The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit is a non-profit organisation that supports informed debate on energy and climate change issues in the UK.
Climate change presents important challenges and opportunities to Britons in the decades ahead, while the choices we make on energy have implications for society, the economy and the climate system. We believe that debates on these issues should be underpinned by evidence, and involve the full range of stakeholders.
We support journalists, parliamentarians and other communicators with accurate and accessible briefings on key issues, and work with individuals and organisations that have interesting stories to tell, helping them connect to the national conversation.
In 2023:
We continued to adapt our recruitment process to make it more inclusive and promote diversity in our team, from where we advertised, through to the selection processes for each role. However, as a small organisation, it is tested relatively infrequently; we remain committed to improving it, as we test it, in 2024.
We have worked to feature and promote a more diverse group of climate voices. This has included working with a small cadre of early career academics, from disciplines related to climate change and clean transition, for whom we have provided media training and briefing to begin to support them as part of a more diverse network of spokespeople we are developing. Two of these scientists joined our delegation to COP28 in Dubai, to act as spokespeople, contributing blogs and videos as part of our communication from COP.
We ran another paid summer internship, welcoming applicants from groups under-represented in our sector. Our selection was entirely competency based and the internship was awarded to a student from a minority background who successfully contributed to ECIU’s work for two months over summer, and developed skills and experience of value to her in what she hopes to do next. During the year, a previous intern who worked with us has also secured a permanent position in another organisation in the sector.
We continue to work on improving the diversity of our Board, and work is in progress to identify and approach potential future board members.
In 2024:
We remain committed to making our recruitment processes more inclusive, encouraging diversity amongst the applicant pool as an important route to building greater diversity and inclusion within our team, as we grow.
We are committed to increasing diversity in our media briefing panels, on our board, and amongst our spokespeople and other public-facing representatives, including those with whom we work as contractors or who write guest pieces for our website.
For both of these first two aims, we need to be able to do more to challenge embedded practices that reinforce the status quo, recognising that meaningful improvement will be about evolving the culture and getting out of ingrained habits. However, this is where we need to find others with whom we can work, whether learning and working together, or learning from others’ success. As a small organisation it remains challenging to change a wider culture.
We will once again promote our internship to under-represented groups as part of our commitment to building routes into our sector, supporting them to develop skills and experience that will help them with their career development.