Climate change: what's your story?

It’s time you found out how climate change will impact on your organisation, says Kate Damiral.

You’ve probably seen the controversial advert featuring a dad telling his daughter a bedtime story about a world in which climate change has run out of control. It’s a grim picture, and with the UN Copenhagen climate summit in the headlines, we’ve all been asked to think about what sort of world we’re going to be living in 20 or 50 years down the road.

One thing’s for sure: the climate is changing and we’ll need more than a bit of extra sunblock to cope.

Have you considered what this new climate will mean for your organisation? Imagine trying to operate in a future in which flooding is a constant threat, heat waves become ever more intense, fuel prices go through the roof and climate refugees swell the UK population by an extra 10 or 15 million people. Consider the extra challenges your beneficiaries or cause will have to struggle with, just to get on with daily life.

How will your services need to change in order to cope with this new reality? A bit of thinking and planning now could save lives later and prevent your organisation from becoming overwhelmed.

New view

We need a whole new way of thinking about climate change. Most of us still view it as an environmental issue to do with recycling, light bulbs and air travel. But we need to realise that it’s actually an immense humanitarian challenge, with vulnerable and disadvantaged people likely to be most affected, even in this country, because they have less capacity to adapt to these changes.

This has huge implications for our sector. As an organisation working for social change or for a more civil or active society, this new climate has the potential to significantly change what you do and who you do it for.

Once you start thinking about the implications, it can all seem overwhelming. But it is possible – and imperative – for organisations to confront this issue and properly plan ahead. Exploring the likely climate trends now will put you in the picture so that you can begin to find solutions to the challenges you’ll face.

First response

Recently, four charities operating in the UK took part in ‘The Big Response’, a project to help them understand the potential impacts of climate change on their beneficiaries and work. The project, delivered by Global Action Plan, Green Alliance and NCVO, supported the organisations in taking time to weigh up these challenges and deciding how to respond.

Each of the organisations held a workshop to explore how their service users might be affected by our changing climate. Over the following months, they also chose to look at several other areas, such as the impact these trends would have on their operations, how to build findings from the project into their organisational strategy, and options for engaging different groups of people on this question, both internally and externally. The participants also had the option of an environmental audit to identify ways of reducing their carbon footprint.

The discoveries during the project were wide-ranging and significant. For example:

• Equinox Care learned that more intense heat waves and localised drought could make it difficult to administer the methadone that is critical to its beneficiaries. The British Red Cross recognised that there is a risk that it could become overwhelmed by the number and scale of climate-related emergencies in the UK.
• Friends of the Elderly learned that some of its care homes are in areas that will have a high risk of flooding by 2020.
• The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) has realised that severe climate-led immigration may lead to the largest increase in demand for its services since it was established in 1868.

All four organisations explored a wide range of implications for their work and the individuals they support. They were able to identify the most important and pressing areas and build their responses into strategic planning and business continuity processes.

Each participating organisation has chosen to respond to the challenges they identified in a range of ways. For instance, Equinox Care is going to encourage others in its specialist area to address climate change and will expand the help it offers service users to understand the issues and develop coping strategies.

For its part, the British Red Cross is now considering a range of strategic responses to help people cope with heat waves and flooding, and is building new relationships with other players.Friends of the Elderly will make sure climate-change impacts shine through its risk-management processes, and is sharing its new understanding of these issues throughout the organisation. Finally, RNIB has formed a Carbon Working Group, bringing together staff from across the organisation to champion its response to climate change.

Next steps

You may well be thinking: ‘That’s great, but where does my organisation start?’ Probably the best thing to do is to allow some time for your trustee board and senior managers to get to grips with the possible extent of the climate trends we’ll experience in the UK. Sharing ideas about the new or changing needs you may face and how your operations will be affected is an essential first step.

As Liz Hendry, senior strategy officer at the British Red Cross, reflects: ‘If I had some advice for other organisations, I’d say be open-minded about where addressing this issue might lead and the opportunities you may discover.’

No matter what your cause, it’s likely that the changing climate will bring new needs and new beneficiaries to your door. So if your organisation is to succeed in the future, ignoring climate change just isn’t an option. Your organisation needs to understand these coming trends and work out how it will be affected.

‘We have to do something in relation to [environmental] sustainability to continue to deliver the work we do. There’s no doubt about it,’ says Brian Watts, chief executive of Equinox.

Act sustainably

And while considering the impact our changing climate will have on your organisation, it’s still important to make sure that your operations are as environmentally friendly as possible.

Experts tell us that the next three to four years are critically important if climate change is not to become catastrophic and unstoppable across the globe, and we all have a part to play to prevent that happening.

Reducing your carbon footprint will help your organisation to:

• minimise its role in making climate change worse; 
• save money; 
• satisfy new funder requirements on environmental performance;
• improve your reputation with supporters, who might be looking for ‘green’ credentials.

Every action you take is valuable, so don’t dismiss your efforts to green your office as unimportant. If your organisation needs a bit more motivation on this front, why not take part in the 10:10 campaign to reduce your organisation’s CO2 emissions by 10 per cent this year? Find out more at www.1010uk.org.

It’s your choice

However your organisation opts to respond to climate change, it’s your decision. Your responsibility remains to put the needs of your beneficiaries or cause first, while acting sustainably.

Every voluntary and community organisation must face up to the realities of climate change so that we can make the best decisions for supporting those we exist to serve into the future.

As Richard Furze, chief executive of Friends of the Elderly, reflects: ‘I don’t think that a charity can take on environmental things as a separate mission: it’s got to be part of who we are.'

Next steps

Once you’ve identified the likely needs that you’ll face, there are several ways you could respond:

• You could start planning to meet these emerging needs or you may want to revisit the scope of your work in the light of these changes, and perhaps redefine your mission.
• You might have a role to play encouraging others in your field or local area to take climate change seriously too, so that your beneficiaries aren’t harmed further.
• You may need to advocate more to defend your beneficiaries’ interests as the government’s attention gets caught up by other climate-change concerns and as budgets in this area tighten.
• You might decide that the threat of unrestricted climate change to your cause is so great that your organisation should advocate for lower carbon emissions, to prevent the situation worsening. For example, you could encourage your service users, partners or peers to reduce their carbon footprint, or join a collaborative campaign such as Stop Climate Chaos.

You’ll find more tips to guide you on the choices you could make on the NCVO website, along with further information about The Big Response participants’ experiences.

Find out more

Look out for further information at www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/climatechange. NCVO’s Third Sector Foresight website also provides information and support on other major trends likely to affect our sector: www.3s4.org.uk

*image by woodleywonderworks