Tackling inequalities: digital inclusion in Greenwich

Many of our projects are about breaking down barriers between people and technology; ensuring that the advantages of any innovation are accessible to all, whether that’s a new mobility solution or access to digital services. This was particularly vital during the pandemic, as there was an overlap between groups vulnerable to the risks of COVID-19 and communities with high levels of digital exclusion. For our latest blog, Project Manager, Hiba Alaraj explains how DG Cities helped, from understanding people’s needs, to delivering training, equipment and empowering community champions - starting a ripple effect that has improved people’s lives in Greenwich, and now has lessons for councils across the UK.

Being digitally capable can significantly improve people’s day to day lives. The ability to use the internet and devices such as laptops, computers and phones can bring about endless opportunities; it can let you connect with family and friends, access online banking, shopping, education and employment. On the other hand, those that lack these skills are at a higher disadvantage.  

As technology progresses, services such as health care, banking and council systems are increasingly moving online. Digitally excluded users are not well equipped to benefit from this shift, making them less likely to easily access certain services, including health services and GP surgeries. The importance of digital inclusion was highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, whereby many were digitally excluded due to various reasons, and therefore unable to access predominantly online services such as healthcare and vaccine bookings. Digital inclusion during COVID-19 is an integral part of enabling the most vulnerable groups to reduce their risks to the virus by providing them with a virtual means of communicating, working, shopping and accessing healthcare. 

Communities within Woolwich, Charlton, Thamesmead Moorings and Plumstead, and Glyndon within Greenwich were identified by the Royal Borough of Greenwich’s Public Health team as having a higher risk of disproportionate impact from COVID-19. Over a year ago, DG Cities was appointed by the council to identify and address the barriers to digital inclusion in parts of the borough. 

Understanding people’s barriers

To address the negative impacts of digital exclusion, we spoke to over 50 local residents and members of key community groups in Greenwich to understand people’s barriers to accessing and using the internet and different technologies. Through these discussions, it was evident that many people within these vulnerable communities are digitally excluded for various reasons, including: lack of disposable income, limited access to devices, inability to pay for broadband, access to old or inadequate devices, lack of trust, confidence in the internet, and language barriers which prevent people learning how to use devices. 

Addressing these barriers was challenging, yet in working with the council’s public health and digital teams, we were able to develop an extensive digital inclusion programme with the local community. Greenwich Get Digital ‘Loan and Learn’ Scheme was set up to provide Greenwich’s most vulnerable, disadvantaged and at-risk residents with access to free devices and digital training. Over the course of five months, together with the council, we successfully delivered a combination of 92 laptops and tablets to 15 community organisations, which could be loaned directly to disadvantaged and vulnerable members of the community. The need for these specific devices was determined through our discussions with members of the public. To address connectivity issues, the devices were fitted with pre-paid data cards to allow users to access the internet. 

Building skills and confidence

Launch event for the project, lending devices at a community centre in Barnfield

Our research told us that providing access to the internet was not enough. Many people needed training to support them to learn and build their confidence. Therefore, alongside the device distribution, we  partnered with the community-based company, Starting Point to deliver a combination of virtual and face-to-face lessons to 47 Greenwich residents to develop their digital skills. Participants learned the basic skills required to live and work safely online, including how to access council and COVID-19 related health services. Alongside this, a total of 41 Greenwich residents were trained to act as ‘Digital Champions’ to support vulnerable members of their local community to safely access the internet and use digital devices and services.

Over the course of several months, the project was able to reach many different communities, and made a positive impact for the residents: 

“Since we received our 5 sets of Samsung Tabs, we have now been able to [help] many more of our Isolated Elderly Gurkha Veterans and Families in the Borough… We are proud now of being able to use the tablets to teach, explain Covid-19 information/Health Wellbeing/Mental Health Awareness/Vaccination and Self-Testing Videos to the elderly, people with disabilities and those with no IT skills and no internet access. With the continuation of the digital training sessions and with additional devices, we can better provide/care for our Nepalese Community as well as coordinate and integrate better with other communities in the Borough.”

Nepalese Gurkha Community spokesperson

The Greenwich Get Digital pilot was a great opportunity for the council and community to explore how best to support those most affected by the pandemic to get online and connect with others. This urgent work will have an enduring impact. Since our initiative, the Royal Borough of Greenwich has taken the lessons from the programme to refine and improve it. Given that over a fifth (22%) of people in the UK are still digitally excluded, it's important that projects like this are developed and trialled by local authorities and charities across the UK.

Countdown to COP26 - the UK's Net-Zero Strategy

In the final of our Countdown to COP26 series, we’re looking at the UK’s newly published Net-Zero Strategy, which sets out for the first time how the UK Government plans to deliver on its commitment to decarbonise the UK by 2050.

This Strategy was published just last week, in the final stages of preparation for the landmark UN COP26 summit starting on Sunday in Glasgow. At the summit, the Prime Minister will be calling on other world economies to set out their own domestic plans for cutting emissions and ensure that this year's COP is a “turning point for humanity”. But will our own Net-Zero Strategy measure up? 

In this blog, HIba Alaraj takes a closer look at what the Strategy says about decarbonising transport and heating, and identifies some of the questions that, for us at DG Cities, remain unanswered. 

The UK recently published its strategy for achieving net-zero by 2050. The strategy highlights targets and ambitions for a variety of sectors and activities within the UK, including transport & heating.  

Transport greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the UK account for 27% of total GHG emissions. These are mainly generated by car travel. In response to this, the UK’s net-zero strategy will ban the sale of fossil fuel vans and cars by 2030 to reduce emissions by a minimum of 65% and and accelerate the transition to electric forms of transport. 

The ban itself is a positive step forward, however, vehicle electrification is challenging and for electric transport to be fully enabled, a number of other elements need to be put in place, in particular electric vehicle charging infrastructure. 

Currently, just 1% of all vehicles on UK roads are electric. With fossil-fuel-powered vehicles being phased out, this number needs to scale rapidly! The Net-Zero Strategy includes commitments to use £350m to build a competitive zero-emission vehicle supply chain and “ensure the UK automotive industry is at the forefront of the transition” - and a further £620m to sustain the rollout of charging infrastructure, focusing specifically on residential on-street charging and targeted plug-in grants. This will add to the £1.3bn pledged in November 2020 for charging infrastructure.

Here at DG Cities, we are fully supportive  of these commitments and investments. Up until now, local authorities using government funding have supported charge point installations through various means, with some regional models, such as the Source London network, also being established. But with the massive increase in scale that is necessary, what will delivery models look like going forward - and what role should local authorities be taking in that delivery?  

There are particular challenges that need to be solved in rural areas, such as the ability of the electricity distribution network to support new charge points. So how should the local authority’s role vary to take into account these types of challenges? These are questions that we are actively thinking about and working with councils to answer, so that we can help them to plan for the future.

But we need to remember that the lowest emitting journeys are those that are not done by private vehicle, whether it’s electric or otherwise. And as individuals, we can also help to reduce transport emissions with our daily commutes by choosing to walk or cycle, or for longer journeys, by choosing public transport.  

The net-zero strategy also sets targets for decarbonising heating, which accounts for a large portion of the UK’s emissions. For instance, housing GHG emissions account for 15% of the UK’s total GHG emissions, and this is mainly from heating and cooking. To reduce these emissions, the UK will ban the sale of gas boilers by 2035, and will instead encourage the installation of low carbon heating systems such as heat pumps in both homes and workplaces. The government aims to install 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028, in an effort to meet its net-zero commitments. But a major barrier to this target is the upfront cost of heat pumps. To mitigate this, the government will offer a £5,000 or £6,000 grant for households to upgrade their existing gas boilers with air or ground source heat pumps respectively. But this will only go part of the way towards the cost, and of course with ground source in particular,  there are other major operational barriers to consider. 

Another major issue is that the budget allocated to this scheme will only finance approximately  90,000 heat pumps in total. The gap between that number and 600,000 is substantial. To meet the target of installing 600,000 heat pumps per year, we need to urgently fund ways to lower the cost of installation for homeowners and we need a larger pool of money to ensure that a greater number of households are able to bridge that funding gap between gas and renewables. 

To ultimately reduce heating emissions within the private and public sectors, it’s crucial that we also ensure that buildings are properly insulated, and with a large proportion of the UK’s building stock being of solid wall construction and requiring more expensive external insulation, again, proper financial and technical support will be crucial.

Overcoming these barriers and filling in the policy gaps will be crucial to the delivery of the strategy and ensuring that the UK stays on target to meet its obligations. 

With COP26 just around the corner, there’s mounting pressure on global world leaders, including the UK, to present climate action plans that are clearly defined and impactful. Here at DG Cities, we will be keeping a close eye on the Net-Zero Strategy and, as ever, will be thinking of what we an organisation can do.

Countdown to COP26

You’ve probably heard a lot about COP26 this year and might wonder what it is and what it might mean for you. We’ve taken a closer look and have outlined below why COP26 is one of the most important events in the global climate change policy agenda:

What is COP26? 

We’re nearly a month away from this year’s United Nations’ Conference of Parties, COP26, a global leadership summit on climate change topics. 

This year’s climate change conference will take place in Glasgow, Scotland, with the UK acting as a president of COP26. World leaders - alongside negotiators, government representatives, businesses and citizens - will visit Glasgow on October 31st for twelve days of important discussions about the global climate change crisis.

Why is it crucial? 

In 2015  the Paris Agreement was signed in which global leaders committed to developing plans called National Determined Contributions (NDCs), outlining how they would reduce their emissions.

COP26 marks five years since the signing of the agreement. 197 countries will be required to update their NDCs with much more stringent and ambitious targets that will ultimately aim to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees by 2050. This process will occur through negotiations between the different countries. 

In detail, at COP26: 

1. Countries will present ambitious 2030 emissions reductions targets that align with reaching net zero by 2050.

2. Countries will present plans demonstrating how they are adapting to climate change. Countries will need to support citizens that are most affected by climate change. 

3. Developed countries must present $100 billion in climate finance to support developing countries meet their net-zero commitments.  

4. The UK, as COP26 President, must negotiate and finalise rules that will enable the Paris Agreement commitments to be met. 

Why do we need to act now more than ever? 

Recently, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the sixth assessment report on climate science, which summarises the physical science for climate change from thousands of peer-reviewed studies. 

The report is stark and ominous, and provides strong evidence to demonstrate that humans are responsible for causing this widespread climate destruction, much of which is irreversible. The impacts of climate change can no longer be ignored. 

The report also highlights that the current NDCs outlined by countries to achieve net-zero are not sufficient enough to keep warming below 2 degree celsius; further proving why COP26 is so important. 

The IPCC stresses that if net-zero CO2 emissions are not reached by 2050, and there isn’t an overall reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions, then the 1.5 and 2 degree limits set out in the Paris Agreement will be reached before 2040.

Reaching net-zero requires collective effort from countries to shift to renewables, and to reduce emissions from practices with a high global warming impact: agriculture, particularly meat farming, fossil fuel production and waste management. 

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will help us minimize the catastrophic weather risks of global warming - including sea level rise, glacier melting, rainfall, floods and droughts. 

DG Cities and Net-Zero 

 DG Cities is an innovation company that is focused on supporting cities and communities to capitalise on the benefits of technology and data. As a company we have  worked on a number of major projects relating to the transition to a low-carbon future ranging from net-zero housing, decarbonisation and fleet electrification (Birchmere & ERCV), to support local councils such as the Royal Borough of Greenwich meet their carbon reduction targets. 

In recognition of our work in electrification we’ve also recently been awarded further funding that focuses on fleet electrification in Greenwich, London and Devon, Cornwall. This is exciting as we will be exploring both urban and rural applications of this vital technology.

COP26 is an important global milestone on the journey towards a low-carbon future. As the world looks expectantly on, many will wonder how the discussions and meetings in Glasgow will translate into practical changes in the day-to-day lives of citizens and businesses. We’re here to help, so at DG Cities we’ll be keeping a close eye on the discussions and working hard to make sense of what COP26 will mean for UK towns and cities. Follow our blog to find out more.