Climate community engagement
Engaging residents in west London with the climate and ecological emergency
#Engagement #Strategy
Overview
The Challenge
Hammersmith & Fulham Council declared a climate and ecological emergency and set an ambitious target to reach net zero emissions across the borough by 2030. With the council’s own emissions making up less than 10% of the borough total, an engagement strategy and portfolio of projects was required to address “the other 90%”.
As the council’s first ever Climate Community Engagement Lead, the challenge was:
How might we engage residents to change behaviour and reduce emissions in a fair way?
Outcome
An engagement strategy was developed to support meaningful participation in local climate action from people who hadn’t been included so far.
This included community outreach through pop ups, workshops, coffee mornings and events. The basis was reaching people where they already meet to build the foundation for long-term community action.
As a result, previously under-represented groups were engaged to become local sustainability champions, with the council announcing a new community climate action fund.
Role - Climate Engagement Lead, working within a multidisciplinary Climate Unit
Timescale - 18 months (Jan 2021 - August 2022)
2000+
Residents
reached through engagement activities
93%
Of residents
indicated they learnt something new
62%
Of residents
indicated they will do something differently as a result
Approach
Discovery
A mix of methods were used, drawing on best practice user research, service design and asset-based community development. A key value of the role was to build on, strengthen and connect what already exists, rather than create something new.
Research questions included:
What is the quality of relationship between the council and community?
What’s been tried before? What works and what hasn’t worked?
How much do residents connect climate action with their priorities?
What solutions already exist in the community?
What support does the community need to help sustain and grow their ideas?
Research methods included:
Mapping local climate and ecology projects
Collating a database of local community and voluntary groups
Community listening through attending existing events, pop-up conversations, workshops, webinars and events
Meeting community leaders to understand local priorities
Stakeholder interviews - understanding the political and organisational context
“I should be saying ‘extremely concerned’… that’s my denial. I don’t want to deal with it. Doing the small things isn’t enough. I think we should all be extremely concerned. It’s a worry.”
- Parent, Shepherds Bush
“My 9-year-old could have more effect on me than someone putting it down my neck. It pulls at the heartstrings more than some government official. If my kids tell me 'daddy I'm scared' I might be forced to do something.”
- Father, Old Oak
Key insights
There is no precedent for climate engagement and behaviour change across a borough - so there is a need to sharing learning and work-in-progress in real time
Leading with ‘climate emergency’ in interactions with residents can exclude people, as it can be viewed as in conflict with more immediate priorities
Many residents feel powerless in terms of their contribution to tackling climate change, which encourages people to disengage
Residents are more likely to be influenced by their children, family and friends than local council, where a lack of trust can make behaviour change advice feel paternalistic
There is a wealth of local projects that are supporting people to save money, eat healthily, improve wellbeing and strengthen relationships and resilience - despite not using the words ‘climate action’
Community engagement at the council was usually at the level of consultation - which provided an opportunity to move up the ladder of participation to truly share power and support longer-term action
At the moment local young people’s priorities feel disconnected from climate action
Engagement strategy
The strategy was developed to support community action on climate through three areas of work:
Outreach - a programme of work to map, contact and engage residents and community leaders
Networks - projects that would connect residents into longer-term action, including sustainability champions and resident groups to advise on council decision-making
Enablers - ways for the council to sustain and grow community action, including grant funding and training courses
Outcome measures were developed to measure the impact.
The goal for year one was to increase participation in local climate action from under-represented groups.
Interactions with community groups were documented - including the level of engagement (e.g. informing, consulting, involving, co-producing), potential reach and demographics. This was a useful exercise to focus on the most influential engagement opportunities.
PROTOTYPING engagement projects
In parallel with the strategy, a programme of engagement projects was developed. The summary below outlines three of these.
A climate conversation with young people in White City
1 - Climate conversations
How might we engage new audiences with the climate emergency locally?
What started as an educational tool to introduce the climate crisis to local groups evolved into a participatory workshop format.
Learnings from testing with 30+ groups included:
Structuring the session around Dr Kim Nicholas’ easy-to-remember format (it’s real, it’s us, it’s bad, we’re sure, we can fix it) was a useful prompt
Starting with what people’s priorities are for the future, and then connecting these to climate, was more successful than trying to get people to ‘care’ about climate change
Much of the content was used to develop an in-house ‘climate literacy’ course that has since been rolled out to councillors and council staff.
2 - Sustainability champions
The hypothesis being tested was:
Because we think that not all residents feel included in climate and environmental action or see see how it relates to them
We believe that building a network of local champions to run skills transfer workshops will enable residents to connect the dots between their priorities and climate action and take steps towards behaviour change
The brief was developed and a local voluntary organisation was commissioned to run the project.
Through a series of coffee mornings, existing skills and assets were identified within the community. Residents were recruited to lead workshops on different themes.
As the training programme was developed, the focus became on developing a clear support offer from the council for community-led climate projects. This led to the creation of a £500 grant that was designed to be accessible with ‘just enough’ governance.
3 - Climate cafes
The aim of climate cafe was to facilitate an ongoing, honest conversation between the council and community. Rather than presenting ‘finished’ projects, these monthly sessions showed work in progress and invited a more informal but regular form of scrutiny.
The first prototype was internal presentations within the climate team - sharing projects and challenges from diverse portfolios including:
homes and energy
transport
circular economy and food
biodiversity
adapting to climate change
council decision-making and finance
Over 12 months, this organically grew by inviting colleagues from other departments. Once the format was refined this was promoted to all staff across the council and is now a monthly virtual event open to the public.
Impact
During the 18 months in the role, over 2000 resident were reached through engagement activities, including:
800+ who were actively involved through workshops
34 who took part in co-production activities
From those who were reached, there was positive indication that it was meaningful engagement. 93% of those surveyed said they learnt something new and 62% indicated they would do something different as a result.
However, the challenge remains that the majority of those residents were already engaged (55% already involved with local climate action, 25% neutral, 20% not involved). What’s more, the total number of residents reached is only 1% of the 200,000 residents living in Hammersmith & Fulham.
Only
1 in 5 residents
reached was not already involved in local climate action
Only
1%
of residents living in the borough were reached through engagement activities
Reflections & Recommendations
Councils play a unique role locally. Rather than taking on responsibility for behaviour change shifts that others could more successfully influence, they should focus on where they have specific levers and influence. This includes:
Planning permission - removing all barriers to residents retrofitting their homes
Creating the conditions for behaviour change - through parking charges, use of road space, design of estates and use of public buildings as community hubs
Convening and connecting - learning about great work happening locally and creating connections between those who need/have space, funding, ideas or solutions
With significant progress required on all behaviour change fronts to tackle the climate crisis, there remains much work to do.