Driving Consensus and United Action for the Norfolk Climate Change Partnership
Empowering a local government partnership to agree on action to tackle climate change, together
The Norfolk Climate Change Partnership (NCCP), established in 2020 just before the Covid-19 pandemic, is a coalition of officers and members from Norfolk's local authorities, the Broads Authority and the Norfolk Strategic Planning Framework Member Forum. The partnership aims to develop Norfolk as a role model in addressing climate change while protecting and enhancing the natural environment.
See: https://www.norfolkclimatechange.co.uk/
The challenge
Climate change and the transition to Net Zero is a pressing and emotionally charged topic for organisations across both public and private sectors. Achieving consensus on the necessary actions to drive progress is a common challenge. How can organisations foster collaboration and reach agreement on the critical changes needed for real and sustainable action on climate change? How do you unite disparate views to facilitate the hard conversations required for meaningful change?
All members of the partnership possess the will and passion for change, but navigating the complexities of politics, diverse perspectives, and different agendas and priorities within the group can make achieving consensus and mobilising action challenging.
Solution: The Path to Consensus and Action
With the release of findings from two innovative studies commissioned by the NCCP to help deliver sustainable solutions across the county, the imperative for greater collaboration had become a priority.
Recognising the need for additional support in fostering collaboration among members and working closely towards achieving Net Zero, the East of England Local Government Association sought to provide space for councillors and officer teams to collaborate, share best practices, and agree key regional priorities for climate change. The objective was to establish a unified voice and action plan at the regional level.
To accomplish this, the partnership engaged Jo Twiselton, an independent climate change coach and facilitator through Local Government East, to lead a series of workshops. Jo's impartiality and neutrality were instrumental in creating an environment where difficult questions could be asked, and necessary conversations could take place.
“Having a complete outsider come in to facilitate these sessions was really important. Jo was a breath of fresh air with a positive approach. Getting somebody independent to bring people together was a massive plus, providing an outside and neutral perspective, someone not involved or working for any of those councils.” ”
The Process:
The engagement included the following elements:
Planning and information gathering with the core team or steering group
Kick-off workshop
Support in creating the plan, vision, and approach
Follow-up workshops to develop the plan, engage key stakeholders, and shape communications
Workshops involving between 10 and 40 participants
Collaboration with the steering group and subject matter experts for technical content and stakeholder planning and engagement
The Learning:
Through the workshop process, several key insights emerged. It became evident that the partnership's aims and objectives were too broad, preventing effective progress.
“The partnership was formed in January 2020 (pre pandemic) and since then several of its members had evolved their own climate strategies and action plans. Therefore, the time was right to review the partnership’s purpose, priorities and how it would be supported and resourced to enable effective action for Norfolk. The workshops helped us narrow down the key issues and reach a consensus as a partnership. We now have an updated purpose, 3 key strategic themes to collectively focus on and funding for a dedicated partnership manager.””
The Norfolk region is vast with so many competing priorities and different needs and teams who are naturally passionate about delivering the objectives for their own areas. Having the opportunity and space to work through where the strategic themes lie - common to all - that could reignite that collective urgency, was, and remains, essential.
Often, when groups include a wide mix of participants and especially when technical and non-technical contributors are involved, conversations can get stuck or go down ‘rabbit holes’ of detail. When you have someone who is completely independent of the situation (independent of the technology or the internal politics of an organisation) it can help to drive things forward more quickly.
As with all organisations, there are quieter voices rarely heard but with great ideas, insights and inputs, positive or negative, to add. Making sure that their contributions are taken account of, and they are included in both discussions and taking actions forward, really matters.
““Having Jo to bring an independent and different perspective across a diverse stakeholder group ensured that each perspective was listened to and shaped the vision and priorities, which gave the Partnership an agreed and collective way forward.””
The Outcome:
From: we don’t agree on the best way to tackle this ->
To: we’re all on the right track together
The workshop programme successfully advanced the partnership's thinking and plans, shifting from disagreement on the best approach to a united and aligned direction
“When we started people held polarised positions. Now we have a sense of working towards a common goal with shared priorities. We have a foundation to build upon. The proposal went to Norfolk Public Sector Leaders, and funding for the Partnership Manager was approved, showcasing political commitment and our ability to move forward.”
The Norfolk Climate Change Partnership now has a clear set of value-adding priorities for the NCCP working as a collective and has established funding for a dedicated resource to support the constituent organisations to accelerate development and deliver on the respective Net Zero priorities
““Jo is great at bringing people together and getting them to think positively about a key, gnarly issue such as climate change. We needed that positive, independent approach to be able to do anything about the issue we face. Because without it, we’re all just going along, doing our individual things as organisations, which is not going to achieve what we need to achieve, without working together. So, I think her ability to bring people together on such a massive issue is key and definitely required.””
““From a personal perspective, I’ve really enjoyed working with Jo because she actually makes it fun, and makes you want to be engaged with her because she’s very personable. But she can also be quite challenging when she needs to be but not in a way that you realise that she’s being challenging. There are merits in having someone like Jo who’s got a very different approach that can bring people along.””
Client: Norfolk Climate Change Partnership (NCCP) and Local Government East
Dates: August 2022 to May 2024
If you have a challenge that you need your team to work through and an independent approach could really help you to get unstuck, get in touch