Carbon neutral islands project: progress report

5. Public Engagement Activities

The focus of the CNI project goes further than direct capital investment. Each Community Development Officer has undertaken an extensive programmme of engagement activities – both on - and off-island. This has significantly raised awareness of the project and built engagement with both those living on the islands and further afield.

5.1 On-Island Engagement

As we have highlighted, every island is unique and approaches to engagement within each community have varied to suit islanders’ needs. For example, several islands undertook project work to boost this engagement (for example, in Cumbrae an art project has been undertaken with the local school).

The CDOs took a substantive role in building awareness of the CNI project’s work on the respective island with an aim of using this to boost climate engagement overall.

In addition to being embedded within a local anchor organisation, each island also prioritises engagement with local stakeholders, in most cases a locally-based steering group, to determine the strategic direction of work on the project. These groups met on a regular basis to discuss issues related to the CNI.

The CDOs took advantage of community events across each island as an opportunity to build the local knowledge base and gain buy-in. These events allowed the CNI work to be presented within the context of other initiatives happening on the island to reach a broader audience that other, more targeted engagement may not.

Other approaches to engagement on each island across the CNIs include:

Surveys: It is essential that the perspectives of islanders are integrated into the CNI project. To ensure this, surveys were undertaken to gather the views of islanders on several of the CNIs to inform Climate Action Plans and the CNI work more generally.

Work with Schools: Young people have a key role to play in the journey to net zero – this is particularly true within our island communities. Several CNI islands have undertaken projects alongside local schools. Others have undertaken outreach events as a learning opportunity to build understanding of carbon reduction measures.

Citizen Science: Several of the island projecrs include citizen science components, allowing individuals to directly participate in research on their local environment, increasing engagement and widening the breadth of scientific activity on the islands.

Showcase Events: Showcase events on several of the islands were also held to directly highlight work being undertaken under the CNI and across related workstreams. These were often in collaboration with other groups involved in climate and environmental work to build collaboration between these bodies.

Support for Wider Energy Efficiency Measures: The CNIs have also supported uptake of energy efficiency measures through programmes such as the Area Based Schemes. Cumbrae for example, has seen a significant increase in uptake of these measures through these efforts.

CDO Upskilling: The project has prioritised the upskilling of CDOs whenever possible in order to share their knowledge and experience to benefit their wider island communities.

5.2 Off-Island Engagement

The ease of access to off-island events, particularly in the central belt, differs throughout the islands. Regardless each CDO was able to attend and frequently speak at a range of meetings, conferences and seminars across Scotland in order to raise awareness of the project and share their learning and experience as CDOs.

Key events attended by the CDOs are listed below:

• All-Energy and Dcarbonise Conference at SECC Glasgow, May 2023
  • This event brought together stakeholders from across the energy sector and gave the CDOs an excellent opportunity to expand their networks and spread awareness of the project.
• Local Energy Scotland CARES Conference in Glasgow, September 2023
  • The Scottish Government’s Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) supports communities, including the CNIs, to engage, participate and benefit in the energy transition to net zero. This conference provided a fantastic opportunity to share learnings with other communities throughout Scotland.
• Community Energy Scotland Annual Conference in and in Glasgow 2024
  • These events brought stakeholders together to discuss the role of communities in delivering fair and inclusive decarbonisation.
  • In 2024, CDOs presented on solar energy development and led a workshop on energy efficiency.
• Scottish Rural and Islands Parliament (SRIP), Fort William, November 2023
  • SRIP a grassroots democratic assembly, bringing together people who live and work in rural and island Scotland to debate the issues that matter most to them. It forms part of a process to help mobilise rural and island communities in Scotland and amplify their diverse voices. CNI members were able to attend to share their own experience of development in an island context.

These events gave each officer a chance to share knowledge of sustainable practices in an island context with stakeholders across the local development landscape – from other development officers in island, coastal and rural mainland communities to industry experts and academics. They also provided learning opportunities and the chance to build a network across island communities, strengthening the replicability strand of the project.

The Community Development Officers also met several times in person along with

Scottish Government and key project partners including CES allowing them to build ties and share information and take an integral role in designing the project themselves.

5.3 Stakeholder Engagement

Each island conducted extensive stakeholder engagement with key businesses and third sector organisations with a presence on and/or an interest in, their island. This developed a network to support the work undertaken across the CNI project and highlighted linkages with the initiatives undertaken across related areas.

Key strands of this engagement across the islands included:

• On-island industry (for example the whisky industry on Islay).
• Environmentally focused groups (such as the RSPB, NatureScot).
• Energy network operators.
• Community development organisations.
• Local authorities.
• Installers of low carbon energy and energy efficiency measures.
• Advice and support bodies (such as Home Energy Scotland).
• Ferry providers.

5.4 Research

We have also undertaken research to support the project including work into skills building and shared learning across Scotland’s islands.

The work into skills building was particularly insightful in informing both the development of the core islands in the project, but also the replicability strand that aims to extend these findings. In order to help expand the scope of decarbonisation being undertaken across all of Scotland’s islands, a handbook has been developed by CES on their journey to net zero which is available online.