Working Together ~ Learning Together...• A case study on the Maine’s Power project in...

Working Together ~ Learning TogetherInsights from the Sustainable Communities Initiative

Dr Rachel WilliamsCanberra Evaluation ForumSeptember 2011

CSIRO. Working Together ~ Learning Together

Overview

• Recap on the SCI

• Achievements and Impacts

• Evaluation

• Learning from the Program


Origins

Research stream goal:“ improved community capacity to understand regions as systemsand capacity to assess and understand trade-offs associated with alternative investment or policy choices leading to more efficient public and private investment in regional development”

Key Outcomes• Role of science

• Pathways to impact• Where to next?


Sustainable Communities Initiative (SCI)

Working together to develop solutions to local sustainability

challenges and opportunities


Adopting a Learning Approach

“Fresh thinking and new learning are needed if we are to avoid responding to today’s problems with yesterday’s

solutions, while tomorrow’s challenges engulf us”R.L.Dilworth*

• Learning about the problem

• Learning how to collaborate and integrate in order to innovate

Dilworth, R.L. (1998) ‘Action Learning in a Nutshell’, Performance Improvement Quarterly 11, no.1: 44-58


SCI Operating Structure

SCI MemberAdvisory

GroupSCI Team

SCI ScienceAdvisory

Group

Sustainable Communities Initiative

SCIProject

SCIProject

SCIProject

SCIProject

SCIProject


SCI PROJECTS


“Maine’s Power” – Castlemaine (VIC)


“Maine’s Power” - Castlemaine (VIC)

Issue:• Reducing Carbon Emissions and

Enhancing Energy Security

Response:• Contribute towards delivering a 30%

reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2010, leading to zero net emissions by 2020, whilst simultaneously increasing the security of energy supply in the Shire

• Improving energy efficiency to reduce carbon emissions by 30% whilst maintaining productivity

• Co-gen plant under construction by one of the four local business participants

• Local Participants: Central Victorian Area Consultative Committee, Mount Alexander Sustainability Group, Mt.Alexander Hospital, Victoria Carpets, KR Castlemaine, Powercor, Flowserve, Mount Alexander Shire Council, Australian Industries Group, Sustainability Victoria

• SCI Participants: ICLEI, TNEP, Westpac, IAG, Delfin Lend Lease, WWF, DEWHA, Origin Energy, Ricoh


East Lake Urban Renewal, Canberra, ACT

Development and demonstration of a prototype web-based software

toolkit to provide integrated sustainability assessment at sub-

division scale


Lockerbie, Greenfield Development, Vic,

Development of an integrated assessment framework for a

green-field urban development, with a holistic set of

"performance" indicators that go beyond the triple-bottom-line.


Surat Basin – Sustainable Futures, Qld

A synthesis of input from local communities and the international literature, identifying major areas of social impact and options for a set

of responses for enhancing regional and community capacity for mining and energy driven regional economic development.


Sustainable Whitsundays, Qld

Working with local stakeholders to harness the social capital of the

region to adaptively integrate and realise the vision for the Shire in

a sustainable manner


NRM & Sustainable Development, Avon, WA

Integration of local perspectives, identifying options for improving partnerships between

planning and management institutions, as a means of enhancing NRM outcomes.


Impact - Influence

• The SCI has influenced programs and practice at both State and National levels:

• The ACT Planning & Land Authority adapted some of their internalprocesses and approaches to urban development

• RDV created a new program to support five SCI projects in regional Victorian communities, based on their experiences as a project partner in the Maine’s Power project in Castlemaine

• The Surat Basin scoping study report has been drawn on to informpolicy by both the NSW and NT State Governments and is being used at the local level to inform planning for future mining activity in the Liverpool Plains region of NSW.

• A case study on the Maine’s Power project in Castlemaine was included in the Garnaut Climate Change Review


Why Evaluate?

• CSIRO needs to generate scientific outputs as well as external impact

• Requirement to develop a scientific underpinning for the SCI, both to guide it and to research it

• Evaluation was seen as a means of conducting research on the initiative itself

and…

• HYPOTHESIS: If complex sustainability issues are to be addressed by way of cross-sector partnerships, and this requires ‘new learning’, then opportunities for learning can be facilitated through expanding the traditional role and activities of evaluation, in partnership projects


Evaluation for Learning

• An action learning approach to partnership, with evaluation as ameans of facilitating reflection and capturing learning

• Evaluation focussed on ‘the projects’ (outputs and impacts) and ‘the partnerships’ (process)

• Project outputs and impacts, e.g.• New insights, individual and collective learning• New options for change• Wider impacts beyond the project• Benefits to participants and/or their organisations• Most significant change

• Partnership (and project) process• Satisfaction with: own level of participation, opportunity to

influence, communication, progress


Evaluation Context

• Fives stages of activity identified for evaluation

• SCI Development - operationalising the SCI concept• SCI Members came together

• Operational plan developed

• Connection with communities

• Project development

• Project implementation

• Realisation of outputs & impacts

Year 1

Years 2&3


Evaluation Process

Interviews:SCI MembersLocal project participantsCSIRO project leaders (teams)

Feedback to projects

Final Report

Interviews:SCI MembersLocal project participantsCSIRO project leaders (teams)

Feedback to projects

Year II report

Interviews:SCI MembersLocal project representativesCSIRO project leaders

Results discussed with SCI Members

Year I report

Projects completed

Some ongoing

Projects UnderwaySCI Formed

Projects Scoped

Year 3Year 2Year 1


Learning overview

• The nature of SCI projects

• Working in partnership


Traditional Project Value Chain

Access support

(funding)


SCI Model – Options vs Implementation


Nature of Projects – Option Development

• Option development means specific project outcomes are undefined at the beginning of the project

• Unattractive to funders• Difficult for SCI members to know beforehand what skills will be

required and whether they will benefit from involvement

• The projects with greatest traction with funders and partners were those that had a clearly identified need.

• Eg Castlemaine – reducing emissions

• Nonetheless – accessing funding public sector funding for these projects was still very difficult

• Regional Development Victoria recognised this issue during the Castlemaine project and subsequently funded a further series of projects in regional Victoria.


Nature of Projects - Project Pathways

Developing project opportunitiesDiscussions between the SCI Director, a CSIRO researcher and project stakeholders to

scope out a project.

FamiliarisationWorkshop with local project stakeholders, researchers and interested SCI members, to find out

about the project and identify ways in which the various parties could contribute

Knowledge Sharingvia

Develop Assessment ToolsWorkshops with technical experts, researchers and SCI members to

develop sustainability criteria(Lockerbie and East Lake projects)

Issue ClarificationEngagement between CSIRO

researchers and community members to generate technical data and/or

community perspectives on the local sustainability issue(s).

Option DevelopmentIdentification of options for addressing the local sustainability challenges.

(the initial SCI project finishes at this point)

AND/OR


Project Pathways cont.

• The project pathway depends on how specific the initial project objectives are. For example:

• Lockerbie • Objective: Develop a sustainability assessment framework

• Pathway: Develop Assessment Tools

• Whitsundays• Objective: Integrate and realise the vision for a sustainable shire• Pathway: Issue clarification – still at the stage of identifying what

the sustainability foci will be


Nature of Projects – Knowledge Requirements

• ‘Develop Assessment Tools’ pathway (East Lake, Lockerbie)• Diversity of expertise required

• A clear role for SCI members

• ‘Issue Clarification’ pathway• Clarifying community interests and perspectives on local issues• Much more difficult for SCI members apart from CSIRO to remain

engaged• Hard to retain continuity of familiarity with project

• Castlemaine• WWF provided communications advice

• Ricoh advised the Mt Alexander Hospital on energy efficiency in relation to their office equipment

• CSIRO had the skills to do the energy assessments


Nature of Projects – Project Leader Context

• Project opportunities were identified in the first instance between CSIRO project leaders and communities

• Collaborative work with communities is their usual role• Building trust takes time and effort

• Involving other skills/knowledge is seen as valuable but also another set of relationships to manage

• Perceived risk to the trust already built with community

• Many project leaders, many SCI members• How to build mutual understanding of skills and needs?

• Disincentives to actively engage with SCI members

• Workshop held in April 2008 with SCI members and project leaders led to a significant improvement in understanding


Nature of Projects – Brokering Partnerships

• A critical role performed by the SCI Director in the early stages, to get the SCI and projects started

• CSIRO perceived as a source of objectivity and of expertise

• Over time, too many relationships for one person to manage• Linked to challenge of many projects, many SCI members

• Lack of clarity over who should be managing connections

• A different model required, more distributed• Earlier, formal transfer of responsibility to project leader?

• A potential role for the public sector in the future?


Working in Partnership

General insights from Castlemaine and East Lake

• Partnership is different from client-provider model• Planning and decision-making need to be inclusive

• Takes time and frequent interaction to develop trust. Time needs to be built into planning

• Partners need to have some capability that is sought after by others and the capacity to participate

• Horizontal linkages at different levels between organisations• Vertical linkages within partner organisations


Working in Partnership – Support for Learning

• Regular emphasis that we are ‘learning as we go’• Helps with acceptance of uncertainty

• Helps legitimise experimentation – ‘its OK to make “mistakes” ’• Enables project flexibility and adaptation of objectives

• Focus on understanding and exploration, rather than decision-making, in early stages of projects

• Provides a ‘safe space’ for learning (inquiry), rather than feeling the need to defend a particular position (advocacy)


Working in Partnership – Organisational Attributes

• The level of support experienced by SCI members within their organisations varied significantly

• Having to withdraw vs having a legitimate role to ‘sell’ the SCI to the Board and coordinate with colleagues internally

• Varied level of understanding that cross-sector partnerships require different ways of operating, even while acknowledging that partnerships are required

• Different expectations around ‘compliance’ and flexibility in regard to organisational procedures

• The level of acknowledgement of the importance of intangible factors as foundations for tangible outcomes in partnership projects

• Mutual understanding, trust, relationships, learning

• RDV example• Participation, vertical linkages, ongoing interactions with SCI Director,

flexibility and openness to innovation fostered by senior management


Working in Partnership – Individual Attributes

• Some individual SCI members stood out, even (particularly?) in a less-than-supportive organisational context

• Pro-active, ‘can-do’ attitude• Motivated and pragmatic • Able to identify opportunities and to work within (around)

institutional/situational constraints• Able to ignite interest and support of others• Not necessarily in formal or very senior leadership positions

• An SCI member who independently contacted project and community leaders

• Local project leader in Castlemaine – brings people together• Senior managers in ACTPLA and RDV – skilled ‘navigators’• DEWHA provider of initial SCI funding – a catalyst for others


Learning recap

• The nature of SCI projects• Options development vs implementation• Project focus, knowledge requirements, staging of knowledge input

• Project leader context

• Brokering partnerships

• Working in partnership• Emphasis on learning• Organisational attributes

• Individual attributes


Application

• Natimuk – a small tree-changer community in Victoria’s wheatbelt, exploring options for reducing greenhouse emissions and waste

1) Facilitated community workshops to clarify needs and interests

2) A community forum with invited experts in aquifer recharge, setting up a community wind-farm and local recycling

• Targeted selection of expertise got the right people• Ideally, we would have brought them in a bit earlier

Contact UsPhone: 1300 363 400 or +61 3 9545 2176

Email: [email protected] Web: www.csiro.au

Thank you

CSIRO Ecosystems SciencesDr Rachel Williams

Phone: 02 6246 4366Email: [email protected]

Working Together ~ Learning Together...• A case study on the Maine’s Power project in...

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