Introduction

Purpose of Workshop

This report captures the process and findings of a day long workshop aimed to address the role that ‘Net Zero Community Planning’ could have in the production of inclusive, resilient and equitable city-making. The workshop explored this using ASF-UK’s Resilience by Design methodology to address how communities, local groups and city institutions could develop transformative neighbourhood scale plans.

The workshop was carried out as a partnership between EVOC and ASF-UK and took place on 15th January 2023. The workshop participants included groups from across the city, local residents and key institutional stakeholders including elected officials, local built environment professionals and researchers.

The workshop aimed to collect principles and methods for working with the civic sector on resilience projects and within the 2030 Climate Strategy Agenda.

The initial workshop was funded by EVOC with the ambition that ASF-UK and EVOC would seek funding opportunities for future project activities. EVOC envisages a wider project beginning with this initial catalytic first workshop which can be the driver of a wider ‘Net Zero Community Planning’ project.

Background & Context in Edinburgh

The City of Edinburgh has set an ambitious target for Edinburgh to become a net zero city by 2030: “this means that by 2030, we want to remove the same amount of greenhouse gases that we, as a city, put into the air.” In the coming months, the Council will select three areas to become the city’s first ‘net zero communities’. EVOC believes that this is an opportunity to strengthen existing grassroots initiatives across the city, and ensure that local communities have the agency to transform their own neighbourhoods. There is a genuine concern that the Net Zero Communities program might not engage communities effectively or give them the tools they need to lead the transformation of their own neighbourhoods and thus create an unhelpful top down model of dependency.

Policy Context

2030 Climate Strategy

Edinburgh’s aim for a net zero vision is that by 2030 Edinburgh will be a net zero and climate resilient city, with a transformed city centre connected to thriving local neighbourhoods, where their historic, natural and built environments are protected and valued for their significant contribution to people’s wellbeing They envisage people living in neighbourhoods with easy access to greenspaces and local services that meet their everyday needswhether that be for work, family or leisure time and reduce the need to travel. The strategy also wants all homes to be well-insulated, energy efficient and heated and powered by low cost, renewable energy, with a higher proportion of energy generated locally

Local Place Plans

Local Place Plans were introduced by the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, which contains a new right for communities to produce their own plans as part of the new Scottish planning system. Local Place Plans contain the community’s proposals for the development and use of land, and provide a new opportunity for communities to feed into the planning system with ideas and proposals.

Climate Forum & EVOC

Edinburgh Communities Climate Forum is a strategic delivery platform set up by EVOC and their collaborators which brings together community, voluntary and social sector organisations alongside other key citywide organisations to initiate strategic and transformative climate change activities. The forum is an accelerator of transformative action in Edinburgh with the ambition of creating ‘thriving, fair, resilient, and climate regenerative communities across Edinburgh by 2030.

This workshop was intended to develop learnings to inform the Edinburgh Future Neighbourhoods project area and to progress thinking for the City of Edinburgh Council’s Net Zero Communities program.