Dr Annum Rafique reflects on the key messages emerging from the Local Innovation Partnership Hubs – Climate & Environment Theme Cross-Hub Meeting, highlighting how researchers from across the network are tackling common challenges in delivering place-based environmental action.
The transition to net zero is often framed around technologies, policies and carbon targets. However, one of the strongest messages to emerge from the recent Climate & Environment Theme Cross-Hub Meeting was that successful environmental transitions are fundamentally about people, places and partnerships.
Researchers from across the network came together to share their research and reflect on common challenges. The network represented at the meeting included:
- FORTH2O Policy Innovation Partnership (FORTH2O), which has developed a place-based digital observatory integrating environmental and socio-economic data to support collaborative, evidence-informed water resilience and catchment governance.
- Local Policy Innovation Partnership Hub (LPIP Hub), which showcased research on rural resilience, civic climate action, and collaborative governance, demonstrating how partnerships across government, communities, universities, and businesses can strengthen environmental resilience and support the transition to net zero.
- Yorkshire Policy Innovation Partnership (YPIP), which has focused on connecting communities to Local Nature Recovery Strategies through participatory mapping and co-design, illustrating how local knowledge can strengthen biodiversity planning and community-led nature recovery.
- Rural Wales Local Policy Innovation Partnership (Rural Wales LPIP), which has explored a multi-solving approach to place-based net zero, demonstrating how integrated, community-led action can simultaneously deliver environmental, social and economic benefits while accelerating decarbonisation.
Despite their different regional priorities and governance arrangements, the presentations highlighted a common reality: many of the partnerships are wrestling with the same fundamental questions.
- How can organisations work effectively across institutional boundaries?
- How can communities become genuine partners rather than consultees?
- How can evidence better inform local decision-making?
- And how can successful initiatives continue long after initial funding has ended?
Rather than simply showcasing individual research projects, the meeting evolved into a rich discussion about how environmental change is delivered in practice. Participants reflected on the conditions that enable successful place-based action, the barriers that continue to limit progress, and the research and policy priorities needed to accelerate environmental transitions across the UK.
The conversations highlighted that, although every place is unique, many of the underlying governance, engagement and implementation challenges are shared. By learning across places, the LPIP network is building a stronger evidence base for understanding what works, why it works, and how successful approaches can be adapted to different local contexts.
A Common Shift: From Technology to Delivery
A clear message emerged across every presentation: the challenge is no longer simply identifying the technologies needed to achieve net zero. The greater challenge is delivery.
Whether discussing water management in Scotland, nature recovery in York, rural resilience in Wales, or civic climate action in Leicester, presenters agreed that many of the technical solutions already exist. The key questions now are:
- How do we move from strategy to implementation?
- How do we translate ambitious national policies into meaningful local action?
- How do we sustain programmes and partnerships beyond individual funding cycles?
These are becoming the defining questions for place-based environmental policy.
Place Matters More Than Ever
Despite working in different regions, every project demonstrated that environmental transitions are deeply shaped by place. Communities understand environmental issues through their own lived experiences. For some, climate action begins with flooding or water quality; for others, it centres on overheating homes, biodiversity loss, agriculture, transport or local economic resilience.
This reinforces an important lesson: people rarely think in policy silos. Communities do not separate climate, health, housing, transport and economic development into distinct agendas; they experience these challenges together. Successful environmental interventions therefore need to reflect this complexity and respond to local priorities.
Net Zero Cannot Be Delivered Alone
Another strong theme throughout the discussions was collaboration.
Every attendee demonstrated that environmental delivery depends upon bringing together multiple organisations.
These included:
- local authorities
- combined authorities
- environmental agencies
- universities
- businesses
- SMEs
- housing providers
- voluntary organisations
- community groups
- residents.
Perhaps most importantly, the discussions also highlighted the evolving role of universities. Increasingly, universities are seeing themselves not simply as producers of knowledge, but as convenors, connectors and trusted partners within places.
Several speakers reflected that one of their most valuable contributions through the LPIPs was not producing research itself, but connecting organisations with expertise, building partnerships, and facilitating collaboration.
Communities Are Not Stakeholders. They Are Partners
A recurring reflection concerned community engagement. Many attendees acknowledged that traditional consultation approaches had often achieved limited success. Instead, LPIPs have increasingly focused on working alongside organisations that are already trusted by local communities, recognising that these organisations are better placed to build relationships, facilitate participation and sustain engagement.
The most successful initiatives viewed communities not as passive consultees, but as:
- co-designers
- local experts
- knowledge holders
- long-term custodians.
This represents an important shift away from consultation towards genuine partnership. However, several important questions remain:
- How do we maintain community motivation once projects end?
- How do we support volunteers over the long term?
- How do we coordinate multiple community groups without creating additional burdens?
These remain significant challenges for both research and policy.
The Language of Net Zero
Perhaps the liveliest discussion centred on communication.
Many participants observed that terms such as net zero or even climate change can sometimes create barriers rather than engagement.
Many people perceive terms such as net zero or even climate change as politically charged, overly technical, or disconnected from their everyday lives. Instead, the LPIPS have increasingly begun conversations around issues that people already care about and are being impacted directly, such as:
- reducing energy bills
- creating warmer or cooler homes
- improving health
- protecting local rivers
- enhancing parks
- supporting farmers
- strengthening local economies
Climate benefits still matter. But they are often presented as one outcome among many rather than the sole objective. This does not diminish climate action. Rather, it embeds climate action within everyday life.
Data Supports Decisions, but People Deliver Change
All LPIPs described sophisticated mapping systems, digital observatories and spatial analysis. These technologies are becoming increasingly powerful.
However, every speaker emphasised that data alone does not create change.
Environmental delivery still depends upon trusted relationships, institutional capacity, collaboration and local leadership.
Digital tools support decision-making, but people make decisions.
Thinking Beyond Single Outcomes
One concept that resonated strongly across the meeting was multi-solving. Rather than designing interventions to solve a single problem, the LPIPs increasingly seek actions that generate multiple benefits simultaneously.
For example:
- Retrofit can improve health, reduce fuel poverty and cut emissions;
- Nature recovery can enhance biodiversity, improve mental wellbeing and reduce flood risk;
- Community energy can strengthen local economies while reducing carbon emissions;
- Water management can improve resilience, recreation, public health and ecological quality.
Thinking in terms of co-benefits makes environmental policy more meaningful to communities and more attractive to decision-makers.
Common Challenges Identified
Although the research being conducted by the LPIPs differed considerably, many shared similar challenges. These included:
- Maintaining partnerships beyond project funding.
- Moving from strategy to implementation.
- Coordinating multiple organisations.
- Measuring wider social and environmental value.
- Sustaining community engagement.
- Engaging SMEs and private sector partners.
- Communicating climate action in politically sensitive contexts.
- Connecting local action with national policy ambitions.
These are not isolated challenges. They are shared across places, sectors and policy domains.
Looking Ahead
Perhaps the most encouraging outcome of the meeting was recognising the significant common ground across the LPIPs. Whether working on rivers in Scotland, rural communities in Wales, nature recovery in York, or civic climate action in England, we are all exploring variations of the same central question:
How do we enable places to deliver environmental change that is locally meaningful, socially inclusive and capable of lasting beyond individual projects?
The technologies exist. The policy ambitions are increasingly clear. The next challenge is to create the governance, partnerships, and local capacity needed to turn those ambitions into lasting change. That is where place-based research has perhaps its greatest contribution to make.
This blog was written by Dr Annum Rafique, Research Fellow, City-REDI, University of Birmingham.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this analysis post are those of the authors and not necessarily those of City-REDI or the University of Birmingham.