Big Lottery Fund Scotland are offering ten current Investing in Communities grantholders the opportunity to access the services of an Environmental Placement Contract we have just put in place. This Contract was built from pilot run by the Fund and will place a student within the organisation for up to 10weeks to help reduce their environmental impact and increase their environmental awareness. Invitations to eligible grantholders are being sent out inviting them to send in Expressions of Interest if they would like to access this opportunity. This presentation gives a summary of the Pilot, including the key findings and learning, as well as looking in a little more detail at what is offered in this exciting opportunity.

1. Supporting our
grantholders:
Environmental Placement Contract
Cath Logan
23/04/2015

2. This session
Aims of the Environmental Placement Pilot
• Projects which participated
• Outcomes
• Key successes and learning
New Environmental Placement Contract

3. Environmental Placement Pilot
The Pilot programme was run between June 2012 and June
2013 by Bright Green Business after a tendering process.
BIG Lottery Fund wanted to ensure that through the Pilot
programme, projects had:
1. A positive impact on the project’s environmental
performance
2. A positive impact on the project’s economic performance
3. Increased awareness of the project’s environmental
impact
4. Offered students the chance to gain relevant work
experience and skills.

4. Environmental Placement Pilot
9 BIG Lottery Fund supported Projects took part and each
had a student (or two students in some cases) placed with
them for 8 weeks / 40 days.
• Shirley Project, Inverness
• ANCHO, Irvine
• Rock Trust, Edinburgh
• Voluntary Action Orkney
• Glasgow Homelessness Network
• LifeLink, Glasgow
• Woman’s Aid South Lanarkshire, East Kilbride (2 P/T)
• LAMH Recycle Ltd, Motherwell (2 P/T)
• Up-2-Us, Dumbarton

5. Key Successes and Learning from
the Pilot
• Students were more beneficial than a consultant
• Each business that took part was left with something
useful to take forward
• All staff / volunteers / users had a stronger
understanding of environmental issues.
• Flexibility in the placement types to suit each
organisations needs was important.
Planning the student projects well, choosing the right candidates and
making sure there was someone to support the placement within the
company were key aspects of ensuring a successful student project.
All felt that the students brought a new skills and enthusiasm into
the business that made the projects even better.

6. Survey of organisations
The organisations involved in the pilot were surveyed and100% of
the companies surveyed said they would recommend this Pilot
Programme to other organisations looking to reduce their
environmental impacts and increase environmental awareness.
Biggest
Benefits of
Placement

7. Quotes from Host Organisations
Don’t look at this and think it has nothing to do with you – it does!
Use it as a shared, supportive, learning experience, involving
service users/customers and staff, which can be incorporated in to
the daily activities of your organisation and individually
Women’s Aid South Lanarkshire.
Kirsty was able to bring a focus
to the environmental issues of
the organisation in a way that
had previously been lacking.
One of the aims was to show
how working in an
environmentally friendly way
could benefit the business and
this was achieved
The Shirlie Project.
This has proven to be an excellent project
for the organisation helping to put the
building blocks in place for an appropriate
and sustainable environmental management
system where all staff and volunteers are
fully aware of both their individual and
organisational responsibilities. It will make
us a more effective and efficient operation
and would not have been achieved without
the support from the Environmental
Placement Programme.
LAMH Recycle

8. Quotes from Students
“
EPP has benefitted me
greatly by giving me the
chance to work in a real
working environment and
taught me how to deal
with challenges that you
can face. It will certainly
help me when I graduate
as I have the experience
of implementing an
Environmental
Management System and
working with a variety of
people
Clare Tait, LAMH Recycle
I have also been able to get a business
perspective on being environmentally
friendly and have seen first hand how cost
effective it can be. I feel I have also bettered
my time management and communication
skills, improved my confidence in showing
initiative and taking a lead
Kirsty Macdonald, The Shirlie Project.
Through my placement I have developed my
communication skills and research skills. I
gained valuable environmental knowledge and
I became familiar with ISO 20121 and ISO
14001 and hopefully it may also have helped
me secure a career with experience being
invaluable when applying for jobs.
Sean Pearson, ANCHO.

9. New Environmental Placement
Contract
• Scotland Committee, on conclusion of
the successful Pilot agreed to a 3 year
contract to support 30 student
placements over 3 years
• The Business Partnership were successful
in tendering for the new contract

10. New Environmental Placement
Contract
• The contractor will work with grantholders to identify
their environmental aspects and impacts, discuss the key
areas the student(s) with be required to address and the
type of person they think would fit within their business
• The contractor will formulate the project specification
and advertise to students. A shortlist of students (3 – 5)
will be presented and grantholders will interview from
this list
• The contractor will provide a mentor to support the
student(s) throughout the placement and students will be
paid a living wage by the contractor for their placement
• Grant holders will be required to offer accommodation
for the student and commit to support the aims of the
contract

11. • We will be issuing a call for Expressions of
Interest to current Investing in Communities
grant holders for the first cohort of 10 projects
(2015/16)
• Each placement will be built around projects
and their needs, with a real focus on
implementation and achievements for grant
holders
Next steps