Eastbourne Eco Action Network - OnePlanet

Eastbourne Eco Action Network

Case Study

Community, Featured, Video

Overview

Name: Eastbourne Eco Action Network

Eastbourne ECO Action Network is based in the coastal town of Eastbourne in East Sussex. It was set up as a Community Interest Company in 2019 as a result of Eastbourne Borough Council’s declaration of a climate emergency. The Network has a growing number of people and a reach of nearly 1000 businesses, charities and social organisations locally who are united by the same goal – to turn Eastbourne carbon neutral by 2030 and to make it one of the best places to live in the UK.

Eastbourne ECO Action Network works in close collaboration with the local charities and grassroots organisations, representing a fresh approach to engaged citizenship.

More info: https://ecoactioneb.co.uk/

Challenges

Community groups working under the radar and in silos with no knowledge of other groups working on similar projects
Missed opportunities to share what’s being done
No big picture to communicate sustainability across all sectors of sustainability
No strong collaboration with council
No system for communicating with the public

OnePlanet Solution

The OnePlanet platform achieves this through:

Ecosystem Plan – Creates a big picture on the sustainability goals for the area in a way that is very visual and interactive
Local Action Plan – a database of local climate action visible on a mindmap, geomap or document
Connect ecosystems – By connecting together the community and local authority ecosystems both parties can easily see where their respective actions dovetail and where there are gaps
Lenses – Communicates sustainability across all sectors of the community and helps to identify gaps through a holistic framework i.e. One Planet Living
Search tool – Demonstrates actions being taken community wide under specific themes or principles and helps to identify opportunities for green business and green jobs e.g. materials sourcing and renewable energy
Automated reports – Shares progress on various initiatives or efforts towards specific principles with various stakeholders

The platform is such a good interactive way for people to find out exactly what is going on in the local area in terms of sustainability. It allowed me personally to join up the dots in terms of seeing the big picture about what's going on in the local area … in a way that was very visual and very interactive.

Andy Durling - Eastbourne Eco Action Network

Benefits and Return on Investment

Explanation with examples:

Collaboration – helps members of the community view, edit and manage plans in one place and also gives people the chance to join hands on existing initiatives
Data management – provides a central platform to store, manage and share everything related to sustainability in the borough
Info sharing – the external resource map and automatic report generator feature are are two dynamic ways of sharing information and inspiring stakeholders that are wanting to improve on their sustainability