As part of our National Lottery funded Community Climate Action Project we are
codeveloping a new Community Leadership Panel on Climate and Just Transition
for Bristol to help bring diverse community insights to strategic citywide
decision-making on climate issues.
The new Community Leadership Panel on Climate Change and Just Transition aims to bring strategic community leadership into Bristol’s planning and action on climate change and nature recovery, and to advocate for, and positively influence, city decision-making toward a just transition.
The panel process
Each panel session operates on an 8 week cycle which involves external parties submitting an expression of interest via the form below, which is then reviewed by the panel to select projects or policies which are most significant.
Presenters will then be invited to the panel and sent a pre panel questionnaire to provide key information on the project or policy. The panel session includes a presentation from the external party, verbal feedback from the panel and time for discussion and questions. A recommendations report is produced based on panel feedback and shared with the
external party, usually within 3 weeks of the panel.
Who usually comes to panel sessions
The panel welcomes presentations and approaches from a variety of external parties, who are planning city interventions (strategy, policy, projects, developments etc.) that potentially have a significant impact on communities and climate justice. These may be projects intentionally focused on climate change mitigation, nature recovery or adaptation, or be larger strategic developments or policies which will have a lasting impact on communities and their resilience to climate change. Such projects have the potential to bring positive opportunities to communities, but could also risk compounding existing inequalities.
Our offer
Our offer to external parties who present to the panel is to provide a valuable critical friend insight at an early stage. These insights can help with making positive changes to proposal from a community perspective and can help with delivering genuine social value, environmental, social and governance goals, and corporate social responsibility. It can also mitigate certain risks that may be involved in implementing initiatives, such as negative publicity, lack of public buy-in, planning objections etc.
There is also a key link to Bristol’s just transition declaration, and the panel aims to offer guidance and support on how to meet the city’s commitment to a just transition in your work.
The panel’s ask of presenters
Learning from panel sessions so far indicates that the panel is able to make the most meaningful contributions when given a clear steer on where there are opportunities to influence or shape and are given some clear questions or prompts to respond to.
The value of community expertise is something the panel would also like to highlight. Unlike legal advice, which is highly valued and often compulsory, community expertise is frequently undervalued. Each panel session and the subsequent report provided takes a lot of time and resources to produce, and it is important that the panel’s expertise to is genuinely appreciated and integrated into decision-making processes.
Submitting an expression of interest
If you wish to submit a project / scheme / strategy / policy for review at the Panel, please provide further details below and we will get back to you.
If you need any assistance with completing this form, please email contact@bristolclimatenature.org
