Partnership pays dividends in promoting higher environmental standards, hears "cleanest city" competition launch

Citation

(2001), "Partnership pays dividends in promoting higher environmental standards, hears "cleanest city" competition launch", Facilities, Vol. 19 No. 1/2. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.2001.06919aab.008

Partnership pays dividends in promoting higher environmental standards, hears "cleanest city" competition launch

Partnership pays dividends in promoting higher environmental standards, hears "cleanest city" competition launch

Keywords: Local authorities, Business partnerships, Environment awards

McDonald's shows how to make the difference

Working in partnership to promote higher environmental standards has paid real dividends, both for the local authority teams responsible for keeping city streets clean and, even in the crudest of commercial terms, for the businesses who act in tandem with them.

This was the message for local authority delegates who attended a recent seminar in Birmingham to launch the 2001 "Britain's cleanest city" competition, the series of biennial awards organised by the British Cleaning Council, the co-ordinating body for the UK cleaning industry. The awards are designed to focus attention on the qualities that go to make a clean city and recognise the efforts of those cities who have implemented successful policies in this direction.

Examining the potential of partnerships at the seminar, which had as its theme "Pride of place – working together to create clean cities", were Alan Baird, environmental services manager for Chester City Council, current holders of the "Britain's cleanest city" title, who looked at how partnerships with the widest range of organisations can boost best practice and benefit the authority's cleaning budget, and Robert Parker, corporate affairs manager of McDonalds Restaurants Limited, probably the best-known of all the fast food chains, who, in presenting the commercial perspective, showed how a responsible attitude to the environment could also be good for business.

Mr Parker opened by suggesting that he was at the seminar because he represented a company that made life difficult for the delegates. He hoped, however, that his company could "also be part of the solution".

"Focus on solutions and don't apportion blame"

Although he saw all types of litter on the streets – crisp packets, cans, cigarette ends, dumped household waste as well as McDonald's packaging, irresponsibly discarded by a small minority of customers, it was the McDonald's packaging that was frequently regarded as the most offensive. "However, in my experience", he counselled the delegates, "the best relationships are those where both parties focus on solutions, recognise each others' objectives and do not look to apportion blame". Managing the local environment was very important to McDonald's, he added, since failure to do so was not only bad for the company's image but also extremely bad for business.

Previous "cleanest city" competitions had shown that effective partnerships produced impressive results, and nowhere more so than in the case of Chester, which, before winning the 1999 title, had already won a Chairman's Special Award for the excellence of its community involvement schemes in 1997.

Chester is a top tourist attraction – it boasts 6 million day visitors and 800,000 staying visitors a year – and is also the chosen headquarters location for a number of national companies and a premier retail centre. The city has successfully developed partnerships with a wide range of both commercial and non-commercial interests to achieve the highest standards of cleanliness at the lowest economic cost, as advocated by best practice/best value policy, explained Alan Baird, the city's environmental service manager.

Chester's partners include the Tidy Britain Group – it has been a member of the People and Places programme for some time; the city centre management team; local retailers and businesses; local bus companies; Cheshire County Council; the British Waterways Board; the Environment Agency; and the police. It also works with volunteer agencies such as the Civic Trust, community groups and local parishes.

"In creating successful partnerships, particularly with commercial concerns, you must first understand their needs and aims, and your proposals must fit in with their business culture", Mr Baird told his audience. "As well as explaining the environmental benefits, you also need to emphasise the payback to them both as a business and in commercial terms. There may be marketing opportunities through sponsorship, for instance, while community safety will also have a positive effect on trade. In contrast, a dirty city will have a negative effect."

Local problems dealt with by local people

Among the Chester initiatives which chiefly caught the attention of the audience were its collaboration with the British Waterways Board, who pay the local authority to clean up the towpaths alongside the city's network of canals; the award-winning Graffiti Busters service; the co-operation with local police in enforcing bye-laws which ban the drinking of alcohol and urinating in public places; and the Parish Street Orderlies scheme. Under this scheme, 26 of Chester's community villages employ their own street orderlies, who are grant-aided by the city council. The task of these orderlies is to look after the village centre, shopping centre, housing estates and other public areas. Cleaning equipment is initially provided by the council, though the parish has the on-going responsibility for it.

"This scheme is very cost-effective for the council", declared Mr Baird, "because it means our people do not have to travel to deal with problems – in other words, we are giving responsibility for local problems to local people."

One of Chester's most cherished partners is the Friends of the Meadows, an environmental community group with close on 1,000 members and a recent winner of a Queen Mother's Birthday Award. Its chairman, keen environmentalist Adele Edwards, was also at the seminar to describe how her six-year-old volunteer group works with the local city council to make litter and related problems such as flytipping virtually a thing of the past on the 75 acres of beautiful Deeside water meadows. Having had to deal with everything from dead cows to drinks cans, condoms to plastic carrier bags, Mrs Edwards told delegates: "All these problems can be solved, but the council needs to listen to local people, because they have the knowledge, the interest and the ideas".