A place-sensitive approach to environmental sustainability: participation that is people-centred

Participation was identified as an important feature of a place-sensitive approach in the accompanying report, ‘A place-sensitive approach for environmental sustainability’.

Here, we delve into and provide further context on participation across four main points, which indicate the value of involving people in transitioning places to more sustainable ways of living, not just to ensure policymakers understand how people live, work and operate, but to give citizens a real say in decisions and to mobilise local action. We recognise that national governments are not always the best placed to engage citizens directly; however, they play an important role in developing and enabling the environment in which their local and regional counterparts can do this work.

For readers interested in the broader features of a place-sensitive approach, you can find separate evidence papers on Knowledge, Language and Partnerships in our evidence hub.

Policymakers struggle to develop environmental policy without coming into conflict with the competing interests and divergent perspectives of different social groups. Due to the difficulty in finding consensus, public participation can sometimes be negatively framed as a burden on or a delay to the delivery of projects. This is compounded by doubts among officials over what good participation looks like as well as how to do it within the time and funding pressures involved.

Regional stakeholders who attended our workshops stressed that an important first step is to accept that dispute is an unavoidable and necessary part of public participation. No ‘public’ is homogeneous; therefore, achieving consensus across stakeholders is an unrealistic expectation to deliver. However, when the public are given a meaningful space to air their concerns and deliberate about policies, they become less likely to actively oppose change, even if concerns and disagreements remain. Deliberation can be useful in identifying the range of people’s views, their concerns and constraints, as well as common ground (for example, see the SSEG Review provides further details). It also requires an appreciation of the need for people to disagree agreeably without fostering lasting divisions.

Policymakers should not aim for consensus and should accept that contestation is part of engaging with citizens and being sensitive to their needs. This means acknowledging that the process of participation can itself build trust and allow people to disagree agreeably without escalating to obstructive forms of opposition.

There is a wide range of existing hyper-local community-led projects that create positive opportunities for citizens to become involved, mostly in a voluntary capacity, in improving environmental sustainability. These are currently under-utilised by policymakers as important entry points to engage publics in wider policy initiatives.

Over the course of this programme, we gathered various examples of how people already participate in ways that are meaningful to them and where they feel valued. Community growing initiatives in Cornwall, shared in the Exeter Workshop, showed how people are actively engaging with sustainable food production and practices, providing opportunities for wider social, educational, economic, environmental and resilience benefits.

In the nature recovery space, public participation has been centred on connecting people with their natural environments through voluntary practices, such as rewilding, conservation, restoration and urban greening. The University of Oxford has published The Recipe for Engagement (Rfe) for Nature-Based Solutions and Nature Recovery, which provides a range of illustrative case studies to showcase engagement that benefits both people and nature.

The Advancing Capacity for Climate and Environment Social Science programme (ACCESS) has funded valuable research exploring how people engage with nature. For example, finding opportunities to harness religious beliefs in environmental place-based initiatives, such as the ‘Greening Muslims Programme’, provides cultural inroads for engaging community members with environmental sustainability in their own ways. Drawing on care and place-protective attitudes that people hold about their places can help people engage with environmental sustainability through practices of socio-ecological care.

Policymakers across all three policy contexts should build upon and learn from existing participation in place-based initiatives, as well as developing new ones where appropriate.

It is easy to create barriers to participation, which means policymaking often fails to incorporate the voices and aspirations of marginalised groups at all stages of the process.

While acknowledging that it is difficult — and often completely impractical — to engage everyone in a community, local policymakers are beginning to flip the narrative on participation, shifting away from the idea that certain groups are ‘hard to reach’ and instead starting from the basis that there are aspects of the policy process that certain groups find hard to engage with. As an example, the programme’s evidence synthesis report found that children and young people will often appreciate the environment on their doorstep, even if they are unable or reluctant to engage in formal consultation.

By starting from the perspective that it is government that needs to change, not the community, it can become easier for policymakers to find mutually beneficial opportunities for engagement that reflect the diversity of people in and between places. This means finding the cultural traits that might be entry points to engagement, rather than fixating on cultural traits as barriers.

To improve participation, more innovative, people-centred approaches and methods to engage citizens at the nexus of place and policy should be used to complement or enhance existing approaches.

Commissioned evidence for the programme on research in Luton found that, as well as establishing dedicated climate-hubs, tapping into existing community assets and existing physical infrastructure better enabled participation in households and communities. People should see policy engagement exercises as a means to help valorise existing physical assets they have strong connections to, and which have become neglected and not adequately resourced. There are benefits in involving civil society organisations, which often have better links and fruitful ideas on how best to use community assets to facilitate participation from citizens. These organisations will require proper resources to help convene and facilitate meaningful dialogue with communities. A range of examples from across the UK can be found in the Climate Outreach report on public engagement.

The methods and techniques employed can also be varied to encourage and improve participation. Some policy actors have had success using arts-based practices. In our own workshops, we employed the Ketso toolkit, which uses colourful and tactile ‘leaves’ to capture thoughts and stimulate discussion. Ketso has been used successfully to increase participation in the design of major sustainability projects, such as the Carbon Landscape Project in Greater Manchester.16 Such approaches can be supported by social science research and methods on how to facilitate constructive disagreement in contentious contexts, shifting from consensus as a default aim in public engagement processes.

Enabling a more systematic method and applying mapping approaches to public participation have been vital tools for those working in the climate and energy sectors. These tools were considered valuable for 1) capturing a more accurate picture of the range of public participation activities present across places in the UK, 2) serving as a platform for learning about how people are participating with these issues and 3) assisting with the allocation of resources for places and in the scaling up of successful approaches. This has underpinned the creation of the Public Engagement Observatory at the UK Energy Research Centre, which maps the different ways the public is engaging with energy and climate change.

Strategies that centre participation were identified by policy stakeholders as a way for national government to signal leadership and demonstrate the importance of public participation to place-based actors, thereby providing greater steer for regional and local actors. Workshop discussions suggested that a lack of strategy and direction on public participation left many local authorities with little understanding or resources on how to manage this complex task.

Policymakers should consider using a mix of methods and spaces and working with a range of community-based organisations to improve participation and align it with people’s attachment to places and cultures. Investing in tools and approaches for mapping and sharing existing good practice is essential for establishing place-sensitive strategies for effective public participation.