83: The Ashden Awards: celebrating local and sustainable energy
Matt and Fraser welcome Nick Lyth, Founder of Green Angel Ventures, and Stephen Hall, Head of Awards at Ashden. The Ashden Awards are given to organisations and businesses that deliver local, sustainable energy schemes with social, economic and environmental benefits - and this year, Fraser was involved in deciding the winners.
Episode transcription
[Music flourish]
Matt: Hello and welcome to Local Zero with Matt and Fraser. Today we've got a spotlight episode on the Ashton Awards.
Fraser: Yes, indeed. In their own words, the Ashton Awards bring publicity, grants and connections to outstanding climate solutions. Whether powering up off grid communities, greening cities or regenerating the natural world, the Our winners work to build a fairer and better zero carbon future.
Matt: Absolutely. And we'll be speaking with Dr. Stephen Hall, head of awards at the Ashton Awards, and also Nick Lyth, founder and president of Green Angel Ventures Limited, to discuss how award programs like this help to drive forward the great work we're seeing at the local level.
Fraser: Take a minute to find and follow us on X (Twitter) to get involved with discussions there.
Also, if you have any episode suggestions or you would like to speak about your work in the climate change or energy sector, why don't you email us at localzeropod@gmail.com.
Matt: Fraser, another busy week, another busy fortnight. What's been on your radar?
Fraser: There've been a few nice things from Ofgem. I don't know if you've seen them, Matt.
Don't get me wrong, personally, nothing's happened. This is, this is life, just waiting for Ofgem announcements.
Matt: Yeah, when I ask you and your, your, your go to is Ofgem regulator. It is, it's, it's testament to how boring our lives have become. Yeah, but please go ahead.
Fraser: I will, I will. So a couple of things, a couple of interesting things came down from Ofgem.
The first thing is they announced the development or the decision to develop regional energy strategic planners. Now what that is is basically a body that will sit within the future system operator. It will be the remit of the future system operator, and that will support local regions. They estimate between 10 and 13 of these regions across the UK to have more democratic input into the development of the energy system.
So local authorities, combined authorities, other local stakeholders and networks, the regional energy strategic planners will help sort of bring those, those bodies together, those stakeholders together to develop strategic energy plans to help, you know, unlock some of the bigger opportunities of, of net zero.
Matt: And the context is important here. So obviously we're talking about UK's energy regulator, Ofgem. We're also talking about the future system operator will be a new stakeholder that will sit there to essentially help coordinate the changes that we're going to have to see in terms of our net zero energy system, particularly here under Ofgem's remit of pipes and wires.
Um, but As you say, the future system operator would sit at a very sort of national level and here we're actually having to start to, you know, where the rubber meets the road and these these local and regional plans, um, this sounds very exciting and hopefully, you know, given the context and concept of this pod, puts a bit more power back in the pockets of local stakeholders.
Fraser: I think so. I think so. Now in the, in the Ofgem decision, in the announcement last week or two weeks ago as this recording is released. There was a lot of guidance on the plans for what this body will do. So it will help ensure sort of consistency in regional energy planning. It will help support engagement between the likes of local authorities and energy networks to make sure they're all working towards that shared strategic regional goal.
But there was While there is a lot of sort of rough high level guidance, there still needs to be a lot of lot of detail. And I think this is where the key inputs will be over over the next sort of few few months or so is fleshing out exactly what that looks like to fully enable the value on offer from a more regional perspective. to, to energy governance and decision making.
Matt: Well, we look forward to hearing more about that. And if anybody's listening from off general, I'm sure we'll be, we'd love to have you along to talk a bit more about this. Uh, it's big news. It's not as big as the carbon brief quiz, which we had, um, almost a couple of weeks ago now, but, um, we, uh, took to, uh, Took, took to the quiz with a team from the university of Strathclyde, which was known as a deep Clyde Mars bar.
Um, and that's good. That's my terrible puns. I'll take complete responsibility for that. Um, we did all right at halftime. We were pushing for Europe, um, sort of in the top quarter by halftime, sorry, by full time. I think a couple of the shanties had taken, taken their toll and, uh, we, we were sitting in the top half.
We were respectable. Um, but the winners out of a hundred questions, a hundred answers. 96 out of a hundred to give you some sense of the scale of difference. The runners up had something like 65 now. Even if I had an open book for this quiz and I could Google to my heart's content, which of course you're not meant to, I could not, I, me plus another five of me could not get 96 out of a hundred.
Um, so well done them. Who do you
have it to hand Matt? Who won with 96?
I'd have to pull it out. I think it was a team from India who were international research team. So I will pull that out and get it in the show notes. Cause it was cool. Genuinely impressive. Yeah. So that was some good news. Some bad news bills rising again.
So we've seen in the UK and I don't know our international counterparts who listen to this, the situation abroad would be really interested to hear more about that. But energy bills are going up again, 5 percent uh, in the next price cap. So that will be from January nudging 2000 again, which is not welcome news.
Fraser: No, not at all. Not at all. And again, a little bit of context before the crisis sort of fully bit. In sort of 2020, 2021, we were talking about energy bills of eight, 900 pounds on average. They cranked up to 1200 when we started to get a little panicky at near 2000 is still absolutely untenable, especially with the cost of everything else, right?
It's not just energy bills. Food prices are up. Everything, everything around us is, is up as well. So it's a really tricky situation and we're not entirely clear. in previous years, or certainly last winter, we had a decent chunk of support for people to make sure that things didn't completely boil over.
It doesn't look like we're getting the same this year, which is a bit worrying.
Matt: You're right. And I think for some bizarre reason this just isn't in the news like it was last year. And I think it's this sense of shifting baselines again, where people have become a bit numb to the cost of things. But as you say, They're numb, not, not in terms of they don't feel it.
They're just almost punch drunk from it. And, and as you say, other things are occupying the inbox. Like if your energy bills come down, but your mortgage has doubled or tripled, um, then, you know, [00:07:00] You can kind of see why one is shunting the other, but it's, it's the amalgamation of all of these costs together.
I really do think this winter is going to be worse than last, um, on, on average for your average home.
Fraser: I think so. Yeah, it's, it's not, it's not to depress listeners at all. I think it's, it's important that we highlight the reality of it. And it's also important to, again, context. is previously you were starting from a baseline where cost of living hadn't skyrocketed, energy bills and subsequently debt on energy bills hadn't skyrocketed yet.
We're now in a much worse place going into the winter as, as people are now looking to turn their heating on if they can afford to. Uh, we're now sort of way, sort of, We've backslid much further down the hill than, than where we started at before. So it is, it's, it's worrying. But there is, I guess, there's, there's some stuff happening around it that we might get a little bit of clarity on soon, hopefully sooner rather than later.
So things like the social tariff, where you might provide a sort of progressive tariff based on income or any other number of measures that can help provide a little bit of extra support going forward. That idea has taken hold. The, the NGOs, uh, National Energy Action, Fuel Bank Foundation, and dozens of others have kind of gotten behind that idea, and it seems to have gained a bit of traction.
Another thing that's happening just now is the review of stand in charges. So the stand in charges on your meter, that kind of daily charge that you pay regardless of the energy that you use. They do. And if you're on a prepayment meter, even if you haven't been able to afford to top up your meter, you've had nothing switched on for two weeks.
That two weeks worth of standing charges is there when you eventually can afford to top up and it gobbles up all your money. So there's work happening, I guess, a little bit around the edges just now, but we really need some, some dedicated action. And I know you've been a big advocate, Matt, of that sort of mid to longer term thinking as well around things like retrofit energy efficiency, right?
Matt: Well, yes. And again, we're, you know, We could have made many of the changes we needed, not just in terms of in people's homes, but the policy market conditions that get people into people's homes to retrofit them. And we could have done a lot of that in the last 12, 24 months. And here we are, you know, we're still talking, um, record levels of fuel poverty, um, bills, maybe not as high as they were last year, but certainly eye watering and still.
way above the long term average. And we, we haven't fixed the roof while the sun shone, you know, in all the years that we had of, uh, record lows, you know, in terms of energy bills, and I include even from the mid nineties onwards here, um, we just didn't get our our housing stock fit for purpose. And it, and it's this, this kind of paradox is when, you know, when energy bills are lowest and they're often an indicator of how healthy the economy is, or at least how, you know, um, because energy costs breed inflation elsewhere, maybe how affordable living is. That if energy bills are low and you're in a better position to invest to reduce your energy bills. But if energy bills are low, why would you do that? Because your energy bills are low. So there is this, this paradox and really that's why I think central government is, it's so essential to put in place the regulations, the sticks and the policies, i.e. the carrots to get, to get this fixed. This is a fixable solution in this energy transition. And too often we talk about real kind of moonshot technologies. Whether it's, you know, CCS, Fusion, you've got these big technologies, there's a lot riding on these, depending on who you speak to. Putting loft insulation into somebody's home, or double glazing, this is not rocket science.
And we've got another painful winter to come.
Fraser: Yes, just for the uninitiated, CCS stands for Carbon Capture and storage.
Matt: My, my bad. Yeah, slap on the wrist, jargon alert. Um, okay, but we have one last story Fraser, which I thought might have piqued your interest, which is all about the super rich and the contribution they make to carbon emissions.
So that the kind of the tagline here, I just want to get your, your, your view on this. The richest 1 percent of humanity is responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%. Now, we know the 1%, but there's also kind of the 1 percent of the 1 percent who are the, you know, the billionaires that we often refer to in Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and all the rest.
But given that COP 28 is in the offing, there's something has to give here if, if we're going to be able to tackle climate change, surely.
Fraser: It has to, it absolutely has to. And it's, it's no good, you know, pointing to, to everyone around the world and say, well, you need to change how you, how you do everything, take some responsibility and unquestionably it is.
The 66 percent and and more, I would argue, who are least responsible for those emissions who bear the brunt of all the impacts, right? Or certainly all the worst impacts so far. We talk a lot about when we, you know, when we have storm Babbit and whatever else happens here, we say, you know, climate change is on a doorstep, and it is, but it's been battering those most vulnerable communities globally for years and years now, and it's certainly not not getting any better, which is why it's so frustrating that Every time a cop comes around, despite the enormous work that lots of those representatives from those nations, those, those sort of most effective people in places, the work that they have to do every year to get this matter of climate justice on the table is scandalous because we know, we've known about this.
We've known about this for, for time. And it's not, I guess the other, the other bit of context is when we say 1%, I don't know how it splits out in that article, Matt. I'm relying on your insights here. But 1 percent of humanity covers more people than you think in terms of global north countries, in terms of wealthier people in the global north, sort of mid to high earners in the global north.
There's maybe a few listeners who fall into that category as well, right?
Matt: Very possible. And I think it's about leading by example. But you're right. I mean, I'm, I'm bored personally of, uh, the same, same problem being raised and no real solution. Yeah. being presented to, to tackle this.
Fraser: Commitments that we've made at previous COPs, the several billions, hundreds of billions we were supposed to use to finance loss and damage or the, the counteraction of loss and damage in most affected countries, we're nowhere near where we're supposed to have invested in that over the years collectively, global north wealthier countries.
Um, so it's been on the agenda, we've made agreements and we aren't pushing I think it's, it really, really is. time to stop messing about and making excuses. We, we can't afford to wait. None of us can afford to wait, but especially those, those most affected people in places.
Matt: I couldn't agree more. And before we bring our guests in Fraser, I think it's worth just noting about the Ashton Awards.
Um, you were involved this year with the Ashton Awards now.
Fraser: Yes, yes, I was a judge this year, along with some esteemed colleagues, including some familiar to the pod, so our very own Sir Jeff Hardy, he's not a sir, but Jeff Hardy was one of the other judges, Louise Maddox Evans, lots of other people, a good few other people who do really awesome work in this space.
Matt: And you're sense Your sense of the awards and, uh, I don't know, the prestige because I mean, in climate circles, you know, to have one of these really is a real gong, you know.
Fraser: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well respected, well respected. And the process as well, I would say the process of sort of assessment and evaluation.
Is compared to some other awards I've been involved in, whether receiving or assessing for is really, really robust. I think a credit also and we'll get Stephen and I don't want to inflate his ego too much, but a credit also to the people who work at Ashton. They really know these projects inside out.
They work closely with with the innovators that involved with that includes sort of in the UK and around the world. Um, they, they care deeply about it. And I think that that translates when you see, you know, the, the promotion after the fact and the support that they give throughout projects. So yeah, really cool thing to be involved with.
Glad to have been a part of it.
Matt: And it is so important also, you know, talking, we've just mentioned before that kind of global South, global North split, how the Ashton awards is, is cognizant of the excellent work that's being done across the world. And we've got a fantastic a blend and spread of awards for all manner of different things from all manner of different countries.
Um, so not just a kind of, you know, develop world focus here in terms of, um, you know, however you may frame innovation in that context, but, um, different solutions to fit different lifestyles and places of work across the globe. So I'm really, really looking forward to hearing a bit more about. who the winners were, as well as the other finalists.
So, uh, shall we bring them in?
Fraser: I think so.
Nick: My name's Nick Lyth and I'm president of Green Angel Ventures.
Stephen: I am Stephen Hall. I'm head of awards at Ashton Climate Solutions.
Matt: Nick, Steve, welcome to Local Zero. So today's all about the Ashton Awards and Steve is head of Ashton Awards. I wondered whether you can just bring us and the listeners up to speed with who Ashton are.
What the Ashton Awards are and why they're so important.
Stephen: Ashton has been making awards in climate solutions for over 20 years. The shortest explanation is we made a bet that decentralized energy, decentralized renewable energy was the pathway to energy access in the global south. And we were going to make awards in that and we were going to demonstrate that how these solutions worked, what people and institutions you needed involved and to show how decentralized clean energy could light up areas that had never had clean electricity access or electricity access in the past.
And you could say, I think mission accomplished, you know, the, there's, there's not a lot of people now who will argue that in rural sub Saharan Africa that there's a route out of the energy access challenge where decentralized clean renewable energy is, is not part of the solution. So, once you kind of reach that point where you, you feel like everybody is convinced, do you stop or do you look around and say, well, that's not the climate
emergency sorted. There's, there's all sorts of remaining challenges. Energy access still remains a huge challenge and we'll continue to work in energy access till everybody's got it. But at the same time, we recognise that in the UK we have a broad set of climate challenges. We have challenges for clean energy deployment across the global south and we have challenges to utilize natural systems in a way that's more climate compatible.
And we'll create a healthy living environment. So that's why the Ashton awards continues. And, uh, we're still out there elevating the best of those climate solutions and particularly around kind of bottom up livelihoods, led community, if you like led solutions, but trying to, you know, trying to grow those into the future.
Matt: And I think it's important at this point to say that there is a balance between global North and global South projects.
Stephen: That's right. And we do, yeah, we do have a balance. We make three to four awards in the UK every year and four, five, six awards in, um, the global South every year. And in some, in some cases you can make a strong point that look, these contexts are very different.
The types of investment that's being made very different, the types of solution. Uh, shot through different lenses. There's some real generalities there. There's some real interest across, uh, UK and international award winners that just show that we're all tackling similar challenges. We've all got a similar set of goals to reach.
And I'm really looking forward to telling you a few stories about what happened last week.
Fraser: I wonder then in general, just for, you know, for a bit of color for the listeners, I suppose, if you could talk through, uh, some of the, the key themes of, of the awards this year's and, and I don't know, I don't know if you could pick any, but maybe some of your favorite projects from the, the awards and what, what stood them out within their categories.
Stephen: So we've got two broad themes. So powering a fairer future and growing a regenerative economy. And I'll start, as we did with the award ceremony, with those that are growing a regenerative economy and they're, they're more land based, it's fair to say, and depends which research you read, but somewhere between 20 and 40 percent of the climate challenge is going to be found in the way that we address land, the way that we produce food, the way that we restore or don't restore ecosystems.
So we wanted to point towards that this year, and we did so with three. depending on which category you put them in super exciting winners. So one from the UK was FarmEd, which is a enterprise down in the Cotswolds, which down because I'm in Yorkshire right now, which really stood out to us in our future farmers category that was just sponsored by Garfield Western, because they are training farmers of today.
So it will come as no surprise to you that the farmers of today are Advancing in years and it's not a sector that's attracting a lot of new youth into it and there are high barriers to entry. So we were really impressed by the way that FarmEd are challenging the way farming is currently done and locking carbon back up in the soil as well as benefiting biodiversity.
So they've got a hugely wonderful story to tell about how you address the green skills challenge in land. We awarded Thames 21 and Enfield City Council who are using natural flood management to mitigate the impacts of climate change, so adapt to climate change, but also to create beautiful water meadows and tree planting and meanders in urban and peri urban parks around Enfield.
And I encourage anyone who's, um, shooting down to London to go and visit one of those. And finally, in the growing and regenerative economy category, we awarded CERAF Nord from the north of Cameroon and CERAF are facing Incredible challenges. You know, this area of Cameroon is facing challenges from terrorism, from militant groups.
It's facing inter community conflict over land from pastoralist and settled livelihoods, and it has a large protected national park right next door on a very low income area. So there's motivations for people in that area to have livelihoods that are linked to poaching and all kinds of things that you would normally So that are not compatible with ecosystem restoration and a climate safe future and yet CERAF Nord have found a way to work with communities to Mitigate some of those tensions through climate compatible livelihoods ways in which people can keep these plant trees and create products like shea butter in a way that is clearly coming from the bottom up and Isn't, you know, sort of international NGOs or anyone else, like pointing out how this should be done, but it's done from the bottom up.
And in all of those examples, that's true.
Matt: It's important as well, before we hear from Nick, just to outline what you mean by bottom up. If you had to explain to, you know, somebody from outer space who just landed, what, what aren't, what do we mean by bottom up and what is not bottom up?
Stephen: I think we mean people who are affected by the solutions that they're creating.
So it doesn't always have to be. You know, someone who's lived in that community for all of their lives. Um, it can very much be people who are intersecting with those areas, with those spaces, with those sectors, but it's something that is sensitive and responsive to local context developed by people who are also sensitive to and affected by those local contexts.
So that's not like a super well hardened definition, but you know it when you see it. You know that people have I mean, one of our examples that I'll speak about in a minute in the energy side, you know, moved from Nairobi to Kakuma in Kenya just to do a better job of providing clean cooking to refugees.
That's a bottom up solution to me, somebody who's taken that challenge on themselves and has done it within the community that they're serving.
Matt: So this doesn't necessarily mean community owned, these might be private limited companies that are set up for profit. They're just doing something which is tackling a local issue and he's kind of placed based in some, some sense or other.
Stephen: Yeah, that's right. And, uh, predominantly we have commercial interests throughout the Ashton awards. It's just, we can recognise those that are able to scale that are also not going to have perverse incentives down the road because they haven't listened to the communities around them.
Matt: I do want to to hear more about the award winners, but I know there were quite a number of them.
So if you just permit me, we'll come back to some of those stories because I know listeners will be very keen to hear this, but Nick, how important are award schemes like Ashton in terms of profiling the problems, but also identifying the solutions?
Nick: I think they're very important, Matt. Um, I mean, uh, before I go any further, I would just like to pay tribute to Ashton.
Uh, 20 years, it has been going. for 20 years, and it's been aimed at the most important problems that are facing our world. Uh, and it's, it's in many ways unsung, uh, and it, it deserves much more credit than it gets, in my view. Lest this becomes too much of an echo chamber, I, I would say that while wanting to reinforce everything that Ashton's doing, It actually exposes a fundamental problem.
And I, this isn't a criticism, Stephen, it really isn't because I don't think Ashton is in a position to address this fundamental problem. What Ashton is doing is exactly as you said, Matt, it is highlighting some of the problems. So if you take what Stephen just, just described as the three companies that did well, uh, last week, um, the, the, the reality is that, um, Terms 21 and Farm Ed are both doing things which must be done.
We don't have a choice, you know, uh, ecosystem regeneration is absolutely central. That means that the, particularly the agricultural north, must start to address the damage it has done. Put that right and start using its processes to do good. The flood, frankly, the flood, uh, I mean, the flood is much more a flood control is much more about adaptation and mitigation.
Uh, and that is trying to help us cope with the damage that is already baked in as a result of. Um, global warming and the climate change that is coming for us. So what Ashton is doing there is taking people who are working in those areas and supporting them, uh, in a completely constructive way. But what must come Out of that is what happens beyond, which is to start to generate commercial viability.
CERAF Nord is, is, is hugely difficult. Once again, I think Stephen is, Ashton is doing something that's incredibly valuable. Community based bottom up, projects, uh, have this huge challenge of making the bridge from something that is entirely philanthropic or public sector supported into something that is commercially viable.
I wouldn't change the direction Ashton is moving in at all. I think its contribution to the, uh, the challenges that we're all trying to address is huge. What's needed is is more and part of what I'm doing is trying to trying to provide the more.
Stephen: It's definitely the case that some of these, um, some of the training endeavors are difficult to find commercial cases for, but I'll give you, I'll give you this lovely little story.
So we had CERAF Nord come to us and we introduced them to investors. We introduced CERAF to, uh, philanthropy and a big new network. And we think we've done well by them and we'll continue to work with them. Carbon market and the biodiversity market was a new thing to gyrus, so didn't, you know, had heard about it, maybe didn't think it would really apply to them.
And despite the fact that they are restoring thousands of hectares of, uh, protected areas in the north of Cameroon. So it's just unaware of the, uh, potential to tap into and access that market in spite of the fact that they're doing everything that you would hope to see in, uh, an offset project. In that it's community focused, community directed, and is going to last longer because of it, and we call that a livelihoods led approach.
So there's a whole new revenue stream there that they aren't tapping. And one of the other winners I'll speak about is tapping carbon markets, and he's doing so in the UK, but they're, they're a small amount of project revenues, whereas this would be a much larger proportion. Of the revenues that they're used to observing and then secondly and it seems like a very small thing but uh charis, I don't know.
He quite got it through airport security must have gone in his hand luggage But he brought us some honey from CERAF. He decided at the end of the week that he wanted to visit spamed and One of the things that stood out massively was just how stunned he was by the price. We'll sell honey for Local honey in the uk so it's not It's not that these markets and commercial viability don't exist.
This is just not, they're not proximate in space and time. So if we were able to bring new markets to Cameroon or Cameroon to new markets, then we would find commercial viability in some of these products. It's just that that doesn't, those pathways don't quite yet exist. And if we were better able to reach, um, bottom up projects with What I call economic parlance, fictitious markets for carbon, for biodiversity, for adaptation.
To communities that haven't heard of them and don't have the sort of depth of institutions to verify them and go through the metrics and methodologies. Then we would find two new revenue streams that they're not used to seeing. And what we're trying to do is do that for every natural climate solutions winner that we Identify and in some ways it's a real shame that these, these revenues aren't finding their way to the projects on the ground, but in other ways, it sort of proves that we need to, um, get stuck in and get our hands dirty and make sure that people who do want to invest in these things can find the right projects to do so.
Fraser: So I think Stephen, I think you've touched on a really important point there. And I think Nick's point about that kind of the connecting the bottom up to the scalability is important. But another side of that is that. And I guess this is this is more my own opinion than anything, but it doesn't necessarily an innovation doesn't necessarily have to be scalable to be impactful, right?
Or to be effective. It can be an innovation that works specifically for one place, but maybe some of the value in terms of scalability. comes out of sharing learnings and knowledge and sharing processes or networks. Is this, it sounds like Stephen, but is this something that shakes out of the Ashton Awards process every year?
Stories like Jarvis.
Stephen: 100%. Last year we awarded ASRI in Indonesia. Um, and I'm not going to try and say the name because it's been recorded and I'll make a, I'll make a mess of it, but ASRI is an acronym. And One of the things that came out for CERAF and for ASRI in the same category sponsored by now Desnes in natural climate solutions was that they listened to the people that they serve.
So in ASRI in Indonesia, they have what they dub an, uh, a listening approach, which went into the community that was, doing illegal logging in a really big biodiversity and carbon sequestration hotspot. And they didn't start with let's stop logging. They started with, you know, what does your livelihood look like?
They spoke to the women in the community. So what do you need? Um, I think they started with healthcare provision, uh, and then through gaining the trust by actually delivering on the ground, they were able to then say, well, what is it? That your husbands might need to do something other than logging in. It was the husbands.
It's clearly gender divided and one of the things they came back with. Well, look, we've put, we've sunk a lot of money into the chainsaw that they use. So as we came back with a chainsaw exchange, like a pawn shop for chainsaws so that they could retain the capital that they put into the chainsaw, but utilize it somewhere else and be trained in other things.
And then they would ask the women, well, what, you know, what quite a high mortality rate in the industry. And you know, what happens when you made a widow? Like, well, we, we want goats. So often that, um, some sort of family resilience was provided by goats. So by chainsaw exchanging goats, they were able to
reverse the logging process so that they can reforest the valley. So that the individual things that are going to work for the individual communities might be different. So humbly, I present that ecosystem restoration efforts are needed. Because the opportunities for livelihoods in the places where ecosystems need restoring and not climate compatible, somebody goes in and creates new livelihood opportunities, which are climate compatible and restorative ecosystems will be restored.
So it's livelihoods led, which is important. And that's what our winners are doing. So if we can find a way to support them through carbon markets or fair trade or whatever it is, that's what we'll be doing.
Matt: Yeah, I want to pick pick up on that and come back to Nick on this because there's a couple of things happening here.
One is this common theme where nature based solutions is question mark about whether this is sort of in the wheelhouse of philanthropy and public funding or versus private, maybe whether there's a sort of for profit element here. So I'm keen to understand maybe from Nick's perspective about where An organisation like Green Angel Ventures may pick up and support some of these awardees, but also Nick may be associated with that.
The extent to which you as investors are looking at nature based solutions or whether really that is the reserve. All philanthropists and, um, public sector funders. You mentioned Desnes, Stephen, the, the department of energy security and net zero and, and others, you know, are there just some solutions that are private sector and those that are not?
Nick: There are three things to say, and, and, um, they include a challenge really, Stephen, um, uh, yes, ecosystem regeneration, of course, is central, uh, because, um, We've now reached a point where unless. We regenerate ecosystems that have been decayed. Uh, we will not, uh, we will not trigger the carbon uptake that's necessary to, to reverse global, uh, global warming.
We, in other words, we cannot do it. Uh, and this summer's most shocking news is what's going on in the Antarctic, uh, and the loss of the Antarctic ice. Uh, where, uh, Livelihoods aren't really an issue. So it's not a question of stopping the Indonesian, uh, logging or, or, or the Brazilian, uh, tropical rainforest logging.
Uh, there are no livelihoods in the, in the Antarctic, but we've, we've got to do it. Which then brings me to the second point, which is I'm very uneasy with carbon offsetting. Um, uh, and uh, the reason why is because it's predicated on continuing to emit carbon. Uh, you know, I'll, I'm going to offset, I'm going to offset the carbon I create, I'm going to burn your house down, but I'm, it's going to be okay because in another few years, I'll have built you a new house, it will be somewhere else, so you'll have to move, of course, and your children will have to change school, uh, the good I'm doing, you know, will be fabulous for you in five or ten years time, however, I am going to burn your house down now.
That's what carbon offsetting is. It's, it's, it seems to me to be one of the most hypocritical, uh, devices possible in association with all of the issues surrounding climate change. It is a substitute, and this is the third point, it is a substitute for government regulation. Governments across the world are cowardly, none more so than our own, terrified of losing votes.
So what is it doing? It's backtracking on net zero. As Rishi Sunak has said, net zero must happen, but not at the cost of the economy. That's because if he sees the economy, economy suffering, he knows he's going to be losing votes at the next election. This is cynical beyond belief. Uh, and the inability of our leaders to lead and say, of course, in Indonesia, uh, Uh, in Brazil, the populations around the forestry areas have to earn a living.
So what we're going to do is we're going to use regulation to allow them to earn a living, where the choices available to them, uh, are restricted, but the opportunities are created. Rather than to use carbon markets, which is frankly a ridiculous notion. How are carbon markets going to, to, um, sort out the problem of Antarctic ice?
They're not. It's going to be government action that's going to sort it out. And, and just to end that point, when a lot of people say to me in response to that, but it's too difficult, it's too challenging. Uh, I say governments can turn on a sixpence, quite literally. They can change things overnight. And the reason we all know that, and it's not just me dreaming, is because three years ago they did.
When the pandemic started, everything was stopped overnight. They can.
Matt: So on that then, Stephen, the Ashton Awards. Who is the audience? Are you speaking to primarily to government to, to focus in on grant schemes, to proof of concept and demonstration? Is this investors, is this citizens to get them behind these types of schemes and to, and to really capture their imagination, you know, for the ballot box and maybe how they divest in pensions and all the rest.
Who are you, who are you doing the awards for as it were?
Stephen: So if we're trying to open doors for our winners and platform their solutions and gain investment for them, then we will open those to, and we, you know, we did a series. It was like an events iron man last week. We were in and out of all sorts of offices and clubs and government, uh, buildings.
But the point is that. Last week and the Ashton awards, uh, up to the point where we, uh, try to scale up our solution and amplify them to the rest of the world, we're trying to open new doors for them. And that means that predominantly we're looking for investment and donations and policy change when necessary to allow their solutions to grow and others like them, and.
That can mean that, for those in the Global South, we're opening doors that just don't get opened. Like, getting someone from Cameroon to the UK, trust me on this, is not easy. Um, navigating visa processes, ensuring that flights are correct, making sure that they have translation and things like that. That's a huge deal, to open a door to someone, to be in a room with people that haven't been there before, but to Nick's point about how we, how we respond to government action or inaction and whether or not carbon markets are there to grow these solutions, I'll say two things.
And the first is most people in, um, developing, or global self context are used to the ideas of blended finance. So philanthropy will come in and and take the riskiest part of an investment or riskiest part of a project And then commercial investment might take the the least risky part of a project in in layman's terms So those blended finance options are out there have been used in the past and we want to design more of them The second thing i'll say is that through other areas of Ashton's work, like I work in a campaign called Power Up.
We're pointing to the fact that, uh, global North governments have promised minimum 100 billion a year in climate finance to global South nations. That 100 billion a year has not materialized yet. And it seems to materialize or be materializing extremely slowly through COP processes, but it's needed 10 years ago, loss and damage funds, uh, climate adaptation, finance is all needed a long time ago.
So it's, it's really a both and for me. And if you get into the weeds of carbon offsets and markets, you find things like article six, which I had to Google and then read about for a good hour. Uh, and to sort of synthesize it, it's. State to state offsetting. So where a state is going to find it extremely expensive to offset the next, um, round of emissions reductions.
They might find it much, much cheaper to do that elsewhere and have huge human development benefits. So I get where Nick is coming from. I know carbon offsets, uh, uh, frustrating market, but at the moment we've got that little action on the global stage to shift the hundreds and trillions, actually a hundred billion years, not really going to cut it.
To shift that amount of money necessary. We need. Both and, and we want to be able to demonstrate that smaller scale solutions can accommodate commercial investment and scale up quickly without all of it having to rely on a hundred billion a year coming from global north governments, which will be lucky if it manifests in the next 24 months.
Nick: Yeah, I would completely agree with Stephen. I mean, I think that's, that's a very good answer, Stephen.
Fraser: It's, it's a really interesting point. And it's something we kicked around a little bit at the start of the show, but I think there's also Ashton context to this as well, Stephen, in terms of the winners of the innovation award, right?
There was, Offset involved in that. You and I went back and forward on this a little bit in the in the sessions, but that context to the to the energy side of the award. Stephen would be great.
Stephen: Thank you. That's a lovely segue into wanting to speak about our energy winners at Natural Climate Solutions is newer to us and obviously been doing energy for 20 years.
So it's very much our backyard. So I'll talk about the winners quickly so that we can then reference them. But Fraser mentions the offsets involved in the UK Energy Innovation Awards. He was kind enough to be a judge on the award. I wanted someone who was antagonistic on Twitter and that's who I got.
This year we awarded HACT or the Housing Association Charitable Trust and what is now PNZ Carbon for their work creating retrofit credits. So we know we need to retrofit millions and millions of households in the UK. We know government action isn't quite fast enough and we know that we need new revenues into retrofit.
So, as I'm reading through the energy innovation awards, this housing association charitable trust things comes up and I'm like, okay, this is interesting. It's not a device. So, um, the other finalist was Tepio with, uh, uh, electric heating sort of device, which is a, it's like a storage heater, but it's, it can be installed in a couple of days.
It's a really good innovation. I expect everybody who's into this podcast to look into Tepio or TPO. Um, almost. It will demonstrate that there's, there's more than just heat pumps out there. There's a lot of different options for electrifying heating, but this hacked, uh, retrofit credit stuck in my mind and stuck in our mind as we sort of looked at the different ways in which it's methodologized and looked at how they use carbon markets.
And yeah, it is a new revenue. into retrofit and what HACT have done is say we can demonstrate the additionality of retrofitting social housing and we can demonstrate how much carbon we save and we can demonstrate that in a really well recognised methodology and then we can offer those to Companies on a business to business basis who want to buy what they would call quote unquote high quality carbon credits So and so people call this insetting so rather than offsetting to global south nations You might be looking at a construction company or a values aligned developer Who wants to offset in the industry and wants to ensure that the housing and buildings industry in the uk's is net zero And then they might do this in Intersocial housing and it what comes as a surprise that People in social housing and housing association properties are at a higher likelihood of experiencing fuel poverty.
So you're killing two birds with one stone. You're decarbonizing and you're dealing with fuel poverty with entirely private revenues. Now, is that gonna retrofit 20 million homes in the UK? No. Is it gonna make it easier and reduce the amount of public money that has to go into it? Yes. So we just thought that was brilliant.
And we sat there, Fraser and I and the rest of the judging panel, including a couple of people who've been active on this pod recently and really kicked it around and really went deep into how this solution worked and including I went out for a day and got stuck into it and brought everything together and we went through it with judging.
It was a fantastic model. So that's one where the Housing Association Charitable Trust is a charitable trust. Um, but they're out there looking for investors and buyers into a real product, which is desired by the market. And then I'll briefly, uh, mention Bura Solutions Solar Academy in Nigeria is training, uh, 50 percent male, 50 percent female solar entrepreneurs, making sure that they've got a platform to set by and sell on and matching with new customers.
People buying solar systems. And these are predominantly households that are used to relying on diesel generations when the grid in Nigeria is down, which is if not most days, it's going to go out during the week and you're going to have a value of lost load. And people are finding that solar is a much, much, a much cheaper in the long run solution than diesel generation, particularly as currency fluctuations go up and down and oil prices go up and down.
Sun always costs the same, which is nothing. They're a fantastic business and they're. You know, they're ready for investment now.
Matt: How well set up are we in this investment? You just mentioned investment there, this innovation investment ecosystem. Maybe we'll go to Nick first and Stephen, but what are we doing really well in terms of getting these low carbon solutions to market?
What are we not doing so well? Because time is running out and we need some of these fantastic examples, Stephen, that you've just mentioned, whether they are for profit or non for profit. Um, we need them, we need them out there quickly. So Nick, from, from your, your years and years of experience, what are we doing?
Well, what aren't we doing so well?
Nick: Well, well, I've, I've got, I've got to say, I've got to stick in a personal note here. TPO came to us. Um, uh, they, I have a very big soft spot for them because then their brand name is so similar to my interdental brushes brand name. And I use those every single day you see, so, so that's, that's something very personal.
Anyway, it turned out that TPO was nothing to do with my interdental brushes. I looked at them and I thought, this is absolutely 100 percent what we need. It is, it is 100 percent commercially viable. Uh, we indicated really strong interest. And here's another, you've got to confess your failures, haven't you?
Um, they turned us down because we couldn't put enough money on the table. And so, so that was a, so I wish that I really wish them all the best. I'm delighted you've recognised them, Stephen, and that Ashton has acknowledged it, because what they're doing is fantastic. Domestic heat in the UK is the single biggest problem for the UK in terms of, uh, carbon emissions.
And there are no easy answers. And frankly, social housing is, is a, is an appalling problem in this sense. And we just haven't got to grips with it. Matt, the answer to your question is in the energy sector, I think we're doing a lot that's right. We are, um, we're doing it, uh, quickly. There's an enormous amount of innovation coming through.
So, so we, I'm treating your question as a UK question, but I think it, I mean, if we get it right in the UK, we're going to be getting it right in the US, which means we're going to be getting it right in Europe. In spite of last week's news about GEMESA having needed Germans, Siemens GEMESA needing German support, and then for completely different reasons Orsted is pulling out of wind installations in the US.
I mean it was bad news for renewable energy last week. At an infrastructure scale, forget about innovation. Uh, it really was bad news. Uh, and it's very, very frustrating, uh, to all of us who care about the energy market. We are getting more right than we're getting wrong. It needs greater speed. It once again needs greater government commitment and turning to oil and gas, uh, as the, the, the fail, the default option doesn't help anyone.
Matt: Okay. Thank you, Nick. Stephen, from your perspective, what are we, you know, we're getting things right in the UK on this, or are we missing something? And I wonder whether there's something here, sub question is, are we doing enough? Are we thinking locally enough about investment as well and about people and place and community when we're making these awards and investments?
Stephen: I'll focus on UK and then global south. So in the UK, we are seeing new investment vehicles coming on, you know, like, um, local authority bond issues, uh, community climate bonds, things like that. And they're great. And they could be used, um, blended with other investments as well and we want to see more of that.
We know as Nick's just mentioned that there's The UK is a hotbed of innovation and energy innovation, and it's, it's not just growing it in the UK. It's growing it in other contexts as well, and we need investors across the value chain from equity all the way through to sort of de risk debt to make sure that happens.
And I would agree with Nick that we're getting more right than we're getting wrong. I don't think that's true in the global south. So for a long time we worked with our winners from the global south to make sure that they were ready to pitch to Um quote unquote global north investors so that they had the pitch right they had the business model down. They knew what they were going to ask for they knew what the revenue streams were going to be and how those things were paid back. The next thing we're going to be doing is making sure that investors in the global north are ready to hear that we don't think the capacity building is really is really Routed in the global South, like if you, you know, sat down with, let's just talk about Buridan, who I sat with all last week.
He knows exactly what his business needs. He knows that context better than anybody else and the feedback that we're getting from applicants, finalists, shortlistees and winners is the best investor rooms that they go into are investor rooms where they know the context. They understand what the Nigerian energy grids like, they understand what livelihoods are like in Port Harcourt.
Um, so how do we make sure that that happens, that investors in quote unquote Global North understand that, without having to fly every single one of them to Port Harcourt and then over to Kenya and then into Tanzania? How do we do that? The, the way that we do it is we either virtually or in person bring some of our winners.
To the UK, bring them in front of investors and do the work of explaining these situations and these energy systems and these ecosystem restoration projects to investors before they get in the pitching room. So that's the kind of shared dialogue about situation and context that we're looking to build in the next phase of work that we're doing with our winners.
So that not only are winners investor ready, but investors are winner ready.
Matt: Right, I guess it's also about having a more representative mix of people in the investment houses as well. The same argument could be, could be heard of Parliament.
Nick: Stephen, um, I just wanted to know, would, uh, Ashton consider, uh, to be in scope for future awards, an interdental, an interdental brushes company?
Stephen: Do you know what, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but rather than get you through the whole application process, I would say that probably A criteria that we'll look at in the future years.
Nick: I'm taking that as a yes.
Matt: It's a maybe, I think. I do implore all the listeners to check out the Ashton Awards. And also a plug here, I think, to Nick and Green Angel Ventures and some of the organisations that they're looking to support.
Because I think between the two, Ashton and Green Angel Ventures, there's a lot, a lot of hope there. And a lot of excitement about what the future holds. So well done to you both. Um, and keep up the good work. Thank you for coming.
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Matt: But for now, thank you for listening and goodbye.
Fraser: Bye bye.
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