Collaboration not competition – Rozie’s take

The Old Market in Hove was a buzz of excitement last week, filled with green businesses from across the city.

The Green Chamber collective, a sector group within the Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce brought sustainable businesses together to hear the three selected panellists who brought along their interesting experiences.

Alex Hunt, Flemich Webb and Damian Tow are each important cogs in various green businesses in Brighton that have improved sustainability across the city.

The cosy room was filled with a brilliant mix of people, from solicitors, transport experts, writers and clothing producers, all adding to the sustainable community.

Jenny Barrett from Supernatural Kids Clothing sells baby clothes made out of organic cotton and other natural materials including modal, which is from birch trees said she said “had come to find out what’s going on and to know more about everyone.”

The topic of discussion focused on community groups and businesses coming together for the greater goal rather than competing separately. Although I’m not a business owner and don’t yet know a huge amount about being green and sustainability, it left me wanting to know more. I found the topic really interesting and enlightening. In fact the whole room was eagerly awaiting the next piece of information the panellists would reveal. They each shared their positive and negative experiences they went through in building their sustainable businesses. It was inspiring hearing the paths these three had taken to get to where they are today.

Damien who used to work for BT is now project director of the Brighton Energy co-operative. He said his lifestyle and whole thought process has changed dramatically and to see how passionate he is about the cause is great.

Alex has been influential across the world with various environmental projects, and now is a big part of sustainable architecture in Brighton working at Green Building Partnership.

Flemmich is very inspirational to me especially as he is a journalist and is chair of Brighton and Hove 10:10 which is fantastic for the city.

It is amazing to see such a variety of people come together to help one and other and their communities. One lady I found particularly interesting was Cat Fletcher, who has many roles within society, including the new project house made of rubbish and the online Freegle site that allows people to reuse items for free. Cat had a lovely way of describing community collaboration. She said: “I believe to have healthy viable happy cities, people from all sectors and walks of life need to work together.”

Both Cat and Kayla Ente from Ente Consulting and an amazing new project Brighton and Hove Energy Services Ltd were really enthusiastic about sustainability and both talked about ‘synergy’ being much more powerful.

I was amazed to hear the passion and hard work that small groups, communities and businesses all have. Unfortunately such passion and enthusiasm comes at a price, and this was said to be an expectation from the government and larger organisations that these small groups would work incredibly hard and for free to get the grants they need to push their projects to the next level. As Alex said: “We all have to put food on the table,” which means always working for free is not an option. Everyone has to provide for their families and so need to work for money. This makes it difficult for groups to negotiate with the grant providers and can also lead to giving in to the need for money, meaning small businesses have to do the work that pays instead of the important or worthwhile projects.

We learnt about how small businesses struggle to gain the bigger grants needed to reach their goals and how joining other groups, making themselves a bigger company can help to make them heard against the huge organisations that usually receive the necessary grants. They also explained how community groups have to recognise they’ve got to work efficiently like a business too, to progress in the ways they need.

All three panellists had come together to work for LEAF funding (local energy assessment fund). Alex explained how the assessments that took place across Brighton would usually be around one or two a month. With the help and extra work that the community put in, over 150 were completed in six weeks. They shared how Flemmich’s Brighton and Hove 10:10 brand was more publicly acknowledged so needed to become the face of the operation, leaving some of the other groups in the background. A sacrifice has to be made for the greater good.

All however had a lot of positives when discussing groups and businesses coming together. Alex chose to refer to it as a big piece of cheese, that everyone wants a piece of. So everyone has their own goal to achieve and coming together will help each business reach where they need to get to. When collaborating, groups or businesses are going to overlap in goals or attributes, which lead to difficulties but each business has to let go of their essence of self and focus on the overall goal. The goal that will be reached through new relationships and partnerships, but may mean your business sees’s little or no recognition. After all that, he still believes collaboration is extremely important and positive.

Everyone was left filled with questions and enthusiasm, all wanting to continue and add to the sustainable community. It was such a friendly happy atmosphere and great to see so many people communicating and sharing such important and interesting information.

Kayla from Ente Consulting was one happy guest, buzzing with excitement, expressing how the panellists were: “wonderfully progressive thinkers” and how brilliant the idea of collaboration is.

I left with my brain brimming with new knowledge, excitement for all these amazing enterprises and eager to see the next steps of their journeys. I would say a very successful event.

Written by: Rozie Apps, Brighton Journalists Works student

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