Get the Point Ltd is Philip Immirzi (MCIEEM CENV RTD)
Helping anyone who has ideas that they wish to assess, develop or evaluate, big or small, anywhere in the project cycle from birth to wind up and ex-post evaluation / post mortem. Philip despite his age is still a Chartered Environmentalist and member of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, well he pays his dues anyway.
Get the Point Ltd was originally formed to propel the world’s first ever smart online green reward programme, using a primitive AI rules-based system to classify and rate 100s of thousands of products, thousands of brands and 100s of UK on line retailers and services (including gas and electricity providers). Things that people buy every day were labelled green, orange or red, by our in-house eco monkey. Mostly using publicly available information (e.g. energy performance) and our clever Corporate Social Responsibility research tool. Enabling anyone to buy online the greenest product from the greenest brands and retailers, without doing a ton of research seemed to us at the time a good idea. You could also buy the greenest product but from the cheapest retailer, as the website was also a price comparison engine. Moreover if you created an account you could accumulate green points, worth up to 10% of the purchase price on some products, redeemable or donatable. It worked pretty well for a number of years, during which we found it impossible to get the next tranche of investment – to burn, quite literally that is how it works. That was 2008 and things took a negative turn.
Philip now likes to help anyone looking to leverage bigger change than their tight budget would normally permit, with a focus on small organisations working at grassroots level who are interested in the nurturing and protecting their local environment.
Some of the things he like to do:
- quantitative and qualitative research / find out fast, using a wide repertoire of professional tools
- evaluating and assessing anything to do with the environment and ecology, sustainable development, policy, and organisational management
- troubleshooting and analysis to get to the bottom of a problem or an issue … especially intractable ones
- data exploration, making sense out of messy data
- cutting out bureaucracy, but without muddling your business processes
- resuscitating broken projects and programmes
- closing down projects that are past their use by date
- using ICT more effectively, without this costing you an arm and leg
- get you working better with online tools, virtual offices, collaborative software, social media
- writing stuff up, convert your messy results, mission or objectives into something more engaging, persuasive and cogent
- communicating better, using open-source software and other media to get an extra bit of edge
As well as developing that innovative online green incentive scheme, Philip has:
- advised a recent EU member state on improving the sustainability of their Structural Funds (a multi billion programme);
- investigated the corrosive business models that exacerbate the poverty premium for CAB (a phenomenon whereby the poorest pay more for all kinds of services);
- helped write numerous pitches for funding and written up the odd Climate Challenge Fund report;
- used open source GIS to set up a community mapping service;
- undertaken numerous website/GIS mapping projects in transport and other spheres
- created several web publishing platforms for communities and climate action groups;
- introduced technology to many voluntary organisations;
- principal project architect for a Zero Waste Communities project;
- ran a feasibility study for a Hydrogen Storage facility;
- feasibility studies for walking and wheeling (Sustrans);
- studied the tourism impacts on the environment during COVID.
What is next?
Philip has wide experience of environmental and related research for policy, data gathering / exploration and formal survey methodologies that require a confidence interval.
He has used these for over 30 years in social, environmental and management studies in a diversity of cultural contexts from Europe to the Far East.
Philip has published many articles, reports, peer-reviewed articles in journals, reviews and book chapters and has many more unpublished reports to his name, including far too many blog posts on dozens of blogs, under various pseudonyms.
In his spare time Philip helps a wide range of community projects, often behind the scenes. He is an advocate for conservation in the built not just the natural environment, spends time restoring his old house and junk furniture (but needs a shed) makes pointless videos and music for fun, and occasionally blogs about most of these things and much more annoying things too.
CORE SKILLS
Research & Analysis – finding out fast using a wide repertoire of tools
Problem solving and innovation – creative responses to difficult situations
Programme / project / policy analysis – design and development / management and rescue
Organisational development and change management – the right medicine probably isn’t off the shelf
Management advice – for small business / startups / social enterprise and beyond
The past
He completed an MBA in 2005 (Strategy, Finance, Creativity and International Development.) He also holds various Certificates and Diplomas in management, pretty pointless bits of paper, but which have equipped him with acute bullshit detection abiities.
After a post graduate spell (1987-1993) at Exeter University as a research scientist looking at fire damage in peatland soils, carbon dynamics for Friends of the Earth, Acid Rain for National Power (now RWE) and sustainable swamp forest management (IUCN). He was doing everything from project pitching to project delivery and nappy changing. In his hols and the breaks between each crappy un-superannuated contract, he undertook statistical analysis of mass tourism surveys (as if statistical sampling had not been invented!), implemented contract surveys (for business development in Devon & Cornwall) and other consultancies. Then he joined Scottish Natural Heritage, where he commissioned research, developed policy advised on the ecology of those organic wetlands which Scotland is so rich in and are finally finally getting the protection they deserve. He played a small part in reversing institutional attitudes in his own and partner bodies (the senior management’s negativity was palpable). Then he was involved in the multi million pound investment programmes, the structural funds, in planning process, supporting the closure and renewal of 5 programme areas in Scotland, improving the profile of the sustainability of the individual programmes and the central oversight and benefits. In between things he finished off the Tropical Swamp Forest studies and wrote a few papers.
Inadvertently his career branched and took him into public administration, overseeing a significant 2 year customer survey programme (and the complaints department – which rose from less than 10 a year to 2000 annualy, a success?). An interest, a long standing one, in digital transformation (pressing buttons on a computer rather than a calculator) drove an ambition to changing the way things were done at SNH. He inveigled himself into a bunch of cross-cutting initiatives designed to drag the quango into the 21st century, which had invested millions in IT but was only scratching at the surface of what it could do. He left just as the organisation was recognising this was the only valid survival strategy in the face of the imminent digital data revolution. At exactly that point the organisation was bowled a political googley and a given a ministerial direction to move up to Inverness, or else. The organisation was stable and strong and managed the migration as well any could have, though the costs were unprecedented and unjustifiably very high. Even with hindsight, this was clearly a political blunder that cost the tax payer dearly (thanks guys, I’m still spending it!). No other public body had more offices close to its customers and more customer facing staff (80% out of Edinburgh). Quango bashing ceased shortly after.
The office
The office address: 29 High Street, Dunbar, EH42 1EN
Registered in Scotland No. SC 308321
Registered office Templelands, Dunbar, East Lothian, EH42 1EN
GTP has Public Liability Insurance and Professional Indemnity of £1m and £0.5m respectively.
MHGB2566501XB1-Get The Point Ltd-Business-Certificate of insurance