Old adages tend to be old adages for a reason; generally because they’re true. So regardless of how often I hear that “two heads are better than one”, or “there’s no ‘I’ in team”, I think these phrases are pretty much spot on.
So it’s with great pride that we’re celebrating having received the 2011 Partnership in Environment award from Local Government Chronicle magazine at its Business Partnership Awards. The award was for our partnership with Glasgow City Council on our innovative ‘gainshare’ project.
The ‘gainshare’ scheme means we fund investment in new water efficiency infrastructure, which allows local councils, in this instance Glasgow City Council (GCC), to benefit from the associated consumption savings without having to find the upfront capital expenditure. As a result, over the next four years GCC will save as much as £1.3 million in water and waste water costs, which equates to 1105 tonnes of carbon.
Partnership in major projects like this are absolutely critical to success. Two organisations working together so closely become almost like one team, and mutual trust, respect and goals are seriously important. In this case it wasn’t just about the money saving aspect of the partnership, but we both agreed that improving environmental performance through better water efficiency was a big deal.
The gainshare model has allowed GCC, which has 720 sites across the city, including council offices and depots, leisure centres, sports facilities and schools, to establish sound water management practices in a way which compliments its financial priorities. Following GCC’s success, we’ve been speaking to several other local authorities in Scotland about how gainshare could work with them.
We always like hearing about some of the innovative approaches to partnership which other organisations have taken – use the comment boxes below to share your stories.