ABOUT US
What is Richmond Environment Network?
Richmond Environment Network (REN) is a multi award-winning* joint venture between the Environment Trust for Richmond upon Thames, BTCV (Richmond upon Thames office) and the Thames Landscape Strategy and because of this unique partnership we are not able to be a registered charity (charities need to be wholly indepenent) and we are not a quango. We passionately believe that working in partnership achieves more, whether it's working with local environmental groups, local schools or advocating on behalf of both into local strategic bodies, a partnership approach gives us all a stronger voice. Working this way can also bring wider benefits to local residents and the Council whom we've recently partnered with to secure substantial funding (£445k) to support the residents of Ham and Petersham save money through carbon saving measures*.
REN provides an umbrella/hub function for environmental groups operating within the Borough. We also; support schools and non-environmental groups with their environmental projects/activities, provide information to the public on the activities of local groups as a way promoting volunteering and provision of information and support in the prudent use of resources.
REN works in a similar way to a council for voluntary service (infrastructure body within the voluntary/charity sector) but works to support environmental groups and organisations as well as environmental activities in schools or non environmental groups. Our work sees us provide a support and development, networking and an advocacy role. We receive funding from a variety of sources, including a grant from the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames council through their Strategic Lead funding programme, the Greater London Authority in addtition to funding from the Thames Community Foundation. In addition to this funding we also receive donations in kind such as through volunteering or pro bono work from other sources. We also seek to develop new projects and areas of work to support our aims in supporting the development of local environmental activities within the community.
* awarded from the Greater London Authority and British Gas's Green Streets programme in September and October 2009.
Our History
REN was conceived in August 2004 upon Environment Trust for Richmond upon Thames, BTCV (Richmond upon Thames office) and the Thames Landscape Strategy coming together. They secured funding to appointment a full time Co-ordinator who remains with REN today, this being Colin Cooper. In the early stages of our development we mainly worked to support local environmental groups focussed on parks and open spaces. We also had limited scope informing the public of the work being undertaken by these groups with the aim of trying to enthuse people to get involved in volunteering.
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The focus of our work and remit was to change in a succession of mergers and expansion in 2007. In the Spring Sustainability Action Richmond (SustAR) (a working title of the then Richmond Environment Information Centre or REIC) approached REN to takeover the running of a number of their projects, which was agreed and the then REIC formally wound up as a charity. This provided us with an increased focus covering sustainability and also working directly with the public/residents. SustAR/REIC had three projects; Zero Waste Intiative (ZWIN) supporting business, voluntary groups and organisations as well as schools to become more sustainable in their operations, the Sustainability Briefing Papers provide a simple to understand information on a number of sustainability topics, in particular information on renewables energy technologies suitable for domestic properties and lastly the Environmental Forum which provides a platform to raise awareness and encourage debate on topical environmental issues. Largely these projects remain within REN, a slight change is that ZWIN no longer works with business, instead working with local schools and voluntary sector organisations. In the spring of 2009 a number of Trustee's of the former Richmond Environmental Information Centre re-formed and re-registered the REIC with the Charity Commission, with a new charity number 1129804, the charity's details can be found on the Charity Commissions website here. |
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In the Autumn of 2007 Richmond's LA21 Group (what is LA21?) merged into REN to provide a more consistent approach to the borough's environmental and sustainability voluntary and community sector. The merger brought the LA21 Group's public meetings - the LA21 Quarterly Meetings - into REN and this was amalgamated with the Environmental Forum that came from the arrangement with SustAR/REIC. REN's activities are wide ranging and a list can be found on Our Projects page. We are currently developing a new Strategic Management Plan that will provide a focus for our activities from 2009 to 2012.
* Winner of the Good Practice Award in the Richmond Council for Voluntary Service, Community Awards 2006
* Winner of the Green Trailblazer Award for Group/Project in the Green Guardian Awards 2007
* Winner of the Highly Commended Award for our ZWIN project for Group/Project in the Green Guardian Awards 2007
Our specific aims
Goal One – To improve capacity of local charitable sector environmental and sustainability organisations and to provide advocacy
Goal Two - To increase engagement of the public around environmental issues and voluntary activities/work
Goal Three - To protect, conserve and increase biological diversity
Goal Four - To promote prudent use of resources within the community, charitable sector organisations and schools.
What do we do?
To achieve our objective, we provide this continually updated website (with our news updates being on the Environmental News page), as well as the following services:
Our work with residents
- Provide a listing of local environmental activities and events on our Events Calendar that people can get involved with*
- Provide listings of local environmental activities and events in the local press
- A listing of all local environmental groups in our Groups Database including pages on their behalf, providing further detail on their activities
- For those that don't have easy access to the Internet we can also provide this information over the phone~
- You can meet with us face to face at local fairs and other events
- Come along to our Environmental Forum, where we encourage debate on environmental issues. Each meeting has its own theme. The forums are often produced in partnership with other groups and organisations.
- Signposting to other sources of environmental/sustainability information
- Our Sustainability Publications provide information on a number of sutainability matters.
- Our Eco Teams project supports residents to lower their energy and water use, minimise their waste whilst increasing their recycling.
- tbc - our work in the Ham and Petersham Low Carbon Zone to support residents in this exciting scheme.
Our work with local groups, organisations and schools
- Assistance with the formation of new environmental groups in the borough
- Your group being listed in our Groups Database to publicise your group and work with the public*
- We offer free hosting of a web page/s for local environmental groups on our site*
- Listings of environmental activities and events on our Events Calendar to recruit interest and potential volunteers*
- Listings of local groups environmental activities and events in the local press to recruit interest and potential volunteers
- A telephone information and referral service for groups and for people intersted in volunteering with the groups
- Attendance at local fairs to promote participation in environmental activities on behalf of local groups
- Our Environmental Groups' Forum (previously called the Open Spaces Forum) for local groups to enable effective communication and sharing of good practice between the groups, REN and the council
- Dissemination of training and funding information and advice for local groups
- Support for groups with funding applications and signposting to funding sources
- Signposting to other sources of information
- A library of items that can be borrowed by local groups, usch as a laptop, projector, marquee http://www.richenvironmentnet.org.uk/library.aspx
- Assistance for local environmental groups for their workdays/activities by fully trained leaders whom are First Aid at Work certified
- Promotion of and support in working towards the Guidelines for Volunteers and Voluntary Groups working in the Environment, covering health and safety, insurance, first aid and risk assessment and other good practice guidance for groups carrying out volunteer workdays
- Links to local schools and youth groups and developing young person led activities
- Links to our schools officer, who supports local schools to develop environmental projects/programmes/clubs and share good practice between schools through our Schools Environmental Forum and network with local environmental practitioners/educators who want to link with local schools
- Our Zero Waste Initiative (ZWIN) project carries out environmental audits of buildings for schools & voluntary and community groups.
- Representation and advocacy of the environmental voluntary and community sector to the Green Richmond Partnership and the Voluntary Sector Forum (both sub groups of the Richmond Local Strategic Partnership)
- Our Environmental Forum provides an opportunity for residents to engage into local environmental debate, whilst also offering an opportunity for local groups to work with us to put on each Forum. Local groups also have the opportunity to put displays/tables at the Forums
Our work with schools and support to them
- Provision of a networking event the School Environment Forum (currently on hold)
- Provision of school assemblies on environmental topics (currently on hold)
**in 2009 our website received 98,761 visits with these visitors going on to view 147,483 pages!
~ this service is only available when there is somebody in our office to take your call.
For 2010
We are currently in the latter stages of signing off our strategic management plan for 2009 to 2012. Once ratified it will be available on this site. Projects that are being researched:
- Mobile display & renewables demonstration project
- Food growing project
- Garden biodiversity project
- REN's future growth and support to the sector
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