Practical Solutions: financing sustainability in London

Practical Solutions: financing sustainability in London' was a successful conference hosted by Hackney and Tower Hamlets Friends of the Earth and Hackney Council on Thursday 8th December.

This conference brought together members of sustainability and finance teams to discuss practical solutions to funding environmental sustainability, and was attended by local authority officers from over 10 London boroughs, including Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Islington and Lambeth.

You can find the presentations from the day available to download here, and following, details of all our speakes.

• Philip Monaghan: Securing Buy-in in an Age of Austerity
• Cllr Joe Golberg: Haringey 40:20
• Bevan Jones: Funding Islington's Approach
• Afsheen Rashid: Brixton Low Carbon Zone

You can find photos from the day in our photo gallery.

Speakers

• Councillor Sophie Linden, London Borough of Hackney
Sophie is Hackney's Acting Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for sustainability, crime and anti-social behaviour, and customer services. Sophie will be opening the conference on behalf of Hackney. Sophie has lived in Hackney for over 20 years; she has represented Dalston ward since 2006 and has been a Cabinet Member since 2008.

• Ian Lewis, London Borough of Hackney
Ian Lewis is Hackney's Assistant Chief Executive, Policy and Partnerships, and he will chair the conference. At Hackney, Ian leads on central policy, strategic investment and partnerships, and the Overview and Scrutiny function, as well as chairing the Hackney Council Environmental Sustainability Board.

From February 2006 to April 2011 he was Director of Partnerships, leading on the work of Team Hackney, the Local Strategic Partnership and overseeing expenditure of the Area Based Grant of £52m per annum, using an innovative and award winning strategic commissioning approach. Previously he was head of the Tower Hamlets Partnership and before that gained a wealth of knowledge and experience in the area of education.

• Ray Morgan, Woking Borough Council
Ray is the CEO, and formerly Director of Financial Services at Woking Council. Ray started his career in local government in 1973. He joined Woking Borough Council as Director of Financial Services in April 1989 and was appointed an Executive Director in May 2000. He is a member of the Charted Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and was awarded an OBE in 2007 for his services to Local Government. Ray will be outlining the current situation and challenges around financing sustainability.

• Philip Monaghan, Infrangilis
Philip Monaghan is a writer and strategist in the fields of economic development and environmental sustainability. He is the acclaimed author of the books 'How Local Resilience Creates Sustainable Societies' (out February 2012) and 'Sustainability in Austerity' (2010). Over the past 17 years he has worked with an array of clients and partners including Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council, North East Lincolnshire Council, the European Commission and the UN. Philip is Founder & CEO of Infrangilis. Philip will be looking at securing buy-in for sustainability.

• Councillor Joe Goldberg, London Borough of Haringey
Joe is Haringey's Cabinet Member for Finance and Carbon Reduction. Joe started his career in the union movement before moving into business. He was elected to Haringey Council in January 2009, and went into the Cabinet in May 2010. Joe left his job in business in 2010 to put his skills and experience to use to serve in the Cabinet with responsibilities for Finance and Carbon Reduction. There he has focussed on mitigating the substantial cuts to the Borough's budget by the Tory-led Coalition government, and is leading the charge to make Haringey London's Greenest Borough.

Joe made sure Haringey was the first local authority to sign up to Friends of the Earth's pledge to reduce its carbon emissions by 40% by 2020. It's anticipated that Haringey's carbon-reducing plans could lead to the creation of a green economy in north London that will create up to 15,000 jobs.

• Bob Gilbert, Freelance consultant
Bob is a freelance consultant, and was formerly Director of Sustainability at Islington Council. Bob will be discussing how to engage businesses with sustainability, in relation to the Islington's partnership forum with local businesses. Bob Gilbert has been involved in environmental work for over 30 years including, running an Environmental Studies Department at City and Islington College and serving as Head of Centre at a residential field studies centre for London children. He was a Director with Islington Council for 8 years where he set up its Sustainability Division. He also chairs The Garden Classroom Project, a voluntary organisation working on environmental education projects across Islington and Hackney. Bob has written and broadcast widely on green issues -with urban ecology being a special area of interest- and his next book, The Green London Way, is due for publication in the spring.

• Afsheen Rashid, London Borough of Lambeth
Afsheen is the Brixton Low Carbon Zone Project Officer. She will be talking about how the Brixton Low Carbon Zone grant funding has been used to facilitate the set up of community led initiatives. Afsheen manages the Brixton Low Carbon Zone, one of ten one of ten Low Carbon Zones across London. This is an initiative set up by the Mayor of London and aims to help communities reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20.12% in time for the Olympics. Afsheen has several years experience in implementing behaviour change programmes across London engaging with residents and businesses. Along with having a strong community engagement background Afsheen has successfully run community based social marketing campaigns to foster environmental behaviour. As a behaviour change co-ordinator at London Sustainability Exchange (LSx) Afsheen was recognised for her work on the 'Hinduism and H2O' project when she received an award for social marketing best practice at the national launch of ShowCase 2009. Afsheen was instrumental in setting up the Muslim Women's Collective in Tower Hamlets that seeks to empower women to play an active role in improving the environment. Afsheen is an Associate member of the Institute of Enviroment and Assessment (IEMA).

• Bevan Jones, London Borough of Islington
Bevan is the Low Carbon Partnerships officer at the Islington Climate Change Partnership. He was previously the Climate Change Adaptation Officer at London Borough of Islington and has worked in sustainability in the public sector for over 6 years. He has expertise in climate risk assessment and adaptation as well as sustainability advice and action planning and has worked with a number of private and public sector organisations to develop environmental policy, action plans and strategies.

If you would like any more information, please contact Kate Hand, Coordinator of Hackney and Tower Hamlets Friends of the Earth ([email protected], or on 07703 129344).