Scottish climate action hubs: models research

4. Managing the Hubs

4.1. Governance and Management

Governance

For the majority of the examples explored, the lead organisations of the hubs are registered charities, social enterprises or community interest companies. It was perceived by stakeholders to be beneficial for lead organisations to be third sector and not the public sector, though they all work in partnership with local government. Zero Carbon Guildford noted that there is a lack of resource and capacity within their local council to deliver a hub, and see their role as supporting the wider climate goals of the Council.

One of the key goals of the Community Climate Hubs programme (Canada) is to advocate for greater consideration of climate issues within local and national policy. Independent third sector organisations can be more outspoken with their messaging and partake in climate activism activities, which may not be the case if the hubs were delivered through local authorities. Interviewees from the Community Climate Hubs programme also raised concerns that the voice of local people would be overshadowed by the political standpoint of the local authority if the hubs were delivered this way.

The Cool Wirral Partnership is the only example explored that is facilitated by local government. This has been beneficial during early stages of hub development, as they have drawn on staffing and funding resources within the Council. However, it has also been challenging to engage with the public, possibly as some residents have a pre-conceived distrust of local government. Wirral Council are aware of misinformation in newspapers and online around local authority climate action projects. This includes negative coverage of other local authorities’ projects such as 15-minute neighbourhoods, and 20mph speed zones. They are aware some residents might not be interested in the project if it is directly associated with the Council. To reduce this risk, they operate in the background as facilitators and allow other organisations to promote and run events. Ultimately, the plan for this hub is that once it is more self-sustaining, the Council will step back to simply fulfil a partnership role. One of the partnership organisations is likely to take over facilitating the hub long-term.

Day-to-day management

Interviewees stated that having paid members of staff is key for the successful and ongoing delivery of the hubs, rather than relying entirely on volunteers. Interviewees from Lewes Climate Hub, Zero Carbon Guildford, the Community Climate Hubs programme and Climate Connect note that although the hubs initially developed on a voluntary basis, they acknowledge that paid positions are necessary. This is to maintain activity within the hubs as they grow and become more established within their communities.

For all hubs included in this research, core staff are employed to help manage both networks and the individual hubs. Most volunteers want to be involved in ‘hands on’ activities such as delivery of projects or events, rather than providing background administrative or support functions. By recruiting a paid member of staff, hubs can be more prescriptive in what specific skills and experience they are looking to bring into the hub (e.g., health and safety certifications).

Having paid staff also provides a level of consistency and oversight that would not be possible through reliance on volunteers alone. For example, core management staff within Climate Connect and the Community Climate Hubs programme are responsible for managing and supporting volunteers to deliver projects and are a route for knowledge sharing and communication (Section 4.4).

4.2. Strategic Delivery

None of the examples have an explicit strategic plan of activity. Lewes Climate Hub, Climate Action Leeds and the Community Climate Hubs programme stated that much of the work that is delivered through the hubs is not aligned to a specific delivery plan and almost entirely based on the priorities of the local community. The hubs and networks are intentionally community-led, and therefore do not follow a pre-determined plan or programme of activities. This encourages a sense of ownership from the local community and wider participation. The hubs fund the communities’ ideas in different ways. Climate Action Leeds, for example, have an £8000 budget they provide to each local hub per year out of the National Lottery award (see 8.2). The local community of each hub work with a member of staff to use that budget for projects they are most interested in. Alternatively, Climate Connect hold a ‘climate day’ at each local hub annually, open to all the local community to develop project ideas. External funding is then sought to support these projects. These examples demonstrate some of the mechanisms that could be used to develop projects in response to communities’ needs and interests.

However, it was found that an unintended outcome of this community-led approach is that the activities that individual hubs engage in are not fully aligned with the wider organisational goals. For example, Climate Action Leeds explained that the community led projects are at risk of steering away from climate engagement that achieves a reduction in carbon emissions. This conflicts with their aim of creating a ‘zero carbon’ Leeds by 2030.

The Cool Wirral Partnership (CWP) employs a slightly more structured approach than most examples explored. CWP use ‘themes’ (e.g., food systems, transport, energy, etc.) which alternate every two months. During this time, individuals within the community are encouraged to provide ideas for activities and events related to the theme. In this way, CWP is still perceived to be community-led. The use of themes is seen as an advantage as it allows each topic to be explored in more depth, aiming to improve understanding and hopefully instil lasting behaviour change within the community.

4.3. Community Engagement

Climate Action Leeds, Zero Carbon Guildford, the Community Climate Hubs programme and Lewes Climate Hub all discussed diversifying the type of activities and projects they deliver to increase engagement. The reason for this is twofold:

• Hubs would like to encourage more people to engage who are outside of the existing “climate bubble” (Section 5.1).
• Many people are overwhelmed by the climate emergency. The scale of the issue, and therefore the work needing to be done, was daunting for many.

Most hubs deliver small-scale projects related to addressing the climate emergency, such as biodiversity projects, small tree planting projects and community fridges. However, these activities are not necessarily having a large impact on reducing carbon emissions at the pace or scale required to meet net zero targets. The promotion of these activities and themes deliberately avoids daunting narratives about a climate emergency and focuses on more approachable aspects of the topic, such as reducing food waste. It is hoped that once individuals engage with the hubs through these activities, this will lead them to engage in more impactful climate action activity and learn more about the climate emergency. Whilst many of the hubs take this approach, we have not found any evidence that this occurs in practice. For example, Climate Action Leeds stated they still focus on ‘softer’ engagement work despite coming close to the end of their 5-year programme. This indicates that hubs find it challenging to engage residents with the climate emergency as an overall concept, even after focusing on more practical aspects of climate action.

Zero Carbon Guildford discussed the need to reach people outside of their existing “climate bubble” and are actively trying to engage a wider audience. To do this they are adjusting their messaging to communicate the co-benefits that can be achieved around health and wellbeing to attract a wider audience. For example, they are hosting a ‘community wealth building’ event, focusing on building the local economy and its benefits to residents. The event will have a section on the environment, but it is not the primary focus. However, stakeholders recognised that this approach means that momentum towards achieving climate-related goals is slow (Section 5.1).

4.4. Networking and Knowledge Sharing

The three network examples (Community Climate Hubs programme, Climate Connect and Climate Action Leeds) noted the benefits of having a central organisation to facilitate networking and knowledge sharing across all hubs in the network. Core staff are in regular contact with hubs to maintain oversight on projects being delivered. This was regarded as a benefit, helping to avoid duplication of work and to encourage combining resources across hubs delivering similar projects.

The Community Climate Hubs programme noted that their structure is well-suited to networking. The Regional Officers are instrumental in forming new relationships and maintaining networks for communication. Regional Officers act as the bridge between local hubs and the wider network and ensure that hubs feel well-supported. Regional Officers also facilitate regular networking events, meetings and drop-in calls for hub members to meet on a regular basis and share ideas or find solutions to challenges (see 5.2). The Community Climate Hubs Programme Network Manager catalogues the work delivered across the network and uploads this to the programme website in the form of blog posts and news articles. This visibility and knowledge sharing is a useful resource for other hubs, helping to inspire their work and motivate individual action.

At the local level, individual hubs are also a space for networking and communication between individuals and other climate action organisations. For example, both Lewes Climate Hub and Zero Carbon Guildford are part of the Climate Emergency Centre (CEC) network. Zero Carbon Guildford have had several organisations from the CEC network visit their hub to share ideas. They have also provided support to new groups by sharing their own policies to prevent new hubs from having to start from scratch.

Learnings that can be applied to the development of the Climate Action Hub Programme in Scotland:

• Operating within the third sector (rather than the public sector) can allow hubs to be more outspoken in their messaging on climate action.
• However, local authorities are still considered to be important partners by all the hubs included in this research, by providing financial support and assisting with networking.
• Paid staff are necessary, although a number of hubs have developed successfully despite starting as entirely volunteer-run. Key roles for paid staff are administration, hub management and oversight.
• Hubs tend to deliver projects in response to the interests of the community, rather than follow a strategic delivery plan set out by hub staff.
• Achieving widespread engagement and stimulating meaningful action requires a balance of activities. Activities that may have limited climate impact are important to encourage and widen participation.
• A website or virtual platform could facilitate knowledge and resource sharing between Scotland’s hubs. This would likely require central resource to manage and curate content.