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Ministerial taskforce will boost environmental leadership in sector

Finance | Tania Mason | 19 Jan 2009

Defra is setting up a ministerial taskforce to help promote environmental leadership in the third sector and already has backing from three ministers.

The project could see the establishment of a peer-led ‘environmental ambassadors' leadership programme for third sector chief executives.

Former Ruralnet UK chief executive Simon Berry is working on setting up the taskforce as part of his secondment to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It will form part of Defra's third sector strategy.

He told Charity News Alert the terms of reference were being drawn up now but it had already attracted ministerial support from Joan Ruddock in the Department for Energy and Climate Change, Kevin Brennan at the Office of the Third Sector (OTS), and Huw Irranca-Davies at Defra (pictured).

"The objective here is to encourage environmental leadership within the sector," Berry said.

Embedding good practice into sector support programmes

Where there is already examples of good practice in environmental leadership within civil society organisations, Defra plans to help disseminate these more widely in order to create a supportive framework for greater environmental leadership within the sector.

The first objective of the taskforce is to exchange information between departments about current initiatives, and to provide recommendations about the best ways of ensuring these practices are embedded into existing third sector support programmes.

After that, Defra and the OTS will jointly commission a piece of work to do the following:

• provide advice to sector organisations about the best mechanisms for continually improving their environmental performance
• give advice to government about the appropriate environmental standards or requirements to include in major government grant agreements or contracts with the third sector
• examine the need for a centre of expertise on climate change issues, to help make these mainstream within sector support organisations
• organise a learning event at the end of the three year, Defra-funded Every Action Counts initiative
• work with OTS and Capacitybuilders to disseminate tools and materials to third sector organisations to help them embed sustainable development and demonstrate environmental leadership
• with OTS, carry out a feasibility study into a peer-led ‘environmental ambassadors' leadership programme for third sector chiefs, as part of mainstream professional development

The announcement chimes with a recent report by Green Alliance which insists that a new model of third sector leadership is needed to spark the personal lifestyle changes and campaigning momentum required to convince governments to take the punitive actions necessary to avert climate change.

Berry says ministers want to be lobbied on the issue so they have the mandate to get the necessary changes pushed through.

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Who's Who: Tania Mason