The Challenges of Systemic Change

Enrich the Earth is Sizzle’s first attempt to create systemic change through widespread collaboration. Thanks to support from the Esmee Fairbain Foundation, we have been able to experiment and invest in an independent evaluation agency capturing all that has been learned. As the initiative moves towards completion here are five key findings.

Adapt

We set out with four clear ambitions which were to find a high-quality viable alternative to peat, to educate gardeners, to cut contamination in green and food waste so it could be used as part of the peat replacement process and to create a more supportive legislative framework. 

It has become clear that this was too much of a stretch for the resources available and priorities needed adjusting. We are pushing forward on creating the alternative product and the legislative strand; we have changed our emphasis for gardener education and scaled back on the contamination work.

Keeping a close relationship with the evaluation agency through this process has been crucial. They have constantly sought to capture the rationale for our decisions, challenged us when they felt we were straying from the original brief and helped us capture the required data to back up our decisions. I am sure that their final report will be useful in helping others interested in replicating our approach.

The importance of an enquiring mind

The strength of a collaborative approach has been the ability to gain expert opinions from a diverse range of perspectives. Open listening, with no preconceived ideas, has enabled us to get deep insight and understanding at speed. This has been crucial as it has allowed us to delve into the complexity of the supply chain, to recognise areas where change could be delivered and to identify barriers.

The longer the project has progressed, the more we have recognised that this role as an independent catalyst bringing together diverse organisations has been central to our successes and learnings.

Collaboration is complex

Whilst collaboration has been essential, it has also been difficult. We have sought to bring together organisations who have historically taken opposing views often backed by antagonistic public campaigns. Some have viewed us with suspicion as a newcomer treading on their patch. For many, our objectives are peripheral and keeping them actively involved has been hard.

We have aimed to overcome these challenges by being transparent, seeking to find a middle ground without compromising our values. The biggest conundrum has been assessing the validity of business concerns about the cost and scalability of changing their business model compared with NGO demands for a rapid transition. We have relied on the views of the more progressive companies to help inform our position.

Pushing snowballs uphill is hard

Delivering our core aims has required willing support from a range of diverse stakeholders. In some areas this has been readily forthcoming, particularly where organisations can see how we are helping them get in shape for future legislative change or where it helps them build stronger relationship with the public.

In other areas our ambitions have been seen as a distraction or not important. This has particularly been the case where we have attempted to work with local authorities to reduce contamination in green and food waste. A lack of resources and the low priority given to removing contamination has led to our scaling back activities in this area.

We have recognised the role that Community Gardens can play in educating amateur gardeners – one of our core audiences. The Gardens we have worked with have welcomed the expert support we can provide, but they are operating under extreme pressure with limited resources. Whilst their desire to act is significant the realities of their situation has hindered what can be achieved.

It takes time

Everything has taken longer than we anticipated. This is partly due to the highly seasonal nature of the horticulture sector, but is primarily because of the time it takes to work with such as diverse group of stakeholders.

The legislation strand has been particularly time-consuming as we have sought to secure common agreement for policy asks that could help achieve a just transition. Working with community groups is always a lengthy process as they are highly reliant on a limited number of volunteers with many pressing priorities. The local authority stand has been difficult as there were no obvious decision-making routes for the changes we were suggesting.

As timeframes stretch costs increase and this has required us to be highly prudent on expenditure to ensure that we can deliver on all we have promised. We were fortunate that Esmee recognised that this was a risk and agreed to some flexibility in the budget. It is a model that other funders might consider if they are seeking to deliver the level of complex change that is required to change systems.

The final evaluation report will be ready in the autumn and we will share when available.