Guy S |
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The UK Social Innovation Camp was set up last year as “an experiment in creating social innovations for the digital age.” Now an annual event, it basically brings together self-styled ‘web geeks’, social entrepeneurs and funders, to generate possible new solutions to social problems. The ideas generated at the Camp are invariably sparky, fun, creative, and sometimes brilliant. This year, a number of the entries are of direct relevance to Crags and the climate movement.
Check out, for instance, the Carbon Co-op proposal (http://www.sicamp.org/?page_id=268), which (like Crags) was an unsuccessful entrant to the Big Green Challenge, and has now approached the Social Innovation Camp to give its idea an airing. It addresses the fact that renewable microgeneration is still too expensive for individual households to buy, and proposes that neighbourhoods pool their resources to invest in community microgen. It’s a simple yet elegant idea. In Islington Crag, we thought about putting the cash in our ‘carbon penalty pool’ towards just such an investment, but decided in the end to donate the money to charities. (Perhaps this year Islington Crag will revisit the idea?). I’ve also previously spoken to Sunday Times journalist John-Paul Flintoff, who was keen on the idea of a forming a renewables cooperative, and tried to do so in his home borough. Perhaps the time has come for the idea to be looked at again. Of course, if a Feed-In Tariff takes off in the UK, as DECC Minister Ed Miliband has recently promised, then there hopefully won’t be a need for such co-ops – the technology will become much more affordable for ordinary households.
Another entry to this year’s Social Innovation Camp is Footsie (http://www.sicamp.org/?page_id=287), a proposal which aims to help businesses engage their employees in cutting carbon. Staff are to be encouraged to take part in friendly competition to see who can cut most carbon. Sound familiar? It’s not exactly carbont trading, but these guys might like to talk to our Craggers in WSP Environmental or ECOTEC, and have a look at BT’s Carbon Clubs…
It’ll be interesting to see if either of these proposals receive awards and funding at the Social Innovation Camp finals (5th-7th December).