The RegenNarration Podcast
The RegenNarration podcast features the stories of a generation that is changing the story, enabling the regeneration of life on this planet. It’s ad-free, freely available and entirely listener-supported. You'll hear from high profile and grass-roots leaders from around Australia and the world, on how they're changing the stories we live by, and the systems we create in their mold. Along with often very personal tales of how they themselves are changing, in the places they call home. With award-winning host, Anthony James.
The RegenNarration Podcast
239. Bright Sparks in Our Energy Transition: Schools, solar & social enterprise, with ClimateClever co-founder Dr Vanessa Rauland
You might recognise Dr Vanessa Rauland from the renowned ABC TV series Fight for Planet A. Vanessa’s the co-founder with Alexander Karan of ClimateClever, one of a growing number of WA social enterprises that have been realising some of the enormous opportunities in our energy transition. When I spoke with Vanessa for this podcast, a few years ago, the ClimateClever team had nearly doubled in the months prior (even during COVID-19), working with an increasing number of schools, their communities and then businesses, to help them reduce emissions, save money and up-skill the next generation around regenerative living.
Vanessa’s long-dedicated her days to addressing climate change and increasing awareness about the vast benefits of living in such a way. And in the wake of the extraordinary youth-led global climate strikes, it’s arguably fitting that schools would take a lead role in the energy and related transitions we so urgently need. For this conversation, Vanessa takes us to one of the WA schools doing just that.
This episode was originally released as part of a series of nine episodes I produced a few years ago for the Clean State podcast, dedicated to regenerative transitions in my home state of Western Australia. Sadly, the podcast and its host non-profit are no more. But the series of episodes featured such brilliant guests and stories, that are still so very relevant, and not just to West Australians, so we resolved to re-release them here.
To hear the rest of this special series of Clean State episodes, and more stories of regeneration from around WA, Australia and the world, follow The RegenNarration wherever podcasts are found, or on the website.
You can access the Clean State Plan, and its brilliantly formatted Summary, towards the bottom of the episode web page.
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Recorded in October 2020.
Title slide: Vanessa and AJ.
With thanks to the Conservation Council of WA, auspicing organisation for Clean State WA, for permission to re-release this series.
Music:
Eden is Lost, by Selfless Orchestra.
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They can lend that money out to schools. Schools can borrow that money, pay for the infrastructure and then pay that loan off back to the Department of Education once the solar's paid off, and then the department can then lend that money to another school to do the same thing and you just get this continual rollout of solar in a really affordable fashion. It's such a no-brainer.
AJ:G'day and welcome to the Clean State WA podcast. My name's Anthony James from The RegenNarration podcast, on board with you here for this special series dedicated to our home state of Western Australia and the newly released Clean State Jobs Plan. How can we build back better from the coronavirus, avert climate catastrophe and transition to a regenerative, fair and prosperous Western Australia? I speak here with the West Australians getting it done, the thousands of jobs being created, the success being achieved and the enormous opportunities that await. The voice you heard at the top was Dr Vanessa Rauland, who you might recognise from the recent ABC TV series Fight for Planet A. Vanessa's the co-founder, with Alexander Karan, of a social enterprise called Climate Clever. The team at Climate Clever has nearly doubled in recent months, even during COVID-19, working with a rapidly growing number of schools, their communities and now businesses to help them reduce emissions, save money and up-skill the next generation around regenerative living.
AJ:Vanessa's long dedicated her days to addressing climate change and increasing awareness about the vast benefits of sustainability and, in the wake of the extraordinary youth-led global climate strikes, it seems fitting that schools would lead the way in the energy and related transitions we so urgently need. Today, Vanessa takes us to one of the WA schools doing just that. Wa schools doing just that. Vanessa, we are in Fremantle, which is your home first and foremost, so let's start there. What do you love about this part of WA?
Vanessa:Well, when I say it's my second home, because I'm originally from Melbourne but I moved here around 10 years ago and Fremantle is 100% my home now. It's beautiful, it's sunny every day, which is not really a Fremantle thing, that's a Perth thing. Um, I love the beaches in Fremantle. I love feeling close to the ocean, I guess. Um, I love the vibe of Fremantle. I feel, uh, a few years ago I was actually considering moving away to another suburb and again, not having family here, all my family's back over east. I sort of, yeah, pictured walking around some streets of suburbs where I didn't know and I'm like that's one of the things I love about Fremantle is like it's such a community and you can walk past and be like oh hi, bob the butcher and hi you, just sort of know everyone.
AJ:It's a community Brilliant and we're here now at one of the schools in Freo. Can you tell us where we are and why we're here?
Vanessa:So we're sitting at John Curtin College of the Arts up on the hill in Fremantle. They have been one of our pilot schools from day dot, so they participated in our first, our very first pilot, which was the low carbon schools pilot program, which we ran in 2016-2017. They're one of 15 schools and, yeah, they've stayed with us and they've done some great things over the years and, in fact, I was so impressed with one of the teachers who was leading it over the years that I ended up asking her to join our board. So she sits on our board, peter Skora.
AJ:To place you for some people. They may have seen you on Craig Rucasso's show on ABC TV, fight for Planet A. It might be worth telling the listeners who didn't see it or reminding those who did the school. You were shown working with the achievements they pulled off.
Vanessa:They were quite something you just run through a few. It was, yeah, no, it was quite remarkable. It was Oatlands Public School in Sydney. I think it's in Parramatta, so it was in a sort of slightly lower socioeconomic area. It was a very small school, very hot, sort of heat island type suburb, and they managed to achieve a 30% reduction on their utility bills over a four-month period.
Vanessa:So they had done an amazing switch-off campaign. They'd gone around the whole school I'm just looking actually over at some chilled water fountains and a lot of schools have these. That's sitting right in the middle of the sun, you know, all through summer, so being able to turn off things like that. They made sure that their air conditioners were set to the right temperature. The kids were actually really driving it as well. They were the ones making sure everything was being enforced. They found some pesky little bar fridges around the school which they turned off as well, and consolidated the other bigger fridges which they didn't need over the school, which they turned off as well, and consolidated the other bigger fridges which they didn't need over the school holidays. Yeah, and they saved so 30%. That equated to $5,000 savings for them, which doesn't sound like much maybe for a lot of people, but for a small school that could be their whole library budget for the year or, you know, it can fund all sorts of things.
AJ:And it's just the beginning, really, it's just the beginning.
Vanessa:Really it's the beginning, and that was behavior change, so nothing yes, they didn't pay a cent for any upgrades or it was infrastructure or anything.
AJ:That's what stood out like. Yeah, there's this great metaphor which I actually hadn't heard before the vampire load yeah, standby power, and the fact that what you call it de-lamping, like you could just cut half the lights out yeah, just straight away. It's such a great illustration of what you can do just bang.
Vanessa:Yeah, one of our high schools in our pilot program noticed that the outdoor security lights were quite close together and when they looked at the regulations around how far they should be spaced, they realised they could de-lamp every second outdoor security light, because why do schools need to be lit up like Fort Knox?
AJ:Why do a lot of places need to be? Yeah, that's true.
Vanessa:So yeah, and the security, the outdoor security lights, I think for a lot of schools, are something that they forget about because they're not there at night, but those lights are actually on longer than the internal lights.
AJ:Yeah, and this behaviour change or even energy literacy we could call it it's a significant part of what happens, right?
Vanessa:Well, yeah, that's one of the benefits, I guess, of our app is it shows really clearly what the carbon footprint's made up of, at least from the four areas that we target, which is electricity, gas, water and waste. And so many schools focus on waste and it is important to target. It's such a tangible thing you can do with kids, so it's great. But when you look at the numbers and the graphs like for a lot of schools it's over 80% of their carbon footprint is from electricity, so it just shows that's the elephant in the room that really needs to be targeted and addressed and that's where the majority of their financial savings will come from as well.
AJ:It's interesting, when you're talking about waste, I mean that's waste. Yeah, well, that's waste as well, waste of electricity, yeah yeah, and I guess that integrated focus is ultimately what we are after.
Vanessa:Yeah.
AJ:That all fronts, including the water, as you say. Absolutely, you're developing a consciousness more broadly and that's what you found develop out of these. Yeah.
Vanessa:And this is a fantastic thing about going into schools and teaching them young about how to be more resource efficient. They'll take that knowledge throughout life with them. To be more resource efficient they'll take that knowledge throughout life with them. And what we've been studying over the years through the research that I've been involved with while I was at Curtin University, is that intergenerational change as well when they take that knowledge home and actually influence and educate and upskill their parents around this as well.
AJ:I do remember fondly the children on the show and the moment where Craig suggested that they should constitute government, be worthy of constituting government, and that one of them could be worthy of prime ministerial duties and, like a true prime minister, would take all credit and the blank face. He didn't actually have a clue what Craig was talking about. Why would you do that? And the principal said in that moment I don't remember this. She said, yeah, we have good leaders here, loved it and really that is mirrored in now schools that you'll work just you, let alone other people are working with around the country.
Vanessa:So how have things changed since the show, for example, well, um, I mean, it's only been two months or something since since it's aired, but, um, we've more than doubled our schools, um the number of schools in our program. So that's exciting, um, also terrifying, um, no, it's, it's wonderful. We've got schools in every single state and territory in australia now, um, we've got, uh, I think, eight up to 80, I think around 80 schools now, um, and that's a really good mix of primary schools and high schools, public and private. We do have we had a philanthropist come on board for that Fight for Planet a campaign, so we did give away some free subscriptions to public schools in those socioeconomic areas. So we're thrilled to be working with them and in so many diverse, like really regional and remote communities as well, there's always so much you can do, and so we're just getting started with them, which is the next exciting part of the journey.
AJ:Well, that's part of what stands out to me. So Craig mentioned in the show that there's about nine and a half thousand schools in Australia. There's about 870 public schools alone in WA. If you add the private ones to that, you know, speaking of the potential in WA, it's a huge sack of potential. And I couldn't believe it when I saw that some of the remote schools you're referring to would have energy bills of up to a million dollars a year.
Vanessa:Yeah, so we actually worked with a school up north here in WA that had that, and it's because they have to use a lot of air conditioning. In some cases it's so hot that they leave it on overnight as well to keep the buildings cool and also to prevent condensation and stuff from happening. And then a lot of these more regional remote communities, they'll often use the school outside of hours for community activities, so they are just constantly being used and energy and water and waste is happening all constantly. So, yeah, there's a huge opportunity. When you think about it, I'm sure you're about to go there, but for solar. But I guess something that we've and I'm a huge advocate for solar, but something that we always push is let's try and reduce before we go to solar, because you don't want to oversize the system, if you realise that you're actually wasting 30% from bad behaviour.
Vanessa:Or not bad behaviour, but just not knowing what you could do better.
AJ:That's right. Yes, in fact it stood out at the launch of the Clean State Jobs Plan that you spoke at the First Nations presence, sort of sounding the early alarm on if there's a rush for the minerals on their country, will they see the same sort of colonial grab for more land that they've been grappling with with the fossil fuel economy? They'll say, look, let's not have a repeat of those old ways. So it doesn't come from nowhere that big infrastructure. It is to be really conscious of how big you do make the system and how it works. So in that sense, yes, the potential for schools then is largely around massive bills, massive emissions at times and, of course, big roof spaces. They're the centre of communities in many respects.
Vanessa:Okay, so talk to us a little bit aboutbonising cities and regions and specifically around low carbon urban development and how we can create more sustainable cities and a big focus on it.
Vanessa:This is almost 10 years ago now, but a big focus was this notion of decentralised energy hubs, and it's obviously still a big focus for well, for government, for utilities is to create those hubs that can be isolated and you know you can be feeding in energy, and we already have that in the form of rooftop solar. But if you start to have more sort of community-oriented sort of centres of energy that can feed into the grid at peak times, it's yeah, schools just provide the perfect opportunity for that. They are in the center of each community. They, like you said, they have big roof spaces, um. They generally sort of close around 334 um and then you know people go home and uh, air conditioning start turning on. That's when you start to see a big spike or peak uh. So that's a perfect time for schools to be exporting their excess uh solar generation to the grid to support when the community is actually starting to need it.
Vanessa:And then of course you've also got all the weekends, the school holidays, where there's a whole bunch of extra energy that could be feeding into the grid.
AJ:It might be a good moment to peel back for a bit and talk about the Climate Clever story, because it's an extraordinary tale of how it emerged. Can you run us briefly through it?
Vanessa:Sure, so the idea for Climate Clever initially came back in 20. It was actually 2011 when my colleague, dr Samantha Hall, who was then a PhD student, as I was. While we were doing our PhDs, our professor, peter Newman, asked us if we would help a local high school become carbon neutral. They had been on a journey towards reaching that goal for a number of years before we got involved, but we sort of were the icing on the cake. They're like let's do it, let's get certified. The federal government had a certification system, so Sam and I helped out and helped them actually calculate their carbon footprint and get that all submitted, and it was South Fremantle Senior High School. They became the first carbon neutral school in Australia, which was a massive achievement back then. This was 2012. The Prime Minister even came out and celebrated. That was in the era when we were taking action on climate change.
AJ:Which one was it? Which PM was it? It was Julia Gillard it was. I figured it had to be. That's about where it stopped.
Vanessa:Yeah, we've got a things that they did at the school, and that was really what stuck with me, because I'm like this is an amazing achievement.
Vanessa:The school has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars on their utility bills over a number of years. They dramatically reduced their environmental and carbon impact or footprint. They engaged their students in the process and they also managed to engage the community as well. And one of the things that also really stood out for me was that they um, they approached a local solar provider. I'm not sure who approached who, but they, they struck up a partnership where the provider said if you can convince 25 local households to put solar on their roof, we'll donate a system to the school. And they managed to do that, you know, very simply and um, or quickly, and and I thought that's a fantastic example of how a school has influenced the community and better benefited themselves from it um and yeah. So that's what really got me triggered this notion of, wow, intergenerational change, what if we did get these kids going out and, um, you know, and helping to spread, spread that word about how we can, you know, start to address important things like climate change.
AJ:It really stands out that there were clearly a couple of dozen households there ready to do more that they weren't doing at the time because it was a leap too far, or perceived to be at least. And there was a way that the wheels were greased and together as a community. I think there's a lot of strength in that, absolutely.
Vanessa:And sometimes they just need that push to go well I'll do it to help the school, even though it's helping themselves as well, and the planet and everyone else. But yeah, I think there's a lot of. That's the straw, that intrinsic sort of yeah, desire to yeah to help the community and yeah.
Vanessa:So from that moment, um, I was like, why aren't more schools doing this? This is, yeah. Sam and I were both feeling that at the time, going this is crazy, this is such a great opportunity. And we plotted and schemed and had to finish our PhDs and then we ended up running a two-year pilot program several years later, so that was in late 2015,. Actually, we ended up partnering with the City of Fremantle because I was very unsuccessful in applying for research grants.
Vanessa:I was an academic still at the university and the City of Fremantle really wanted us to run a pilot program with their schools, because the City of Fremantle was carbon neutral themselves. They had a low carbon community plan. It fitted in with everything they were doing. But they knew my plight of not having any money and not being able to get these research grants. So they said why don't you just run it through your business? We had a another startup at the time called simply carbon um. Charge the schools a fee to join the program and we'll subsidize the schools you know, the free mental schools to join, so that it's affordable for them as well. Um, so that was the start of my entrepreneur, our entrepreneurial journey, I guess.
AJ:And I love that. I love to hear how I guess raw it was. Yeah, you weren't okay with this to start with you just jumped in and learned on the go, yeah absolutely, and the council was fantastic.
Vanessa:We ended up saying, do you mind if we expand it beyond the city of Fremantle? And they were more than happy for us to do that. They helped us get a couple more councils on board, and so we ended up with 15 schools across Metro Perth, in again Metro Perth, in again lots of different higher and lower socioeconomic areas. We had 10 primary schools and five high schools in that pilot and that's what we always refer to as our low-tech, low-cost pilot.
Vanessa:We didn't have an app or anything, but we basically helped these 15 schools through that same process that we did with South Fremantle, but the idea was to provide it in a group context, so it wasn't sort of a one-on-one consultancy based thing. It was a we're going to provide you with the tools and you can go off and do it yourself and we'll come together and share our learnings and um and knowledge and everything and our achievements together. So we met monthly with them as a group and we, every month, we went to a different school and someone would host, so it was just, you know, a place to draw as well. Yeah, so it was a fantastic opportunity. And then at the end of that pilot end of 2017, we had a whole bunch of schools approaching us asking to join the program and at that stage we were like we cannot scale this startup with Excel spreadsheets anymore and Google Docs. So that's when we did win a grant and launched Climate Clever in 2018 with the first version of the app, which has evolved immensely since then.
AJ:Fascinating. I remember being struck in that pilot by I think I read somewhere that there were 600 ideas generated from the schools and that's with the low tech. I mean I love that. That. That's with the low tech. Just try stuff. We don't really know what we're doing and the ideas were pouring out and largely youth led too, as you've said already.
Vanessa:So that's an extraordinary thing, yeah, and the other big important stat in there is that 70% of those actions were no cost actions as well. So I think it just goes to show just how much we can do with, yeah, with very little outlay or no outlay.
AJ:So the bigger picture for WA and what Clean State's calling the Bright Sparks Solar Schools program. It's a vision to at least equip our public schools in WA in this fashion, to have this sort of scheme rolled out across the state, like to imagine it, across all schools in WA. And it's also true to say that it can be a sort of a rolling fund, that the savings can be reinvested. It can be a net, no financial outlay.
Vanessa:They're not even saying that. They're saying it's going to make money. I mean that's the thing and it will like that's that's. What is frustrating about it is that yes, there are, there is going to make money. I mean that's the thing and it will Like that's. What is frustrating about it is that yes, there is going to be initial financial outlay, but they're going to save so much more money. When I say they, you know the government will save so much more money if they do invest that, you know it's not insignificant but you know that amount up front, and that's exactly what we're talking about with Clean State is they can lend that money out to schools.
Vanessa:schools can borrow that money, pay for the infrastructure and then pay that loan off back to the Department of Education once the solar's paid off, and then the department can then lend that money to another school to do the same thing and you just get this continual rollout of solar in a really affordable fashion. It's such a no-brainer.
AJ:Together with what Chantal was saying in episode one, actually about the circularity of this, actually making sure the end of life, the 20, 25 years or so of the panels, the end of life, is actually factored in and those industries are coming along at the same time, and in the regions for that matter certainly in a collie, for example potentially, but elsewhere too you start to see how it could pan out huge, huge opportunities and and that goes also for the energy efficiency side of things like you could get schools, you know, starting to reduce and save money from inefficiencies and put you know some of that money as well towards the solar panels, like I think there's yeah, there's just so many opportunities so many opportunities.
AJ:It's exciting. It is exciting and I guess just to ground this in the need like we're not talking about nice to haves either. Hey, there is an underlying emphasis on the urgency of this. So this could play a significant part, you can imagine, in not just that swathe of territory and schools, but in, like you've said, the leverage to the communities and also some of your work. It's not limited to schools, right, you're talking local governments and other spaces. Give us an idea.
Vanessa:Yeah, sure, no. Well, actually, when you said before, how did the Fight for Planet A impact us? I should have mentioned that as well. We did launch our home app in March, just as COVID hit. It was actually quite good timing for COVID, because everyone was almost unlocked in their households.
AJ:With time I mean it was a terrible.
Vanessa:but fortunate time to be able to help people to reduce their home utility bills, because their bills were going up compared to the same time last year.
Vanessa:Yeah, but that was a long time coming because, as I said right from the start, the motivation was around this notion of can we influence intergenerational change, and now we have a tool that can measure it as well. So the idea always was to be able to get the schools that are participating in the climate clever program to be able to use the home app, and then we can link all that data back to the school and so the school can start to measure. This is actually the impact we've had in the community. We've helped our community reduce their carbon footprint by 20% or whatever it is, but also to also to be able to see how many households might have put solar on the roof, because you can track all the actions through the app as well what people are doing. But, yes, we've had a huge spike in household users, and then we launched a local government partnership program earlier this year as well, and that's been fantastic.
Vanessa:We're seeing so many councils across Australia declaring a climate emergency and not knowing what next step to take. You know, a lot of them focus on the operations first, which is good, and then they start to look at the community and go. Well, how do we? You know where do we even start with the community? So this is a fantastic platform for them. To you know, we give them the data back so they can start to measure what impact they're having, or the community's having, in terms of carbon reduction.
AJ:Yeah, so your invitation, then, is to almost anybody to have a look at what you're doing and jumping on board in some fashion.
Vanessa:Absolutely so. The other exciting thing is we're about to release a business version as well. That was sort of the final piece of the puzzle for us. So we've got the schools, homes and businesses, so generally targeting sort of smaller businesses, but again in the community. So that really is the whole community that you've. You've sort of got covered in terms of educate them around how what a carbon footprint means and what their impact is and how they can actually reduce it. So, yeah, it is.
AJ:It's an invitation to everyone to understand what impact you're having and how we can all make a difference and an invitation to, because you're working to help other people step up into this sort of these sorts of opportunities startup opportunities, social enterprise opportunities, job opportunities, work opportunities. There's so much to be done. It's a recurrent theme. Through all this, of course, you're helping other people and other women step up to be able to take advantage of the opportunities and help us with these transitions. So it's not. You're not just asking people to come to you. You're trying to help other people step into these spaces too. Give us a sense of how that's happening for you.
Vanessa:Well, through my role at WASEC, which is the Western Australian Social Enterprise Council, we're certainly trying to grow this sector to help, I guess, educate the public around the benefit of social enterprises and I genuinely think in the future people, consumers will actually look and choose businesses that have that public benefit or that environmental benefit. That's above and beyond a standard business just doing you know business as usual, and there's there's so many examples of wonderful businesses that are doing that, and one very common one that people that comes to mind is is who gives a crap toilet paper? You know they donate 50% of their profit to building toilets and things in federal countries, but that sort of you know philosophy around I'm doing business, but I'm doing business to make a positive impact on the world. That's certainly what we're doing. So we give 10% of our profit away to help disadvantaged communities, but we also have a side app called Bill Buddy.
Vanessa:This stemmed out of a pitch I gave at Impact Seeds pitch night and Justine Collier from Rise Network, so that's a not-for-profit community service organisation. She was one of the judges on the panel that night and she saw the applicability of our school app for homes, but particularly for low-income households and those experiencing financial stress. So we ended up partnering together. She got a whole bunch of her not-for-profit other community organisations together and we won a significant Lottery West grant last year to develop up a specific version of our app that will be free for low-income households connected to these social service organisations and that, you know. All these sorts of things I think people want to support. Like it's a good thing, you know. Yeah, I just feel like it's a no-brainer and really excited to be able to sit on Wasek's you know board to be able to help grow this sector. We're talking to the government. We're trying to, you know, talk about maybe getting a certification scheme to say you know what is a social enterprise.
AJ:So to ensure there's no social washing you know you have to be a legitimate business, but you know to really recognise this sector.
Vanessa:I think that's what we're trying to encourage is everyone to do better.
AJ:Beautiful. To close, Vanessa, how would you articulate your vision? What do you see for WA?
Vanessa:Oh, I see very big bright things. Yeah, we have a huge opportunity here. We've we've got one of the most abundant renewable energy opportunities. We also have so many opportunities for manufacturing for, as you mentioned before, recycling of, you know, different waste products as well, and and even creating the batteries. And the clean state jobs plans, just, you know, highlight so many of those opportunities. I think we have an amazing opportunity on our doorstep. It's just going to be the political will to make it happen.
AJ:That's awesome. Thanks, Vanessa. It's been terrific to speak with you. Thanks for meeting me here.
Vanessa:Thank you so much, Anthony.
AJ:That was Dr Vanessa Rauland, co-founder and CEO of Climate Clever, on location at John Curtin College of the Arts in her hometown of Fremantle. For more on Vanessa, Climate Clever, Clean State WA and how you can support the Jobs Plan or get involved with climate initiatives and other action in your community, see the links in the show notes. The music you're hearing is by Selfless Orchestra, an emergence of WA musicians inspired by issues of social and environmental justice. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.
