Maximize a budget to get a lot done

Your lovin' give me a thrill
But your lovin' don't pay my bill.
Now gimme money 

That's what I want!

– The Beatles

Money is what most of us want. Recent hardships call for a different tune, so could old fashioned cooperation leverage a city budget better?
The Beatles’ hometown proved it. Liverpool, England offers frugal budgets everywhere a guide.

The headline “Our City, Our Planet,” is shorthand for Liverpool’s push during 2009 to engage the public in improving town’s environmental sustainability. During the Year of the Environment the City of Liverpool hosted more than 900 events with environmental themes.  Flower and vegetable shows, bird box making, compost giveaways, a bike tour between churches (Cycle4Faith), and “Zen and the Art of the Wildflower,” were among formal programs.  The public events were not lectures about the carbon cycle, so much as community bicycling and mushroom gathering. Mini-grants of around 500-1000£ were awarded to improve neighborhoods around environmental themes: citizens created hundreds of hanging flower baskets, cleaned up their streets, and practiced EcoYoga. Response to the call for grant applications so overwhelmed staff a new position was created to liaise with the public.

City staff scoured department budgets for existing funds upon which Year of the Environment could piggyback. Staff time, marketing, webdesign, surveys, city clean ups all came from reallocating existing budget and employee priorities.  The total budget for the year of programming was £1.03; more than £85,000 of in-kind contributions were contributed. The Chamber of Commerce, various neighborhood organizations, the Art Council and wider Liverpool Community Network underwrote other pieces of the Year.
“To know that we were running alongside other people for a year was helpful,” said Christine Darbyshire, of Liverpool City Council, on the value of officially naming 2009 the Year of the Environment. As well, the year-long focus provided “an opportunity to accelerate our collective progress toward becoming a low carbon city,” according to official documents.

Partnership included:
–    The Green Ambassador program featured schools, businesses and citizens publically committed to personal change
–    A first-time event called the Green Power Forum brought architects, builders, real estate professionals together for a training on green building and renewable energy.
–    November’s £120 per plate annual Chamber of Commerce gala featured Marks & Spencer chief executive Sir Stuart Rose as a guest speaker. M&S, a household brand in Britain, has pledged 100 commitments to become carbon neutral, send no waste to the landfill and improve sustainable sourcing.
–    The Liverpool Echo newspaper wrote a weekly feature about green activities in the City.

Unfortunately, some Liverpool neighborhoods  suffered from multiple indicators of deprivation with low employment, poor health and a degraded physical infrastructure. In light of this, referencing environment in terms of sustainability or more compost would neglect residents’ more pressing need: cleanliness and beauty.
Thus, Liverpool focused on basics: all major supermarkets were tasked with collecting abandoned grocery carts blighting the City. Neighborhood clean ups were held. Seven new bike cycling routes were added in an initiative called “Cycle Speke,” to provide access to employment for residents of this historically poor corner of Liverpool. The Art Council Cultural Investment Program produced a film called “Mend and Make Do” wherein people “explore, remember and relearn skills of a bygone era when recycling was something all did naturally.”

To understand the context of Liverpool’s initiatives, know that the City had long suffered a reputation as a poor city, with high crime rates and antisocial behavior. Unemployment was among the highest in the UK during the 1980s. But regeneration abounds. The European Capital of Culture was bestowed on Liverpool in 2008. Large wind turbines, recently erected, grace the coastline. The most common comment heard is, “You won’t believe how much town has changed!”

The City hopes visitors and investors could be drawn to Liverpool as an environmental showcase, forgetting the image of a brawling and rusty port. “We think the environmental strengths of the city and its natural resources will ultimately be how the city turns itself around” said Darbyshire.

Year of the Environment site:
http://www.ourcityourplanet.org.uk/