Community
Community of practice connecting net zero champions
FUTURE READY QUARTERLY GATHERING / ALL FUTURENOUGHTS
Future Ready Quarterly Gathering: Cardiff
The third in-person Future Ready Quarterly Gathering took place at the Norwegian Church Arts Centre in Cardiff Bay, providing a unique setting to focus on peer-to-peer collaboration and learning. Attendees engaged in accelerated learning workshops, TED-style presentations, and collaborative discussions within the Future Ready Community of Practice.
Projects
Lightning talks from local authorities and their partners covered topics such as carbon literacy, stakeholder engagement, and the role of the circular economy.
Peer-led breakout discussions allowed participants to delve deeper into each other’s projects, share knowledge, and seek solutions and next steps.
Guest speakers and workshops
Future Ready Technical Assistance Partners, including Involve and City Science with Bankers without Boundaries, facilitated morning and afternoon workshops on the Foundations of Citizen Engagement and Financing Net Zero for Beginners.
Gareth Harcombe from Cardiff Council celebrated local climate action, presenting One Planet as a tool to accelerate the Welsh journey to net zero. Participants then heard from Matt Bagwell, representing start-up Deep Green on their pioneering business harnessing and redistributing waste energy from data centres.
Insights and takeaways
Recurring themes of engagement emerged, with participants discussing the use of climate champions, Climathon events, and the importance of tone in delivering climate messages. Illustration was noted as a tool to make local initiative conversations more accessible.
Attendees also explored how places can collaborate on their net zero journeys locally, nationally, and globally, asking: "How can we achieve what places want in a net zero way?"
This question sparked conversations on net zero transitions that are truly place-based.
The day concluded with a social evening on the terrace, fostering further discussions and connections.
NET ZERO LIVING ANNUAL EVENT / ALL FUTURENOUGHTS
Net Zero Living Annual Event: Cardiff
The Net Zero Living Annual Event united the Thriving Places and User-Focused Products programmes to drive net zero solutions across the UK and globally. The event was a platform for building partnerships, networking with climate leaders, and reflecting on key insights from guest speakers.
Opening remarks
Jennifer Pride, Head of Energy Delivery in the Welsh Government, expressed optimism about the opportunities for local collaboration involving businesses at all levels to generate economic change and provide certainty amid complexity.
Innovate UK's Kara Cartwright encouraged a global perspective, highlighting the potential for international business growth as part of an ambitious net zero transition programme.
Guest speakers
Vanessa Ambler from We Care 4 Air discussed innovative air quality monitoring across South Korea, India, and the UK, emphasising top-down government collaboration and bottom-up resident involvement.
Ojay McDonald from the Association of Town & City Management stressed the importance of integrated climate solutions with multiple co-benefits, such as urban greening for climate mitigation, air quality improvement, and economic growth.
Oliver Wayman from Make Change.Earth highlighted the need to inject positivity, hope, and confidence into climate conversations, supporting platforms for global voices driving change.
Net Zero Living Challenge Labs
A highlight of the event was the Net Zero Living Challenge Labs, a series of action-oriented workshops focusing on key net zero challenges:
- Citizen engagement: Hosted by Involve, this workshop explored addressing public scepticism by involving citizens in collaborations between local authorities and the private sector.
- Finance: City Science and Bankers Without Boundaries led discussions on connecting diverse sectors with local government frameworks and scaling investment to drive change.
- Data: Zuhlke's workshop tackled governance challenges in using disparate datasets and strategies for making data more open and accessible.
- Design thinking: The Design Council engaged participants in considering barriers to uniting supply and demand sides to combat climate change, utilising design tools for people-centered experiences on the journey to net-zero.
Innovate UK’s Rob Saunders concluded the day with an inspiring call to action, urging us to embrace creativity not just to achieve net zero, but to improve lives and foster prosperity for all.
COMMUNITY MONTHLY MEETUP / ALL FUTURENOUGHTS
ALLIES: building cross-sector partnerships
Key takeaways from April’s monthly online meetup.
- Simon Mansfield, a Demonstrator Place from Liverpool City Council, presented the Realising Net Zero Liverpool project, delivered in partnership with project lead, New Resource Partners Ltd.
- Simon’s presentation highlighted the need to engage cross-sector stakeholders to deliver the project at speed and scale, and how they procure the right partners to work with.
- Liverpool’s plan to become a net zero city emphasises the need to address carbon emissions across various sectors, including domestic buildings, commerce, industry, and transportation. Realising Net Zero Liverpool currently has over 40 project partners, both internally within the council and externally with local and national organisations.
- Internal partnerships are vital to gain project buy-in and to create a momentum for delivery. When choosing which external partners to work with, Simon said that for his team, looking at the organisation with the most compelling evidence bases and data systems is key, and stressed the important role of directors and leadership in external relationships.
- Simon’s presentation also outlined community and citizen engagement processes and the value in demonstrating project proposals in a digestible, one-page graphic format to gain support from citizens.
COMMUNITY MONTHLY MEETUP / ALL FUTURENOUGHTS
DATA: accessible toolkits to support net zero
Key takeaways from May’s monthly online meetup.
- Chris Fairbrother, a Pathfinder Place from South Downs National Park Authority presented the Pioneer Parks project, highlighting the use of the OnePlanet platform for knowledge exchange and collaboration among 15 local authorities, climate networks, and community groups.
- The project successfully onboarded its first cohort of OnePlanet users, enabling streamlined mapping of climate action plans and strategies to identify opportunities, similarities, and gaps.
- OnePlanet is providing a consistent metric for recording carbon accounting across participating authorities, enhancing transparency and comparability.
- Recognising the potential for broader application, Chris’ team is exploring opportunities to scale OnePlanet’s functionality to a national level, engaging with other national parks across the UK.
- These insights underscore the importance of accessible data toolkits in facilitating coordinated and effective climate action at both local and national levels.