Last week we were celebrating Eco Hub Sidmouth! In particular we were celebrating the Eco Hub Sidmouth @ the Champions Awards 2025.
As part of that, we heard from the founder of the Eco Hub Sidmouth – Bernie Davis – who also received a certificate of thanks for all her inspiring work on the project.
The following is what Bernie said to those gathered at the event – and has been published with permission. It provides an encouraging but realistic understanding of how we can all engage better with the issues around climate change.
We need to read, digest and act on it!
Reflections on Engagement – November 2025
Where it started
1) The motivation for Eco Hub Sidmouth came from involvement with CAPS and their desire to widen ‘engagement’ relating to climate change and particularly carbon footprints. The problem they identified after hosting talks for several years was trying to expand interest and ‘engagement’. ‘Preaching to the converted’ was encountered as an obstacle in that it seemed that the same people attended CAPS talks and events.
2) Also, STC’s updated Environment Policy 2025 specifically focuses on ‘engagement’ to a) encourage environmental awareness, b) support behaviour change and c) highlight positive changes that demonstrate progress in achieving our environmental goals.
3) Visiting other towns’ eco hubs also provided encouragement to trial an eco hub here in Sidmouth. ‘Eco Hub’ is a flexible concept that can be adopted in a variety of ways to support the community it is in.
How the programme opened out
A 6-month trial was hosted at the Tourist Information Centre and library alternating on every 2 weeks. The trial addressed topics relating to climate change such as January: Retrofitting/fuel poverty, February: Local food/Food waste, March: Recycling, April: Active travel, May: Plastic Pollution and June: Drawing from nature. This brought together people with specific expertise and enthusiasm and provided a place for sharing experiences and information. Although some residents did attend the sessions, crowds of people did not engage and further people did not step forward with a desire to volunteer to develop the hub.
However, 2 environmental films were also shown at the Radway, i.e. Six Inches of Soil and Wilding with panel discussions and these were very popular drawing 150+ to each film. Nature Identification Challenges and a CAPS workshop made up an autumn programme in the library. A Climate Cafe was held in Blackmore Gardens in October.
What engagement means
As a result of the Eco Hub Sidmouth trial various viewpoints and practices on engagement can be reflected on:
- To engage others you need to be engaged/be engaging…explain and listen. Efforts build over time, with each event and every conversation more can be learned about engagement which informs further efforts. The more people that are engaged with the more connections that can be made and more events/activities/opportunities can be presented.
- Engagement is not measured only by the number of people who show up (quanitative measure) but also how people relate, enthusiasm/concerns expressed (qualitative measure).
- The power of invitation…someone said the reason she came to an eco hub meeting was because I invited her.
- The power of asking for help…when a host dropped out at the last minute I sent out 3 emails asking for someone to take her place and 4 people turned up!
- People seem to like to take part in interesting fun activities rather than attend a talk by an expert…find ways to connect with nature, but also with each other.
- It may be more successful to take the message or activity to the people rather than expect them to come to you.
- There may be untapped audiences to target, e.g. young people, parents.
Why it’s alright to preach to the converted
The issue of ‘preaching to the converted’ is not necessarily a negative situation. Even the converted need ongoing explanation/information and support. Being in the company of people who think in similar ways is supportive but can also offer inspiration and opportunities to get involved further. Even if the converted don’t share the same views perhaps it can be assumed that there are some things that are now agreed on:
1) that climate change exists
2) that human activity over the past 150 years has created global warming
3) if behaviours don’t change and global warming continues then life, as has been enjoyed by recent generations, will change dramatically. Parts of the earth will not be able to sustain human life.
4) 80-89% of the global population want their governments to do more to address the climate change problems
Why some tipping points are good
The concept of ‘tipping points’ shows how conditions can spiral quickly in both negative and positive directions. Physical climate change tipping points include coral reef dieback but could also result in destroying the AMOC and Gulf Stream, undermining global food and weather security and perpetuating Amazonian rain forest dieback.
However, the concept of social tipping points supports efforts to work from within the existing group of active individuals to increase visibility and engagement in order to reach the point ‘when amplifying feedback within a system gets strong enough to support self-propelling change’. For example, electric cars, renewable energy sources. It is through ‘engagement’ both with bigger numbers and also participation with a deeper understanding and commitment that social tipping points can be reached.
What the future can hold
1) Libraries Unlimited: Together for Tomorrow learn from other libraries…2026
2) FRESK- Peter Bunyan from Teignmouth
3) Polly Meyrick- portrait artist whose work celebrates Devon people’s projects that showcase a transition to renewable energy. Her exhibition and video are called: We Are All People Of Power.
4) Bob Walley- Envirolution has experience of running environment festivals throughout the country. Would like to contribute to what is already happening here. His aim is to engage people who would not typically attend environmental events.
5) CAG Community Action Group regularly run skill share sessions in towns nearby. People in these workshops can gain support and ideas on how to work with their community.
6) Workshops that focus on cooking: e.g. Parent/Child workshop on vegetables, Cooking for independence for young people, Cooking to a budget.
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