This post is co-written by Charlotte Araya Moreland, Co-Chair of the Civil Service Environment Network (CSEN) 2022/23 and Helen Tomlinson, CSEN founder.

  • **The problem: **The problems we face as a society are connected more than ever to the climate change emergency.
  • **Why it matters: **The environmental crisis is the defining challenge of this century and requires a cross-government approach.
  • **The solution: **Make thinking about nature ‘second nature’ and hardwire this approach into how we work across government.

As civil servants, a big part of our job is finding solutions. The problems and issues we face vary and are framed differently depending on the political inclinations and priorities of the government of the day, but the basic focus remains.

Now, more than ever, the problems we face are consistently connected to the environmental crisis. Our rapidly changing climate, the degradation of natural habitats and biodiversity, the diminishing capacity of the earth’s ecosystems to regulate and sustain life, and the human cost of climate-related disaster and conflict all present the defining challenge of this century.

The Civil Service Environment Network

As civil servants, one of the solutions is to mainstream the natural environment and our impact on it into our everyday policy decisions, to make thinking about nature second nature. This includes policy areas where these ‘issues’ might seem unconnected or only very tenuously linked.

In the UK, the cornerstones of this approach have been laid with the enactment of a commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050 and the 2021 Environment Act. But hardwiring this approach into how we work will take a sustained, concerted effort across all of government.

In 2020, a group of civil servants established the Civil Service Environment Network, a cross-government staff network to learn and share experience with colleagues, and to promote exposure to the latest thinking by specialists. The idea was that we all collectively benefit from the cross-fertilisation of ideas that happens when people from different parts of government start talking, and thinking, together.

Two years later, the network has grown to over 3,200 members across over 100 government departments, agencies and devolved administrations, and hosted specialists including Sir Tony Juniper and Sir Dieter Helm. Via a group of network champions, we’re undertaking a concerted effort to reach into the central government departments beyond Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and BEIS (Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy), which already have environment and climate at their heart.

The network enters its third year with a new challenge: to establish a physical presence for our mission across government.

We’ve produced bespoke learning content for non-expert civil servants, including a series of 22 Environment 101 videos and a new series of Deep Dive podcasts on topics including green social prescribing, climate security, and vertical farming. By harnessing expertise and channelling it through accessible, engaging media, we’re challenging generalists across government to consider the relationship between their policy area and the natural environment.

And all of this has been achieved during the COVID-19 pandemic, when our personal and governmental priorities were geared toward survival. As we learned from the unprecedented buzz around COP26 in November 2021, there is nothing more effective at focussing minds on climate disaster than the global experience of being pushed to extremes in a pandemic.

So what’s next?

The network enters its third year with a new challenge: to establish a physical presence for our mission across government. To be accessible and inclusive, we need to deliver high-quality hybrid events in locations across the UK, which facilitate networking and forge long-lasting professional relationships between our members. We’re also excited to host the first CSEN conference, bringing together hundreds of civil servants for a day of inspiring talks, panels and networking.

We also know that the environment sector has a big diversity problem, as the second least diverse sector in the UK after farming. In the Defra Group, comprising the government agencies which lead environment policy, BAME staff make up only 4.9% of the workforce, compared to 11.6% across the civil service, according to Defra’s Project Race in 2018. As a staff network, we are perfectly positioned to challenge this issue by delivering a specific career support offer to our members which champions social mobility.

There is strength in numbers and strength in breaking down silos. If you are a UK civil servant – in a government department, a non-departmental public body, an agency or a devolved administration – please join us. We are open to everyone – any job, any grade, anywhere. And if you’re a non-civil service organisation interested in connecting with us, please get in touch.

Visit our website: Civil Service Environment Network | CSEN Online

Email us: environment.network@faststream.civilservice.gov.uk

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/civil-service-environment-network/

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_csen

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