APPENDIX 15
Memorandum from the Environmental Campaigns
Ltd (ENCAMS)
1. INTRODUCTION
TO ENCAMS
Environmental Campaigns Ltd, or ENCAMS as we
are known, is the charity which runs the Keep Britain Tidy campaign.
Our corporate mission is:
To create effective action by our targeted groups
to achieve a sustained improvement in local environmental quality
and reduce anti-social behaviour.
Campaigning is central to the way in which ENCAMS
reaches its targeted groups. Campaigns can be national or local
but all are evidence-based, using market research techniques to
analyse in depth why people behave the way they do and to discover
what will make them change their behaviour.
As is well recognised, litter, graffiti, fly-tipping,
fly-posting, dog mess or neighbourhood noise have a damaging effect
on the public spaces we all regularly use, such as residential
streets, town centres, local parks, beaches, rivers and recreational
waters, and thus harm peoples' quality of life. However, these
are often complex issues to put right involving a variety of agencies
with responsibilities to maintain and manage local environments.
ENCAMS works with the whole range of local authorities, organisations,
landowners and private sector agencies to improve the liveability
of local environments.
We have in recent years undertaken a number
of projects on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs the government department which grant-aids ENCAMS.
We were commissioned to draft a Voluntary Code of Practice for
the Fast Food Industry and are currently in the early stages of
a revised and updated version of the Code of Practice on Litter
and Refuse. ENCAMS has a long track record of supporting local
authorities with over 170 throughout the UK working with us on
our People & Places Programme. The People & Places Annual
Conference brings practitioners together and ENCAMS' annual Awards
recognise best practice in local environmental quality.
1.2 Relevance to the Committee's Inquiry
ENCAMS has proven success in changing people's
behaviour in environmental issues through targeted campaigns.
For example, in 2002, our dog fouling campaign contributed to
a 30% reduction in dog fouling across England, measured through
our Local Environmental Quality Survey of England 2002-03 (www.encams.org).
ENCAMS manages the Eco-Schools award scheme
in the UK. Eco-Schools is an international programme and award
scheme co-ordinated by the Foundation for Environmental Education
(FEE). It has recently been endorsed by the United Nations Environment
Programme as an example of good practice.
Eco-Schools is an effective model for the promotion
of citizenship and the development of a whole school approach
to sustainable development, making environmental awareness and
action an intrinsic part of the life and ethos of the school—both
for pupils and staff. It also promotes extended links and partnerships
with the local community. It has been proven to be an effective
structure that leads to lasting behaviour change amongst staff
and pupils, encouraging partnership working with the local community
and other organisations to produce environmentally sustainable
schools. It develops greater personalisation and choice for pupils
by involving them in the environmental management of the school
and enhances the curriculum, encouraging creativity in teaching
and cross-curricular links.
More information on Eco-Schools in the UK is
included as supporting information.
ENCAMS' expertise is in effecting the behaviour
change of targeted groups, influencing policy, delivering programmes
and administering award schemes to improve local environmental
quality. ENCAMS does not work directly with the school curriculum.
Therefore our responses to the Committee's Inquiry are contained
within these boundaries.
2. WRITTEN EVIDENCE
2.1 Has the term Education for Sustainable
Development and the environmental message within it been lost
to the general public?
ENCAMS believes that, in England, the sustainable
development message has indeed been lost. We feel that the cause
is twofold; firstly the over-use of the word "sustainable"
and secondly the wide scope ascribed to the term "sustainable
development" makes it difficult for the general public to
relate to.
The term "sustainable" is used as
an adjective with an array of different nouns. For example, "sustainable
communities" and "sustainable waste management"
are two key phrases currently used regularly. Because the word
is rarely linked to a tangible outcome or an effective measurement
of what "sustainable" means, therefore it becomes a
convenient "catchall" term. "Education for Sustainable
Development" therefore also suffers the same fate.
ENCAMS feels that clearer wording needs to be
developed by Government to help people to understand these issues.
We feel that the "Cleaner, Safer, Greener Communities"
recently developed to encompass the "liveability" agenda
shared by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,
the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and the Home Office,
does clearly define its scope, and is a good example of this preferred
approach.
"Sustainable development" as a concept
is too wide in its scope. We feel that the complex issues associated
with sustainable development, such as climate change and global
warming have become uncoupled from everyday life. This means that
the public is not able to relate to these themes, and more importantly,
unable to see how or why to change their behaviour in relation
to these issues.
ENCAMS believes that the way to approach such
a complex message is to break it down into individual, simple
issues, and deal with each separately, using targeted messaging
aimed at specific elements of society. We recommend using market
research techniques to understand how different elements of our
society respond to each of these particular issues and to target
campaigns specifically at each of these groups and each topic.
This approach is further explored in section 2.3 below.
Research shows that in order to prompt behaviour
change start simply with issues that affect people's everyday
lives, such as litter, dog fouling, graffiti and encourage them
to take action at that level. Only then can it be put into perspective,
and can the general public understand and take action in relation
to the less tangible areas such as climate change. The Joseph
Rowntree Foundation has published a report to evaluate the disparity
of environmental concerns between different societal groups.[2]
It found that for the poorest socio-economic groups, who were
also often disadvantaged environmentally through living in polluted
and derelict areas, still felt that issues such as dog fouling
and litter were more important that pollution, which had a greater
long-term effect on their lives. Even the term "local environment"
was not understood, whereas "surroundings" was. They
did not comprehend, let alone take action on, issues such as climate
change. Living in areas with poor local environmental quality
in itself made people feel powerless.
Learning about "sustainable development"
needs to be a vital part of long-term formal education too and
should be integrated at an early stage. However, it must be tangible,
in language that people understand and that relates directly to
their immediate experiences of their surroundings. The Department
for Education and Skills' "Sustainable Development Action
Plan for Education and Skills" (DFES 2004) contains laudable
commitments to teaching in sustainable buildings and integrating
issues into the curriculum. We applaud this approach but feel
that it can go further to set a clear framework in place to co-ordinate
the whole-school approach to sustainable development. This framework,
we feel, is well established in the Eco-Schools programme, which
is already recognised by the Scottish Executive as a performance
indicator. OFSTED research[3]
identified that the most successful schools in ESD have the following
characteristics:
— a record of thinking about such issues
over a number of years;
— a whole-school commitment to integrate
ESD into the work of the school and a well-developed local support
network;
— strong links with the community,
in particular to encourage pupils and their families to play a
part in their local community;
— pupils who demonstrate both individual
and collective responsibility in looking after and improving their
learning environment and an emphasis on promoting positive attitudes
and values to aid their learning now and in the future; and
— a well-planned curriculum, taught
by teachers who have clear objectives and an active involvement
of pupils in initiatives that promote ESD.
Eco-Schools is a long-term sustainable programme
that promotes whole school involvement and requires links to be
made into the curriculum. To achieve Green Flag—the highest—standard
it is necessary to develop links into the local community and
for the pupils to demonstrate positive attitudes and values that
have aided their learning, whilst environmental issues must be
shown to have been delivered through the curriculum over a number
of years. The pupils must be actively involved in initiatives
that promote ESD and display a sense of ownership for the school
environment and local community. The Eco-Schools programme may
therefore be seen to fulfil the requirements, identified by OFSTED,
that bring about the effective delivery of education for sustainable
development within our schools.
In addition, schools need to engage more practically
with sustainable development in simple terms. For example, schools
are major beneficiaries of second-hand electrical equipment such
as computers, all of which will need to be disposed of when they
reach the end of their useful life. It could indeed become a huge
burden for schools if they are not exempted. Currently it is not
apparent that schools are being engaged in their role in the forthcoming
EU Directive on Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment
(WEEE). This would be an excellent opportunity to study the impact
of development in an intensely practical way and we recommend
that Government take this opportunity.
ENCAMS also believes that this impact of individual
behaviour change on environment, society and economy encompassed
in the sustainable development principles needs to be embedded
firmly into graduate and postgraduate courses. Where, for example,
is the sustainable development input in MBA courses or teacher
training courses? It is these students who will play a major part
in shaping our collective future. We recommend that Government
hold discussions with the Higher Education Funding Council for
England to set up structures to integrate a compulsory element
of practical education on sustainable development into every course.
2.2 What elements should the Government's
revised UK Sustainable Development Strategy include in order to
strengthen significantly the role of learning within it?
ENCAMS very much welcomes the Government's revision
of the UK Sustainable Development Strategy, in particular the
development of new indicators to measure its success.
We feel that this document should encompass
the work that Government is currently doing to monitor and evaluate
the immediate quality of life for ordinary people. The Government's
Public Service Agreement Target 8 on cleaner, safer, greener communities;
work being carried out on Quality of Life Indicators including
those by ENCAMS (described in 2.4 below) and through the Shared
Priorities Programme led by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister,
all provide tangible evidence of change to people's surroundings.
We feel that Government has achieved joineup
departmental working with considerable success, but it will remain
important to to link these targets across government. For example,
the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' PSA 1
target relates to climate change, energy saving, sustainable waste
reduction and improved local environmental quality. The Department
for Education and skills has targets in sustainable development
education through global citizenship, citizenship and behaviour
change. This is a timely opportunity for these two to work closely
together to support each others' work and make links to each others'
indicators.
We feel that this Strategy should incorporate
a learning framework through formal education channels and through
public campaigning to lead to behavioural change.
2.3 Is there any evidence to suggest that
the Government, through its stewardship of education is getting
better at getting the environmental message across to the general
public? And is there any evidence to suggest that sufficient work
is being done at regional and local levels to support environmental
education?
Since the Government's "Are you doing your
bit?" campaign ended in 2002, there has been no comprehensive
large-scale messaging aimed at the public. If this were done,
however, ENCAMS would like to see targeted, well-researched, campaigning
which encourages the public to take action across the whole range
of issues relating to sustainable development. (The current WRAP
campaign focuses on recycling.)
The Committee may be interested to know that
ENCAMS has carried out its own research into local environmental
quality, waste collection, and waste reduction. In each case we
have been led by the public on these issues, their attitudes and
what action they will take. We have mapped this information onto
a commercial socio-economic database so that we know what types
of action and attitudes people of different lifestyle types have,
but also what they read, where they shop, and crucially where
they live. We have this information at post-code level. It provides
accurate classifications of residents within boroughs, their locations
and the way in which clusters of residents think differently to
other residents. This will enable local authorities to deliver
more targeted services.
ENCAMS currently provides this material in paid-for
reports to local authorities in England, together with consultancy
support on how to implement this information and better target
service delivery. There are three reports available:
1. What householders think of local environmental
quality in . . . (covering issues such as dog fouling, graffiti,
fly-posting, fly-tipping, abandoned vehicles, litter, street cleanliness,
syringes, weeds and chewing gum
2. What householders think of service delivery
in . . . (covering bulky waste collection, public waste tips,
recycling banks, refuse collection and doorstep recycling)
3. How to get householders to recycle in
. . . (covering preferred types of container for differing types
of waste).
We are about to start a project to develop and
map quality of life indicators from the perspective of the individual
and believe that this will begin to fill the gaps in current sustainable
development indicators.
All of this work is funded through ENCAMS' Defra
grant and we would very much like the opportunity to share this
information so that it can be used more widely, subject to funding.
ENCAMS feels that this in-depth information can feed into the
UK Sustainable Development Strategy.
2.4 Are there sufficient resources available
to deliver the Government's commitment to education for sustainable
development?
As always, it is not just about resources but
how they are targeted and how efficiently they are used. Greater
resources would allow greater commitment only if they were targeted
through effective methods and clear action points on what is to
be achieved. The suggestions made above about targeted campaigning
and research are made with this in mind.
However, ENCAMS is both concerned by and perturbed
that the funding of sustainable development in the UK has almost
entirely been directed through the waste agenda and the Landfill
Tax Credit Scheme, and so the broad spectrum of different issues
that make up this subject do not receive similar levels of government
funding. In addition, the removal of the Category C Landfill Tax
Credit Scheme funding for education projects has resulted in a
huge void that can only have a detrimental impact on the resources
for sustainable development, if nothing is put into its place.
Recent research and partnership work carried
out by ENCAMS in conjunction with other NGOs has demonstrated
that there is a great demand for a joint delivery approach to
sustainable development education. Effective programmes, whether
national or regional, that are already established, should be
utilised and encouraged to work together, this would not only
be more resource efficient but would also promote a "joined
up" approach.
Where there are effective programmes in existence,
ENCAMS believes it is sensible they should be used. For example,
the Eco-Schools Programme already provides a framework for education
for sustainable development, which encompasses and complements
that of other agencies.
We feel it should be cause for concern within
government that the number of schools achieving the Eco-Schools
Award in England, once leading the way, is now rapidly falling
behind the rest of Europe. Schools are keen to register to become
an Eco-School, but largely due to time constraints, the number
of schools achieving the highest level award—Green Flag—is
relatively low. Despite England having[4]
nearly 50% of all registered Eco-Schools in the world,(and just
over 10% of awarded schools), we are rapidly being overtaken by
European and African countries and will fall behind before the
end of this academic year.
In the last few years since the Scottish Executive
has adopted Eco-Schools as a performance indicator for local authorities,
the number of registered Eco-Schools and Green Flag Awards has
quadrupled.
November 2004
Annex
SUPPORTING INFORMATION:
SUMMARY OF
THE ECO-SCHOOLS
PROGRAMME ADMINISTERED
IN ENGLAND
BY ENCAMS
ENCAMS believes that Eco-Schools provides an
auditable and flexible framework within which Government policy
can be delivered and success can be measured.
The Eco-Schools programme can make a major contribution
to the sustainable development agenda within England. The programme
effectively initiates behaviour change within schools and within
communities and fulfils all aspects of the model recognised by
OFSTED as being most effective in achieving this. ENCAMS believes
that the Eco-Schools framework can help:
— Defra to achieve its targets in Sustainable
Development (PSA1), particularly in climate change, energy saving,
sustainable waste reduction and improved local environmental quality;
— DfES to achieve its targets in sustainable
development education through global citizenship, citizenship
and behavioural change.
This document outlines that work undertaken
by schools on the Eco-Schools programme has an immediate and sustained
benefit to the school's environmental performance and to the local
environmental quality of a community by the action that is taken.
There is a long-term benefit that is initiated by ensuring that
the pupils are involved in the decision making process. The behaviour
change that results from this will contribute to a future population
educated and informed about environmental issues through their
schooling.
Eco-Schools is an international programme and
award scheme co-ordinated by the Foundation for Environmental
Education (FEE) and managed in the UK by ENCAMS. It was developed
in 1994 following the Rio Earth Summit and introduced to the UK
in 1995. There are now 30 countries throughout the world delivering
the Eco-Schools programme within schools. It has recently been
endorsed by the United Nations Environment Programme as good practice.
Within the UK, recent developments have enabled
Eco-Schools to be managed separately in Wales and also in Scotland,
where the Scottish Executive has provided financial backing for
the delivery of the programme and made Eco-Schools a performance
indicator for local authorities.
Eco-Schools is an effective model for the promotion
of citizenship and the development of a whole school approach,
making environmental awareness and action an intrinsic part of
the life and ethos of the school—both for pupils and staff.
It also promotes extended links and partnerships with the local
community. It has been proven to be an effective structure that
leads to behaviour change amongst staff and pupils, encouraging
partnership working with the local community and other organisations
to produce environmentally sustainable schools. It develops greater
personalisation and choice for pupils by involving them in the
environmental management of the school and enhances the curriculum,
encouraging creativity in teaching and cross-curricular links.
The Eco-Schools programme provides guidance
and can help schools involve pupils in the decision making process
to:
— Improve the school grounds
— Reduce litter and waste
— Reduce energy and water bills
— Devise efficient ways of travelling
to school
— Promote healthy life-styles
In addition, the Eco-Schools programme covers:
The Eco-Schools programme in the UK has developed
a Bronze and Silver level of certification to reward and encourage
schools working towards the prestigious Green Flag. The Bronze
and Silver awards are self assessed and applied for through the
website, www.eco-schools.org.uk. In order for a school to achieve
the international Green Flag they must submit a written report
outlining their environmental management, including details of
community links, pupil consultation and whole school involvement.
Currently, the standard of the Eco-Schools Green Flag application
is verified by external Eco-Schools assessors. Assessors complete
an assessment visit to each school that applies for a Green Flag.
In England there are now nearly 4,500 schools
registered in the programme. Over 800 are at Bronze award level,
450 are at Silver award level and over 450 have achieved the international
Green Flag. Over 300 representatives from local authorities, local
education authorities and Non Government Organisations (NGOs)
throughout England support the Eco-Schools programme.
The registrations and awards provide an indicator
to local authorities and local education authorities to monitor
the development and quality of education for sustainable development
within their local area. NGOs working within schools to improve
the environmental quality, use the award status and progression
to monitor the sustainability and development of work that they
have initiated. Currently, quarterly updates specific to individual
needs are sent to organisations supporting the Eco-Schools programme
so that they can monitor progress in their local area.
2 "Rainforests are a long way from here"
begins by exploring interviewees' concerns for their own homes
and localities and for the wider national and global environment.
It finds that people are often most concerned about what may seem
relatively minor local environmental problems rather than issues
such as pollution which seem most problematic from an external
viewpoint. The study then looks at the extent to which individuals
are getting involved in environmental action to tackle problems
and what prevents them from doing so. http://www.jrf.org.uk/bookshop/details.asp?pubID=382 Back
3
Taking the First Steps forward . . . towards an education for
sustainable development" (OFSTED 2003). Back
4
By the end of the 2002-03 school year, there were about 10.000
schools participating of which nearly 3,500 were Green Flag award-winners.
These numbers were expected to increase to more than 12,000 Eco-Schools
in 30 countries, until the end of the current academic year (2003-04).
There are 4,031 Eco-Schools registered in England and 384 green
flag awarded schools. Back
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