Encourage public participation in your climate response – online

Local authorities are racing to reach carbon zero

Government bodies around the world are taking action to reach carbon net zero – for example, declaring climate emergencies, drawing up action strategies, drafting plans, assembling teams.

For this work to succeed, a key challenge is public engagement: raising awareness of the situation, educating people about the issues in play and building consensus on the choices that will need to be made over the next 20+ years.

A rapid way to engage and involve the public in your climate response

To bring citizens into their climate change planning, government bodies worldwide have started launching public prioritisation exercises.

To open participation to the widest possible audience, they’ve taken these exercises online – with Simulator.

Simulator is an easy-to-use digital tool that lets anyone try their hand at making tough choices. It engages respondents with your sustainability decisions and inspires insightful responses.

Carbon reduction engagement for The London Borough of Redbridge

The London Borough of Redbridge were developing a plan to make all of the council’s operations carbon neutral by 2030. They knew this would bring steep challenges in balancing the needs of citizens, industry and the environment. So they wanted an engaging way to consult residents that accurately conveyed the urgency and complexity of the issues at hand.

The council recognised that the information involved was too dense and unwieldy for a traditional survey. So they used Simulator. They created a Carbon Budget, with six categories such as 'transport' and 'property', each containing a range of possible actions. Respondents could adjust sliders to see what impact different decisions would have on the council's plans and on carbon emissions. This gave Redbridge a comprehensive, quick and intuitive means to go out and engage the public.

Simulator worked for Redbridge on two levels: it generated informed feedback that gave the Council a unique insight into public priorities; and it fostered understanding from the public’s perspective about the complex trade-offs involved in climate-related decisions.

Raise awareness of your climate action plan

Simulator gets people thinking about the realities of your work to reach carbon zero. It shows that change requires action, and that action requires concrete choices – making it feel real to the public.

Build empathy for the choices ahead

Simulator helps to educate people via the process of participation. By making the trade-offs necessary to balance resources themselves, respondents gain a new appreciation of the complexities involved.

Informed public feedback for The London Borough of Haringey

The London Borough of Haringey had prepared a draft Climate Change Action Plan, with the goal of reaching carbon net zero by 2041. The council wanted citizens to be involved in finalising the Plan: to have a say in how they would prioritise options and services in order to significantly reduce carbon emissions across the borough.

Simulator was a perfect fit for the prioritisation exercise that Haringey wanted to run. They mapped out all the actions they knew were necessary to implement the Climate Change Action Plan in full. Then they created a Carbon Reduction Simulator, inviting the public to 'stand in our shoes' and decide how they would allocate council spending, time and effort – specifically, which actions they felt were the most important to act on first.

By involving their residents in the challenge, they were able to gather meaningful responses, reflective of the public's true priorities. As they continued to hone their draft Action Plan, Haringey were able to use the insights gathered through Simulator to inform and shape key decisions.