Warren specialises in:

•providing strategic advice to local authorities and partnerships, with a particular focus on climate change, behaviour change and behavioural insights, local leadership and innovation/design;

•designing and delivering research, events and training to develop internal and external narratives and build leadership and capacity; and

•thought leadership, focusing on the local state’s approach to climate change and behaviour change.

He devised With The Grain, the first behavioural insights tool for local government. He is one of the twelve Local Improvement Advisors on Climate Change and Environmental Leadership accredited by the Local Government Group. As Ripple PRD, he has worked as an associate of SOLACE, Small World Consulting, the Design Council and the Institute for Political and Economic Governance (IPEG) at the University of Manchester.

His work draws on his background

•as a market research professional at MORI, specialising in providing services to local and central government for over a decade. Clients included dozens of local authorities, and central government departments.

•as a think tank Research Director at the New Local Government Network (NLGN), co-producing with local authority and private sector partners, designing and leading a research programme that helped achieve the Think Tank of the Year accolade,

•as Director of a sustainable development charity (Forum for the Future), helping forge links between public services and SD.

Warren’s work delivering strategic advice includes: advising West Sussex County Council on climate change and behaviour change policy and practice, including support for WSCC work with the West Sussex Environment & Climate Change Board (2009- present); directing Forum for the Future’s partnership work with over twenty authorities and LSPs, including the development of sustainability strategies and leadership development work (2006/7); advising the Norfolk County Partnership on establishing a vision for its Climate Change Steering Group, on leadership development (2009/10) and on energy (2010); for London Councils and Capital Ambition, working with members and senior officers to scope ambition for streetscene in London, and recommend how to deliver it (2009) and an overview of current and future policy and investment priorities on climate change agendas (2010); a project advising 4NW (the leaders’ forum in the North West) on developing local authority approaches to economic development (2008); sitting on project advisory boards for, among others, the Audit Commission, Green Alliance and the Young Foundation; research and advice for the Design Council on developing a design-led innovation service for local government (2008/9); advising West Sussex County Council on co-ordinating the localising of both representative and participative approaches (2007); at NLGN, providing strategic input on policy and delivery to a wide range of partners and a wider group of policy-makers (2002-6).

His design and delivery of research, events and training includes: an extensive programme of stakeholder engagement on carbon metrics for the Environment Commission of the new Greater Manchester Combined Authority as part of DECC’s Local Carbon Framework project (2011), influencing content of the Greater Manchester Climate Change Strategy; designing With The Grain, the first behavioural insights tool for local government (2010-present); devising, designing and delivering as programme lead the Climate Change Leadership programme (formerly Future Leaders, Future Contexts) for SOLACE Enterprises, providing 2nd and 3rd tier officers with the skills to deliver on climate change, and acknowledged as the market leader by the LGA group (2009- 2010); Advisory Board member for the CPSL Sustainability East Leadership Programme at Cambridge University (current); half-day ‘provocations’ on climate change and local policy for local authorities (2010); design and co-delivery of CLES’s Future Economic Lives course on low-carbon economic development (2009/10); designing and running the content for first Innovation Forum ‘Blue Skies Dinner’ in 2008, involving a range of chief executives, leaders and civil servants in back-casting from low carbon milestones; commissioned by IDeA to design and deliver modules of the first two Leadership Academies on Climate Change, with leaders and cabinet members (2009); designing and establishing the ground-breaking iTeam project on innovating around climate change, giving local authorities the chance, for the first time, to access innovation and design techniques used by the most successful private companies (part funded by IDeA, 2008-9); at NLGN, designing and facilitating dozens of seminars and workshops on a cross-section of policy themes for very senior participants, including numerous chief executives and directors; developing the first ever think-tank podcast at NLGN; devising the ‘community workshop’ approach for MORI, a landmark deliberative approach; directing and managing over 100 research projects for local authorities across a wide range of methodologies and themes.

Warren’s thought leadership work includes: currently, his Local Government Chronicle (LGC) blog; regular speaking and writing on climate change, including the ParkCity conference and the LGA Sustainable Communities conference; his promotion of Local Carbon Budgets; judging both the LGC/HSJ/Defra Sustainable Communities Awards and the annual MJ and LGC awards (including 2011); at NLGN, devising from scratch a research programme widely seen as influential on public policy and local government practice; at MORI, with the Audit Commission, developing the first Quality of Life indicators and survey of place, paving the way for the more holistic Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) approach.

Warren tweets inevitably, and blogs at unpredictable intervals on Amplify, his own website and for LGCplus and is a contributor at events such as the recent Friends of the Earth conference Councils, Communities and Climate Change, and LGC/NLGN’s Policystock.

Feel free to contact me if you think I might be able to help you.”