Local action to tackle climate change: an interview with MovingBeyond

Simon Milton is the founder of Pulse and MovingBeyond.  He was interviewed by Matthew Bell, director at Frontier Economics, over breakfast, in August 2024

How was MovingBeyond founded?  

MovingBeyond (MB) grew from my experience founding Pulse and discussions with my MB co-founder Jamie Anlie. Pulse is a corporate consultancy focused on helping to build purposeful businesses. My work developing Pulse convinced me that the corporate world had a big part to play in the major challenge of our time: tackling climate change. However, it also made me aware of one of the challenges corporations themselves face: speaking to and understanding the communities in which the operate.

Photo source: MovingBeyond

What was the founding principle of MB?  

MovingBeyond is an attempt to integrate those two ideas:  the importance of corporate participation in tackling climate change and the need to involve community. That led to the basic model for MB:  corporate members who spend time in communities, listening to communities and discussing how best to reduce our impact on the climate.

Was it that simple?  

No. I quickly found that once you properly engage with communities, issues become more complex – more interwoven. Our agenda to tackle climate change opened up discussions about the broader system in which these communities lived:  inequality, often lack of opportunity or precariousness of jobs and livelihoods. For me that served to emphasise that all of society needs to be involved in the wider evolution that is needed to tackle climate change.  

How has itself MB evolved? 

We are now heading into our fourth MB event and have been learning how to listen and connect with communities through each successive event. Our first event was held in Findhorn in the north of Scotland. It was a remote location: remote for those travelling from corporate headquarters and also remote from much of Scotland. It allowed us to immerse ourselves in deep discussion. Cut off from the rest of the world, our 70 or so participants spent three days of introspection – and fun –  prodded by some excellent and unusual interventions.
It was a great start but we wanted the next events to move closer to the communities we wanted to engage with:  less introspective and more listening and understanding the lives of others. The next two events moved us closer to the communities at the forefront of these challenges: the first near Port Talbot in Wales and then on Teesside in England.  

And what is the aim when you spend time in these communities?  

I don’t believe we can solve the complex issues faced by these communities. I worked with British Steel for six years and know the complexities of the business. So Port Talbot was one of my spiritual homes and now finds its steel manufacturing threatened. In Teesside the community is trying to transform one of the great industrial heartlands of the UK into zero carbon industry. I continue to believe if corporate leaders listen to the challenges faced by these communities and take a better understanding back to their daily world they will act differently. MB is based on bringing together local authorities, local businesses and community groups to share experiences and learn from each other.  

So MB seeks to change its corporate members, as much as the communities? 

MB’s job is to convene people from those different backgrounds in a type of living experiment. Our corporate partners are typically major financial institutions, large energy companies, national retailers and legal firms. They each have cultures of their own and I want those cultures to come into contact with those of communities around the country and to spend a significant amount of time – two or three days – trying to understand each other. This year we will convene in Newham. Newham epitomises the diversity we are trying to bring together. A diversity of people, businesses and communities.

For me that joint understanding contributes to changes. It can challenge the purpose of a corporation, as well as provide insights for communities. At its best MB helps catalyse small changes in both the companies and communities that participate. I don’t believe we can solve everything – of even very much – in three days. I hope we change a few things at an individual level. That is where real system change has to start.

And what are your own challenges with MB?  

I have two big challenges now  The first is that if real change starts at the individual level, how is that sustained? The experiences of MB are part of helping to sustain that change but I hope those who participate create a community of their own to strengthen the desire for change. The second challenge is the evolution of MB itself from an idea between myself and a few colleagues to a self-standing organisation, possibly a charity, that can build on its unique model of bringing corporations and communities together to face into the great challenge of our times.