Climate Resources

Climate Home 60 second explainer Community climate impact Climate policy Glossary Resources ☰

This page features resources, useful organisations and other information related to community responses to the climate crisis.

• The Communities Channel Scotland features a range of resources and links to further information around community climate responses in Scotland.

• Community-led health and climate justice - In this briefing, CHEX make the links between community-led health and climate action.

• Scottish Communities Climate Action Network support community-led action in Scotland to address the climate and nature emergency and are the Transition Network Hub for Scotland – part of the wider, global Transition Network. 

•  Regional Community Climate Hubs have been developing since 2021 and there are now over 20 in operation across Scotland.  The hubs exist to; build awareness of the climate emergency and actions local groups can take; support groups to develop climate action projects and embed climate solutions into local plans; help groups take up funding opportunities; facilitate networking; and ensure a joined-up approach to tackling climate change at a regional level. 

• Nine Climate Action Towns were supported to explore the delivery of relevant, place appropriate climate actions. There is a helpful toolkit which steps through the processes and methodologies used by the Climate Action Towns team at Architecture and Design Scotland.

• Ready Scotland have published national guidance on community resilience very recently called Building Resilient Communities.  

• The Place Standard with a Climate Lens has been developed to help people understand how climate change might play out in a local area and support them to design their future place with climate in mind. It builds on the core Place Standard tool and is designed to support a joined up, collaborative, and participative approach to climate action within a place. 

• SCVO’s Growing Climate Confidence initiative support charities, social enterprises and community groups across Scotland to take action on the climate emergency, support nature and biodiversity and ensure a just transition to a low carbon future for our communities. 

• This briefing from Public Health Scotland aims to increase awareness of how climate change and adaptation responses can affect health and health inequalities. It also sets out evidence-based public health principles that support a whole-system approach to achieve climate resilience, health and equity. 

• Adaptation Scotland have worked with partners to produce the Community Climate Adaptation Routemap, a practical guide for communities to adapt to climate change. The Routemap is split into three distinctive stages to launch then drive climate resilience in local areas: ‘getting started’, ‘understanding climate change in your community’, and ‘taking action’.  

• These Climate Ready Clyde Climate Vulnerability Maps the postcode areas within the Glasgow City Region that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and provide information on where to target resources towards the most vulnerable communities, supporting Climate Ready Clyde’s focus on just resilience.  This resource is good example of vulnerability maps, and similar maps from other parts of Scotland will be added in future.

• This Climate Change Guide from Keep Scotland Beautiful is a useful starter guide to climate change, explaining clearly the fundamentals of climate change and its effects, and would be particularly useful for working with communities where there is need to build capacity for informed participation in local climate projects. 

How can communities take action on the climate emergency?

Climate Home 60 second explainer Community climate impact Climate policy Glossary Resources ☰

With an issue that’s so global, and indeed overwhelming, it’s easy to feel that many of the communities we live in and work with are too far from power, influence and the ability to affect the large-scale change around climate issues we urgently need. 

And yet, we shouldn’t resign ourselves to inaction. Community development is built upon collective action - people coming together to take action on the issues important to them. Whether that’s anti-damp campaigns, or action to address the cost-of-living crisis, collective community action has brought remarkable energy, innovation and concrete changes around significant issues that affect people’s lives.  

We’re already seeing how these approaches are supporting climate action. In Dundee, the Gleaning Project works with local growers to harvest produce that is either surplus or unsellable. This food is then distributed to local community food projects, reducing waste and helping provide nutritional food to those who need it. 

There are examples just like this up and down the country, demonstrating that when communities are supported and resourced, they can make significant progress,

The change we need to see 

The challenge remains how we can enable communities, both individuals and groups, to carry out activities that can make positive climate impacts as part of their everyday work.

One recent example saw a group build a beach clean into a family event that was part of their usual summer programme of activities. These small steps can make a significant difference, alongside larger programmes and measures. 

And while communities can take significant steps towards this action themselves, we need to ensure that this activity is happening in an equitable and fair way – and not simply making existing inequalities worse. 

Building skills, knowledge and confidence

We hear clearly from our work that support in building the skills, knowledge and confidence of communities facing these inequalities is vital. Linked to this capacity building is the vital role that collaboration between agencies and with communities. We need to take a joined-up approach that supports community priorities, with effective community engagement and resources to help enable action to take place. 

We know that community-led climate action can make a real difference in reducing climate impact, anxiety and inequalities. But it’s also overwhelming and not always easy to grasp. That’s why collective community development approaches are vital if we’re to understand people’s priorities and see these take shape into the positive action we so urgently need. 

Read more about community development approaches to climate change