaged and non-environmental organisations
Research by the Green Alliance, „New Times New Connections‟ identified that
for those third sector organisations that are interested in climate change, many are at
the very initial stages of understanding what climate change means for them and
finding ways to support that process is vital. This needs to be meaningful
engagement -not just greening their approach (reducing carbon) but also identifying
the intrinsic links between their motivations for doing so and their core work.
Their identified success factors for meaningful engagement and action by third sector
on climate change are:
:
The research suggests that umbrella organisations are ideally placed to jump start
the process of organisations understanding the relevance of climate change to their
work. They can make the links betweenclimate change and core missions and
engage their members with the impacts and opportunities in the context of issues
they care about and in a language that resonates. In light of their potential to cascade
mobilisation, any support for organisations in understanding the relevance of climate
change to different issues should prioritise umbrella bodies.
There are a number of models of meaningful engagement that would be replicated.
NCVO Vulnerable Groups project; Cynnal Cyrmu's work with arts and community
councils umbrella organisations; WCVA‟s work with the Climate Change Leadership
3

4. Group, Equalities and Human Rights Coalition and Policy Events on Building
Resilient Communities. The Development Officers of the Supporting Sustainable
Living Grant are currently exploring projects for third sector interest umbrella
organisations and their networks, for example, One Voice Wales.
This is an approach that currently does not appear to receive appropriate and
sustained consideration through any existing agencies in Wales. WCVA has
provided some from its core services3; however this is not sufficient for the scale of
the third sector that could be engaged to take action.
WCVA is using this recommended priority of working with umbrella
organisationsthrough the Third Sector Partnership Council members4 . WCVA want
to be able to recommend and direct these umbrella organisations to the support that
is needed to have meaningful engagementas detailed above.
Recommendations:
2. Discussion with delivery agencies to identifyexisting support programmes
which could meet the identified success factors for engaging the non-
environmental third sector. E.g. Welsh Government‟s Engagement Strategy
3. Consider the development of additional programmes and projects to fill the
gaps.
Grants
Grants are an essential aspect of support for organisations to take action on climate
change. There are a range of types of grants that could be offered. These include:
small amounts of money which are non-prescriptive
funding which comes with development support
funding which is highly prescriptive in its requirements
Current funding for action on climate change from the Welsh Government is the
„Supporting Sustainable Living Grant‟. Our brief analysis suggests that it supports
innovative and valuable behaviour change projects which currently focus on carbon
reduction. It primarily supports third sector organisations that are environmental and
already engaged in climate action or have received considerable development officer
support.
Environment Wales offers a very successful grant and support programme which
does include climate change projects. As it is currently resourced, it does not have the
capacity to support the scale of action required. It also not currently structured to meet
Support includes the Climate Change Leadership Group, Information Sheets, Case Studies, events
3
and training.
4
TSPC funding to support networks would include need for organisation to reduce carbon footprint and
disproportionate information on climate change to network. Offer a support package for
umbrella/networks help with this work.
4

5. the needs of entire third sector, particular non - environmental groups wanting to take
action to explore links with core activities.
It therefore appears as if there is no funding available for organisations who want to
take initial, demand led, often small simple actions on climate change.Welsh
Government previously provided the Climate Change Grant which offered this. Its
evaluation report highlightsorganisations taking a variety of projects, most from non-
environmental, previously non engaged organisations. It provided a highly cost
effective approach to supporting action on climate change.
Recommendation
4. Welsh Government provides a grantscheme which supports demand led action
by organisations who want to take demand led, small actions on climate
change.
Mapping of support for third sector to tackle climate change
Through WCVA‟s Climate Change Leadership Group5and work with our stakeholders,
we have identified that:
There is no clear route for developing action on climate change. The services
available are viewed as a patchwork of differential support rather than an
easily accessible and progressive pathway which is demand led.
There is no direct, easily accessible support for larger non environmental third
sector organisations and networks wanting to reduce their carbon footprint
understand impacts on their beneficiaries and integrate climate change into
their work programmes.
The groups most vulnerable to climate change are unaware of the support
already available; and where there is support, it is not available in a way that
is meaningful to them.
The majority of the support appears to be for environmental,place based
organisations already taking action on climate change.
There is a need to work with key partners and delivery agencies to identify their
current support to develop a detailed and accurate map of support for climate change
action in Wales.This needs to include analysis of the type of third sector organisation
and action the support is targeted at.
Recommendation:
5. Work with key stakeholders and delivery agencies to develop a
comprehensive map of support for third sector actions on climate change.
5
WCVA established a third sector leadership group on climate change in 2009 to involve
organisations from the across the sector in addressing the implications of climate change within their
organisations. A key aim was to focus on the engagement of the “non –environmental” third sector to
identify what works and how to further support the sector to engage with climate change.
5

6. Engagement and Behaviour Change
The Climate ChangeEngagement Strategy is identified in Welsh Government‟s
Annual Report as the key strategy for supporting thethirdsector totake action on
climate change.Behaviour change is defined within the strategy as achieving explicit
behaviour goals through social psychology techniques. The Climate Change
Leadership Group has raised some potential issues about applying this approach the
third sector these include:
The third sector is unlikely to treat climate change as a priority without
intervention. They therefore need to be lead and supported to take action if
they are to be successfully mobilised to change behaviour6.
Climate change engagement is not just about delivering behaviour change.
Behaviour change should be viewed as one of the key outcomes from climate
change engagement, not as the sole methodology for engagement.
The Welsh Government‟s Engagement Strategy does not appear to support
areas of meaningful engagement and action on climate as detailed above.
Although social marking is empirically well supported as a method of bringing
about specificbehavioural changes, there are serious limitationswith this
approach to climate changeengagement7
The values approachto engagement and behaviour change8 is more naturally
affiliated to the third sector
The Pathfindersresearch will be important in understanding the capacity and
role of thirdsector in behaviour change.
Recommendations
6. Explore how the programmes in the Engagement strategy can be applied to
the third sector, for example the segmentation model.
7. Findings of Pathfinders research to be examined to explore role and capacity
of third sector in behaviours change
8. Evaluation of SSLG to include application in third sector
9. Climate Change Commission tolook at behaviour change in detail at a future
commission meeting
6
CSE (2007) Mobilising individual behaviour change through community initiatives: Lessons for
Climate Change
7
Corner, A., & Randall, A. (2011). Selling climate change? The limitations of social marketing as a
strategy for climate change public engagement. Global Environmental Change, 21(3), 1005-1014.
8
A values approach such as „Common Cause: The Case for Working with Values and Frames‟
6