Evaluation of the Reward and Recognition Fund

Brook Lyndhurst with support from Icaro Consulting has been commissioned by Defra to conduct an evaluation of the Household Reward and Recognition Fund for Recycling and Reuse (RRF).

Background to project
 

The RRF is a support package made available to pilot initiatives run by civil society organisations and local authorities aimed at increasing participation in recycling, reuse and repair activities through reward and recognition schemes to encourage changes in householders waste behaviours.

Defra is funding 16 local authorities and community organisations. The schemes cover community rewards, individual feedback, individual rewards, prize draw schemes, on the go recycling, a housing association and a furniture re-use scheme. Amounts of funding for 11/12 total just over £501,000, ranging from individual grants of £3,000 to £63,000.

Evaluation methodology
The purpose of this research is to provide monitoring and evaluation support to pilots funded through RRF and to carry out a programme-level evaluation. We will assist the pilots in designing methods to gather robust quantitative and qualitative data to demonstrate their impacts, both in terms of waste behaviour changes and waste tonnage reductions. At the end, we will collate, synthesise and analyse data in order to compare and contrast the different approaches tested.

The proposed methodology has been heavily informed by Brook Lyndhurst’s experience in evaluating a number of other funds (including Defra’s Environmental Action Fund (EAF) and Greener Living Fund (GLF)), alongside Icaro Consulting’s experience evaluating DECC’s Low Carbon Communities Challenge (LCCC). Learning from our experiences we have embedded knowledge sharing and reciprocity throughout our method; including site visits, named/paired researcher support, expert and practitioner workshops, and interactive feedback.

Our work plan intertwines the individual scheme evaluation with the programme evaluation as both are guided by an evaluation framework which sets out the study’s scope in terms of indicators which can answer the key research questions and objectives. The programme evaluation will make use of primary data gathered by the schemes, and baseline and follow-up site visits with pilot project managers. The monitoring and evaluation support function will focus on obtaining high quality and, as far as possible, comparable data.

The research results will be of interest to waste policy makers and to delivery bodies that work on the ground to promote positive waste behaviours. The research will present the relative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of different approaches to encouraging positive waste behaviours, and identify the crucial success factors. Findings will assist policy makers in directing future funding to schemes that are most likely to have the greatest impact and will support delivery bodies in refining their method to improve their effectiveness and maximise their impact.