We need a better system of decision making on decarbonisation and climate adaptation. One that gives people the power to shape their local agendas, not just because addressing and adapting to climate change needs us all to adapt, but because it is an opportunity to find a better way - to strengthen communities, build healthier homes, ensure equitable access to nature and transport, lower bills and build new skills. In the middle of a climate change driven heat wave, the need to get this right is stark.
For the last two years, Involve has worked with 28 local authorities across the UK on people owned climate action. Through the Innovate UK funded Net Zero Living Programme, we worked with residents in places across the UK– from Derry to Dorset and from the Outer Hebrides to Newham – to shape the future of their place and explore how responding to climate change could help deliver it. We supported a further 15 Local Authorities to develop their capacity and strategies to take the approach forward themselves. We have learned a lot about how to engage on net zero and what that new system could look like. Our new report ‘How place-based engagement can shape a positive, decarbonised future for the UK’ shares our learning. It tells a story of innovative approaches to create place-based strategies; of resident initiated ideas being taken up; rooms that felt different, with diverse and different groups of people; and a growth in the confidence and capacity of councils to engage people in a meaningful way. Here are my key takeaways:
Place-based is best, starting where people are
We began with a premise that grounding conversations in place is a far more effective starting point than abstract emissions targets and data. Place is also where net zero decisions get delivered. Through a series of citizen visioning conversations in a ward in Gateshead, or the town of Coleford, we asked people what they love about where they live, what the future risks are and what they want to change. We then explored energy, climate, adaptation and getting to net zero in that context.
We engaged over 1200 people in their places and created over 20 new strategies, policies and projects that were locally led and widely adopted. These projects guided decision making by tying into live strategies and local plans so that they are based on what people want locally. Local people identified "hidden" barriers to adoption that high-level models miss and quickly saw where value could be added. Starting with place makes the conversations more accessible and gives people hope and agency. It can also activate latent citizen support for action on climate change that needs to happen locally.
Anchor engagement in real decisions and be deliberate about impact
The conversations were anchored in strategies that were live at the council - from flooding to retrofit; from planning to district heat networks. The groups delivered practical suggestions that were rooted in local histories, geographies and cultures. They guided council decision making, who report that 60-90% of recommendations are being progressed or delivered. In some cases these were new ideas, and in others it de-risked existing plans, such as a green room in Gateshead or helped accelerate local retrofit or heat network programme delivery.
When participants saw that senior leaders were involved their confidence that things would change increased and trust was built, without it, confidence dropped. But the follow through is hard and often under-resourced. Resident’s shared visions don’t naturally fit in a council department. We translated them into practical action with simple tools such as the impact meeting at the beginning of the process to bring relevant departments together to plan for action based on what residents said.
We have shown this is not an optional extra
Resources are tight. We found that engagement becomes more expensive when you have to do it retrospectively, to defend a decision rather than co-create it. Our cost of not engaging report shares 5 case studies that show significant costs of up to £400K can be incurred without proper engagement.
As important is the value that people feel, being heard. Councils heard from a more diverse mix of their communities than in a typical consultation or town hall. They said that the rooms felt different, more engaged and energised. Participants increased their understanding of what the council was doing by 20% and emotions shifted towards feeling informed, empowered and hopeful. Many participants wanted to stay involved and, common to other projects, reported making changes to their own lives.
Place based citizen engagement works and should be seen as core infrastructure, not a discretionary extra that will save money in the long run, building trust and cohesion.
A strategic, proportionate approach, leaning in to difficult conversations
At a place-based level, participatory approaches can build citizen support for local authority decisions. This is particularly the case for complex, contested issues, which standard consultations do not have time to fully explore with citizens in a structured way. As the IPPR report shows, people are supportive of action on climate generally, but when energy infrastructure starts to be built, or disruption is happening in their homes, people feel differently, especially if it is imposed on them from afar. This is where deeper, independent d deliberative processes really count - working through the trade offs and different perspectives in communities. In the Outer Hebrides we focused on building skills to have difficult conversations, as a foundation for further climate action. All communities need this to ensure resilience in the face of a more disruptive climate reality.
But not every question needs a full process. We worked with Councils to develop strategies that highlighted where depth was needed, where there were opportunities to remove duplication and where a more light touch approach is sufficient. It was good to see the capacity and skills to do this emerge.
The strategic approach is where the new system of decision making starts to shape up. We need a way to connect local recommendations up to national priorities, building from the places closest to the action. We need ways to translate recommendations like removing VAT from retrofit products, or enforcing solar on all new homes into national policy. The Energising Britain strategy presents a critical opportunity to evolve our approach. The government is mobilising softly. Last week the first ever ‘Energising Britain day’ happened. Five parallel events across the country, celebrating places acting on climate change. This week DESNZ launch their Youth Climate and Nature Panel - a way to involve young people in the Department’s decisions in a sustained way. This is a good start, but to put people at the heart of decisions on decarbonisation and climate adaptation we need to go further and faster. We need to have an overall strategy that connects local to regional to national and to adapt our institutions so that they are able to respond and share power with communities on climate and beyond.
We have shown that moving away from top-down 'behaviour change' towards shared decision-making unlocks an intrinsic community motivation, enabling the UK to deliver faster, deeper climate action. This underlies a bigger, deeper message that a more dynamic and participatory democracy, where we can have difficult conversations and find shared solutions, is the foundation for many of the challenges we face as a country.