Workshop 3 - Communities and Business

Cairngorms Cli­mate Conference

Monday 9^th March 2020

Work­shop 3: Com­munit­ies and Busi­ness – Their Role in Net Zero

Key Speak­er: Cheryl Robb, Pro­ject Man­ager, Zero Waste Scot­land CNPA Host: Mur­ray Fer­guson, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Facil­it­at­or: Kar­en Der­rick. Chief Exec­ut­ive, Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strathspey

Pur­pose:

There are 18000 people who live in the Park and lots of thriv­ing busi­nesses, many serving the 1.9 M vis­it­ors who come to the Park each year. This work­shop will focus on the work we need do to reduce car­bon emis­sion and make sure people can live more sus­tain­able lives.

1. How can we devel­op a cir­cu­lar economy?
2. Where do we tar­get our efforts to have the biggest effect?
3. How do we sup­port com­munit­ies and busi­nesses to lead the way?

Main points raised

Com­munit­ies and Busi­ness and their role in net zero and mov­ing towards a more cir­cu­lar eco­nomy where we get max­im­um value from resources.

Four-fifths of Scotland’s car­bon foot­print come from products and mater­i­als. The pro­duc­tion, con­sump­tion and waste of these products and mater­i­als are heat­ing the earth at an alarm­ing rate.

Cli­mate change doesn’t respect bor­der. Roughly three plan­ets would be required if every­one lived the way people live in Scot­land. And we only have one…!

How do we engage com­munit­ies and busi­nesses in this agenda?

• Estab­lish com­munity car­bon baseline/​footprint
• Cap­it­al­ise on cur­rent interest in the cli­mate agenda and nor­m­al­ise low car­bon beha­viours through com­munity engagement
• Build capa­city and edu­cate com­munit­ies and busi­nesses on the cli­mate emer­gency and mit­ig­a­tion opportunities
• CNPA (and its part­ners) need to lead by example
• Learn from, and share, inter­na­tion­al good prac­tice from rur­al com­munit­ies – rel­ev­ant and rep­lic­able case stud­ies to inform and inspire
• Edu­cate young people liv­ing, work­ing, and vis­it­ing the Park
• Con­sider mech­an­isms to incentiv­ise busi­nesses and com­munit­ies to imple­ment car­bon reduc­tion and cir­cu­lar eco­nomy pro­jects – CNPA sign­post to sources of sup­port and work with part­ners on this

Tour­ism eco­nomy and food waste

Tour­ism was a big theme. Redu­cing food waste and encour­aging sus­tain­able and travel were noted as a key challenges.

Mul­tiple dis­cus­sions took place around how busi­nesses and com­munit­ies can work col­lab­or­at­ively to tackle this and devel­op innov­at­ive, cir­cu­lar mod­els. Also noted the need for beha­viour change/aware­ness-rais­ing activ­ity to sit along­side this to make it successful.

Linked to this was the notion of ​‘bar­ter­ing’ to encour­age the re-use of sur­plus mater­i­als and keep eco­nom­ies loc­al – get­ting value for these mater­i­als and shar­ing skills. (e.g. LETS scheme in Forres)

There was wider dis­cus­sion on skills – par­tic­u­larly repair/​upcycling skills as well as bring­ing value to products and mater­i­als, provid­ing skills devel­op­ment oppor­tun­it­ies, com­munity engage­ment bene­fits, and intergen­er­a­tion­al know­ledge shar­ing oppor­tun­it­ies. Ulti­mately, could lead to the gen­er­a­tion of job cre­ation and eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­ity in the Park.

Built Envir­on­ment

• New devel­op­ments – that low car­bon, cir­cu­lar meas­ures are man­dated. Ensur­ing well­being of the residents.
• Desire to sup­port loc­al skills and employ­ment and train­ing opportunities
• Focus on improv­ing exist­ing hous­ing stock
• Con­sider the role of CNPA in the improve­ment of high streets/​town centres – look at refur­bish­ment of exist­ing build­ings – improve ​‘flex­ib­il­ity’ of build­ings – vis­ion of build­ings as ​‘com­munity infra­struc­ture’ that per­form a range of functions.
• Invest in ongo­ing main­ten­ance to ensure longev­ity of built environment.
• What influ­ence does CNPA have with regards built environment?

Stra­tegic issues

How do we cre­ate a cir­cu­lar Nation­al Park eco­nomy? How do we integ­rate CE prin­ciples into the CNPA goals of eco­nom­ic regen­er­a­tion in the Park? Sug­ges­tions that CNPA plays a role as ena­bler, work­ing with part­ners to coordin­ate action at a region­al level to deliv­er nation­al outcomes.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

August 2020