The Next Economy
We caught up with Dr Amanda Cahill, CEO of The Next Economy, about her work mobilising leaders and communities across the Sunshine State towards a zero emissions future. The Next Economy won a $40,000 Groundswell grant in July 2021 for their project ‘Central Queensland Energy Futures’.
The Next Economy works on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal Peoples
Dr Amanda Cahill (third from left) on a recent Q&A pre-election special ‘Live from Gladstone’.
What have you been up to since winning your $40,000 major Groundswell grant last July for ‘Central Queensland Energy Futures’?
Thanks to Groundswell’s support we have begun facilitating ‘Talking Transition’ workshops in Central Queensland.
These workshops are about helping people feel more confident to communicate with their networks in a positive, practical, fact-based and future-focussed discussion about economic transition.
We are offering the workshops to people living in communities that are undergoing major economic transformation, triggered by Australia’s need to decarbonise its industries and move to net zero emissions. At a local level these changes have sometimes been difficult to talk about, because energy has become such political topic.
In order to bring everyone along, so that we can start to really make the most of the many economic opportunities associated with the energy transition, it is really important that local people are talking, listening and understanding each other. So these workshops are not about teaching people how to lobby or persuade others, but instead how to make space in conversations for curiosity, empathy and the mutual sharing of concerns, hopes and ideas. This allows for differences in perspectives to be explored and addressed out in the open, which ultimately enables a smoother and accelerated transition that hopefully accommodates everyone’s needs.
Dr Amanda Cahill presenting a ‘Talking Transition’ workshop
We ran our first ‘Talking Transition’ workshop in Central Queensland on a Saturday in late November. Despite it being a weekend, we attracted 21 people from across Gladstone, Rockhampton and the Central Highlands. There was a great mix of community, council, union and university folk represented, which made for really diverse conversations.
The workshop included a presentation about the energy sector trends, at an international, national, state and regional level. Participants discussed what changes they were noticing in their communities, what they saw as the risks and opportunities of transition and discovered how much was already happening. There were also lots of interactive exercises that had people practising their listening skills. The content was drawn from the lessons learned by Dr Amanda Cahill and The Next Economy whilst leading discussions in coal communities across Australia over the past decade.
Since then we have run an online follow-up session with participants, to see how they are going, and distributed resource lists, workshop notes and a presentation about the energy sector changes that people can use to support their conversations.
In early 2022 we are rolling out further ‘Talking Transition’ workshops in Central Queensland. It became apparent whilst organising this workshop that there was an interest in participating in a shorter online version, so we will look to offer both face to face and an online version.
Can you tell us about some of the different types of leaders you have been engaging and working with through your work?
The Next Economy works across community, industry and government and therefore works with all kinds of amazing leaders. Increasingly industry and government leaders (local and state) are coming to us looking for advice and assistance around how to manage the sensitive task of achieving a sustainable socio-economic transition.
As described above, the Talking Transition workshop in Gladstone included several elected councillors and council staff, union representatives, university professors, professional community and environment campaigners and, most importantly, a wide diversity of community members, (such as teachers, farmers, small business owners, retirees and a disability advocate), all of whom are passionate about their communities. We had a Welcome to Country from a Byelle Elder. Representatives from across the four Traditional Owner groups had intended to come, but unfortunately the workshop coincided with a their PBC AGM (being held at the same venue!). We are instead offering a separate workshop with traditional owners that will also explore the specific economic opportunities for First Nations groups.
How are Central QLD communities feeling about a renewable energy transition?
In the past six months the conversation surrounding energy transition in Central Queensland has changed a lot. Big industry players in the region have publicly spoken of their decarbonisation plans for the first time and there have been multiple hydrogen and other renewable energy industry announcements. The implications of global discussions surrounding net zero emissions (such as the introduction of international carbon tariffs in Europe, the Federal Government net zero commitment by 2050 and the COP26 in Glasgow) are becoming increasingly clear at a local level. Now that local people are increasingly seeing that there are economic opportunities in embracing change, more are curious about what these changes mean for the region and are wanting the government and industry to do more to manage change proactively.
Of course, there is also plenty of uncertainty. Many of the heavy industries that have defined and sustained communities, families and individuals for generations are incredibly carbon intensive. Confusing information presented in the media, political conflict and unknown timelines makes this all especially tricky.
Despite these challenges, the Central Queensland people are practical, so their attention is turning to the long term future. There is talk about new opportunities and how major international industries, such as aluminium facilities, need to ‘go green’ to remain relevant in the market. So, people are starting to ask how their community and families are going to get through these changes and who is going to help. At the recent workshop there was a sense of urgency being created by these market changes. People repeatedly said they are worried their region might not adapt fast enough and they could be “left behind”.
What have some of your achievements as an organisation been?
Since 2018 The Next Economy has been going from strength to strength. We recently grew from 4 to 9 staff, and we are now located across Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. We also moved into a new Brisbane office. We are expanding in response to the demand for our approach and services and this reflects the amount of change taking place across regional Australia. We are all super excited about the possibilities that come from our organisation’s increased capacity!
What are some of the lessons learned so far?
If we are to successfully navigate the path to net zero, it is not enough to just advocate for why we need to change. There are people all across Australia, working across all levels and in all industries that now understand that we need to change, but they just don’t know where to start. As a movement, we need to do more to meet people where they are at, to spike their curiosity about the range of possibilities to manage risks and take advantage of opportunities, and to help them to understand the power they have to make change, no matter who they are.
What has the Groundswell grant meant for The Next Economy?
Without the Groundswell funding we would be unable to run the ‘Talking Transition’ workshops. It is important and innovative grassroots work that is difficult to fund from other sources, so we are very grateful to all those who contribute to the Fund. It also means a lot that fund is crowdsourced from passionate people across Australia. It’s been so encouraging to hear directly from enthusiastic supporters of Groundswell why they are supporting TNE in this work.
After trialling the initial ‘Talking Transition’ workshop in Central Queensland, TNE has already received interest from other similar coal dependent regions around Australia. In fact, we have just run a version in the Hunter Valley. So this funding has enabled the establishment of a much needed new program that can now grow beyond Central Queensland!
What are your ambitions for the next 6 months?
We’re working on some new internal initiatives at The Next Economy over the next six-months but we also have multiple external projects on the go, such as devising a 10 year Economic Transition Road Map for the Gladstone Regional Council and coordinating an ‘International Just Transition Roundtable’ with Melbourne Climate Futures at the University of Melbourne. We are increasingly in the media and we plan to share more of the positive stories of change and what we need to do to support regional communities in the lead up to the Federal Election. And of course, we’ll keep supporting people on the ground, with more communities across Queensland, NSW and Victoria approaching us for help.
Now that we have more staff we can achieve so much more! And whilst there is lots to do in 2022, is full of potential transition awesomeness!
What gives you hope?
The mainstream media loves the drama and sometimes things feel overwhelming. But working with fabulous people and speaking to/or hearing about people around the world who are chipping away at practical action to support the transition every day brings hope. It only takes a small group of people to make big things happen, and that is inspiring!
Focussing on the trends is also key. Individual stories can sink the soul, but the overall trends are going in the right direction. So much is changing, and in some parts of Australia and the World, they are changing really fast.
At The Next Economy, we try to accept that we are doing all we can, and that is all anyone can do, but if we all work together we can bring about a ‘groundswell’ of positive change.
The Next Economy
With Groundswell's support, between February 2021 and March 2022, The Next Economy engaged with 505 people across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia and the Northern Territory to assess the types of support regions with close ties to the fossil fuel industry need to diversify their economies and manage the transition to net zero emissions.
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