The Mayor's Business Climate Challenge

This prospectus sets out the Mayor’s ambitions for his 2022-23 Business Climate Challenge (BCC). He is looking for up to 10 partners to work with us to deliver this next phase of the BCC to London’s businesses.

The Greater London Authority (GLA) wants to work with business membership organisations to embed the programme at local level and help tie it to wider neighbourhood plans to reach net zero. Business partners will receive funding of up to £30,000 to oversee the process in their locality and engage businesses from their membership and support them to operate their buildings more efficiently and reduce their energy costs.

Partners will be appointed through an open competitive process. This prospectus outlines eligibility criteria along with the application and selection process. Organisations interested in partnering with the GLA should submit an application form. They will be assessed on the criteria outlined in the application form.

The 2022-2023 BCC will provide bespoke technical support for up to 250 London businesses as well as indirect support to a wider London business audience through open access resources and knowledge sharing networks.

The GLA is seeking to partner with 10 business membership organisations who will offer the BCC to their membership and actively engage them to encourage participation. Partners will be appointed through a competitive process.

The BCC will target non-domestic, privately rented and owned commercial spaces as the participants for its support. Medium-sized enterprises will be prioritised for the carbon savings they can deliver but smaller businesses will also be eligible.

The pilot focussed on office space but the 2022-23 programme can offer support to mixed use and non-office space as well, such as retail, hospitality and accommodation. The BCC aims to work with a wide range of businesses to support them in the transition to a low carbon economy.

The programme will provide participants with bespoke technical support from a built environment consultancy to reduce their workplaces' energy consumption and operate their equipment more efficiently, cutting both carbon emissions and energy costs. Indicatively, each participating business will receive:

• a benchmark using a recognised standard (for example, a Display Energy Certificate)

• a comprehensive site energy audit per participant workplace identifying potential for light-touch energy conservation measures through to deep retrofit measures

• a tailored recommendation report with proposed energy conservation measures to reduce their energy consumption and costs, along with a clear pathway to net zero

• a building walkthrough (approximately two hours) to accompany their recommendation report explaining recommended measures and answering participant questions

• follow up one-to-one support to address energy conservation implementation challenges/queries

• group training sessions.

Business membership organisations such as Business Improvement Districts, Climate Change Alliances, and Town Teams have a unique role and opportunity for supporting London’s businesses to play their role in addressing the climate crisis.

These trusted partners can help the GLA to shape the support that is being offered, explain the benefits of the programme to their membership set their organisational ambitions for getting to net zero and link the programme to wider local goals.

The benefits for the membership organisations are that their members will have access to technical advice about and support for improving their building's performance and reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. Organisations can also use this as a spring board for setting their organisational ambitions for starting out on their journey for getting to net zero.

The BCC offers businesses a double dividend of economic and environmental benefit. By partnering with the GLA to offer the BCC to your network you will be able to provide businesses with meaningful cost-savings.

The average participant on the 2021 pilot has the potential to reduce their energy consumption by 17 per cent while saving £6000 annually in energy expenditures.

Achieving these savings comes at a low cost to businesses since more than half of the participants can meet or exceed their target by implementing energy-efficiency measures with an average cost of £3,800.

The BCC will support the expansion of your sustainability initiatives and increase your offer to members.

The bespoke nature of the programme means there is a higher chance that participants can overcome barriers to action, as the programme makes feasible and actionable recommendations.

The programme will increase businesses capacity to act by upskilling building managers and staff through training sessions and one-to-one support.

The BCC will also deliver cohort-wide activities with business engagement partners to maximise peer-to-peer learning opportunities and motivate action.

Pilot participants highlighted sharing best practice and challenges with other businesses as one of the BCC’s main benefits.

Selected partners will have a key role in sharing learning amongst their cohort and business membership.

Crucially, this learning will be shared London-wide through case studies and success stories recognising businesses’ efforts.

The BCC aims to become a widely-used model for built environment decarbonisation. This is a key opportunity for business membership organisations to lead retrofit efforts in London by contributing to the development and design of the programme.

The GLA will work with selected partners to support the adoption of the BCC within their organisations and upskill engagement officers on climate action and programme delivery.

The BCC Programme has approximately £150,000 available to fund Business Engagement Partners. These funds will be disbursed between up to 10 partners.

The amount allocated will depend on the organisations' ability to demonstrate it has the capacity to recruit a cohort - a group of suitable businesses - from their membership that meet the BCC application eligibility criteria. Applicants do not need to have any businesses recruited at the time of application to the BCC and will self-nominate their bracket.

The size of each cohort will be determined by the business membership organisation itself and the number of businesses they think is reasonable to recruit. Ideally cohorts should be no smaller than 20 businesses.

Organisations will be assigned to one of the following funding brackets based on the number of businesses they think they can recruit as stated in their online application:

• Bracket 1: recruit 20 to 30 businesses that meet the application eligibility criteria - £15,000.
• Bracket 2: recruit 31 to 40 businesses that meet the application eligibility criteria. £20,000.
• Bracket 3: recruit 41 to 50 businesses that meet the application eligibility criteria. £25,000.
• Bracket 4: recruit over 51 businesses that meet the application eligibility criteria. £30,000.

Applicants will be assessed according to the criteria outlined in the application form. Applicants will not be assessed according to the funding bracket they nominate - this is for information only.

We understand that a partner’s ability to recruit businesses will depend on external factors. Partners who recruit more or fewer businesses will be able to change brackets. This will be done through discussion with the GLA once the BCC is underway and will depend on the total number of places available for fully funded technical support.

To successfully deliver the 2022-23 programme the GLA will partner with business membership organisations. Business Improvement Districts, other Business Membership Organisations, Climate Change Alliances, and Town Teams are encouraged to apply to support the GLA deliver the BCC.

Minimum size

Applicants should be confident they can secure a cohort of at least 20 suitable businesses to apply to the BCC. See Annex A for the criteria for participating businesses.

Endorsement

Applicant organisations will require a letter of endorsement from their executive director to confirm the BCC is aligned with their mission and priorities.

Resourcing

A Business Engagement Partner must be able to dedicate officer time to the BCC. Applicants should demonstrate their approach to managing the BCC in the application form.

Consortiums

Organisations can apply individually or as a consortium. A lead partner organisation must be appointed to act as the main point of contact for consortium application and oversee programme coordination.

Diversity

The BCC aims to support and empower a diverse range of Business Engagement Partners and businesses, contributing to developing sustainability initiatives through a place-based approach. Thus, we encourage applications from organisations located in all London boroughs, of varying sizes and network reach. Organisations with Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic owned or traditionally underrepresented business memberships are highly encouraged to apply.

The BCC works to achieve the GLA and London Councils’ Green New Deal Recovery Mission. The programme will support the following objectives:

• promoting place-based responses to the climate emergency and green recovery from the pandemic

• contributing to London's net zero by 2030 target in your area of influence

• accelerating and leading decarbonisation efforts in your membership, contributing to growing the green economy

• supporting businesses to reduce their energy consumption 10 per cent over the Challenge year.

Business Engagement Partners will support the 2022-23 BCC by managing business recruitment and engagement. They will work together with the GLA and technical support provider to deliver the programme.

Business Engagement Partners’ responsibilities cut across the following BCC phases:

• 18 March: prospectus launch
• 18 March: online application opens
• 31 March: briefing session
• 21 April: application deadline
• 23 May: decisions made
• 17 June: funding agreement signed
• 27 June: BCC official launch

1. Participating organisations

• Open to owners, owner-occupiers, building managers and tenants.

• Participants must have influence over the workplace and ability to make changes to how the space is operated- preference will be given to participants who can demonstrate both tenant and landlord buy-in.

• A participating organisation may be made up of single or multiple tenant businesses in one building or be the building owner.

2. Responsible parties

Participating organisations must be able to nominate:

• A project lead with responsibility for building operations (facilities or building manager).

• a strategic lead with decision making powers (building owner or business executive).

• Participants must commit to an energy reduction target of 10% in the BCC year.

• Where a participant is made up of multiple tenant businesses in one building the group of businesses must nominate a lead business with primary responsibility for the BCC.

3. Type of building

• Participating organisations should be commercial buildings (not public sector or domestic).

• The BCC will be focussed on commercial office space.

• But the BCC will also pilot approaches to supporting retail, hospitality, industrial, accommodation, and mixed-use spaces.

4. Building Management System

• The BCC is open to buildings without a Building Management System (BMS).

• A participant must have control or influence over building systems or contractual responsibility for these.

5. Size

• Participating buildings should be occupied by over 50 employees (this can be across multiple businesses).

Yes, in the application form you can select the option “I am open to partner with other organisations”. We will make our best effort to find an organisation in your area with whom you can form a consortium.

No, organisations do not need to secure the cohort before applying. The recruitment process commences once partners have been selected. However, soft engagement is encouraged to assess your members’ interest in the programme.

No, business engagement partners are responsible for recruiting and shortlisting potential participants within your membership that fit the BCC application criteria. The GLA and built environment firm will conduct the participant evaluation process and select suitable businesses in your cohort.

No, allocated funding is meant to support business engagement partners to deliver the BCC. For example, to compensate officer hours, produce communication materials, run outreach campaigns, or similar.