Clyde Rebuilt

Project description

As Glasgow City Region faces an increased risk from the climate crisis in terms of more frequent floods and heatwaves, impacting homes, roads and railways, there is an increased need to adapt the region to the new climate. Clyde Rebuilt was developed as an intersectional project that aimed to find out what adaptation actions are needed to meet these changes by 2030 through local engagement.

Founded in the idea that the climate crisis is best tackled through collaboration between different groups, it brought together local authorities, community groups, civic society organisations, businesses and government agencies to change the way the region works together on climate adaptation.

Clyde Rebuilt was formed by Climate Ready Clyde and EIT Climate-KIC, the EU’s climate innovation agency. The project was supported by sustainability charity Verture, cultural charity Culture for Climate Scotland and climate experts Paul Watkiss Associates.

‘Imagination is a powerful tool, but is often neglected in technical roles and can even be frowned upon. You don’t want an engineer to imagine the strength of a wall needed for a new flood defence – you want them to build it, but you might want an engineer to imagine themselves living next to that flood wall, and how it would change their relationship with the river they have lived beside all their lives.’

Ben Twist

Actions and activities

Clyde Rebuilt engaged with a wide range of actors from within Glasgow City Region to identify systemic actions that could feed into the development of the Climate Change Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan led by Climate Ready Clyde. The focus was on issues related to extreme heat caused by the climate crisis, health and wellbeing and how to finance solutions. Activities brought together community groups, local councils, universities, businesses, government agencies and other bodies to identify adaptation actions to prepare the city for the effects of climate change.

Clyde Rebuilt produced several resources on adaptation in Glasgow. The working group produced a literature review on what transformational adaptation looks like for Glasgow City Region (opens a PDF), as well as plans for how it might be financed. They also published a learning exchange report (opens a PDF).

Cultural organisations ran events and workshops with the aim of bringing in a wider range of voices, often with the use of artistic practices to explore adaptation in different ways. Workshops focused on community empowerment and access to green spaces. Each event started from the participants’ perceptions, interested and concerns about adaptation.

Key events

• RIG Arts ran two events with a focus on visual arts and collage techniques, to map Inverclyde with the changes they foresaw, as well as asking participants to write poems of possible climate futures. An important component of the workshop was to create an e-zine using visual and verbal forms.
• Glasgow Women’s Library created an event with a focus on the underrepresented voices in climate change discussions. The artist Clem Sandison discussed issues on food growing and landownership, while Dania Thomas from Ubuntu Women Shelter focused on the issue of the western-centric view of the issues and solutions in the climate movement.
• Lateral North, a design collective with focus on filmmaking, designed an event focused on climate adaptation about design, architecture and community.
• Overall, around 300 people attended the events, with a wide range of backgrounds, locations and interests represented.

Several actions were taken to change the way the project was run internally. Culture for Climate Scotland introduced creative interventions at the start of meetings, such as reading a poem, writing haikus or listening to music, to make the project team aware of how we communicate about adaptation.

65% of the participants said they agree that creative approaches improved the meetings and facilitated deeper connections, and 25% said that they strongly agree. 50% agreed that creative approaches changed the nature of the discussions, while 25% strongly agreed with this.

At the end of the project in December 2020, the project team convened a Learning Exchange event online in which they presented the findings of the research.

‘Gemma and I from Culture for Climate Scotland worked as the embedded artists within the project, applying a creative mindset to the project. We worked with Glasgow Women’s Library, Rig Arts and Lateral North to produce creative events.’

Ben Twist

Sustainability issues

Innovating climate adaptation – a whole system approach

A central part of Clyde Rebuilt was to develop interventions for the adaptation strategy led by Climate Ready Clyde. Clyde Rebuilt used the ‘deep demonstration’ approach that looks at business, governance and behaviour changes, in addition to technological, environmental and social innovations that will accelerate adaptation progress in Glasgow. This meant taking a whole system approach, addressing underlying causes of climate risk and vulnerability and looking at the societal, cultural, economic and ecological changes needed to deliver larger and long-term change. It is important to consider the people who live in the most impacted areas and who are least able to deal with the risks and changes:

‘Inverclyde has the worst Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation scores in Scotland. It’s an area with lots of drug use. There are very vulnerable people living there.’

Ben Twist

For this strategy development, the Clyde Rebuilt project engaged with various actors from Glasgow to map the systems and issues related to the delivery of adaptation within culture and governance. The focus was to identify systemic actions to extreme heat and wellbeing, as well as financial solutions. This process helped identify areas in Glasgow City Region’s systems with the potential to stimulate more transformational change, before adjusting and scaling-up and accelerating the adaptation progress.

This work resulted in 11 interventions that collectively could deliver social, cultural, economic and environmental change. Interventions sought to identify risks in the near future as well as the long-term. Following the theory of change, all interventions aimed to achieve multiple outcomes at the same time. Every intervention sought to implement early adaptation to current risks, as well as to build resilience and implement long-term adaptation management. Each intervention listed below has a list of actions which can all be found in the report ‘Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan‘ p.28-29 written by Climate Ready Clyde.

‘To move action forward we need to make it relatable for people and stakeholders. Culture and storytelling can help with this, especially because adaptation always relates to place and must be made relevant to this.’

Ben Twist

Interventions

1. Reform, reshape and expand governance mechanisms to respond to adaptation needs, nurture new leadership and create expectations in society.
2. Develop the ability of organisations, businesses and communities to adapt.
3. Increase adaptation finance through leverage and innovation.
4. Enable and equip individuals and communities to participate in adaptation, focusing on the most vulnerable.
5. Embed reflection, monitoring, evaluation and learning into adaptation actions.
6. Adapt the Clyde corridor for the twenty second century.
7. Enhance early warning and preparedness for floods and heatwaves.
8. Ensure everyone’s homes, offices, buildings and infrastructure are resilient to future climate impacts.
9. Deliver nature-based solutions for resilient, blue-green ecosystems, landscapes and neighbourhoods.
10. Enhance regional decision making and establish Glasgow City Region as a global research and knowledge hub for adaptation.
11. Begin the transition to an economy resilient to future climate impacts.

Source: Climate Ready Clyde, Adaptation Strategy and Action plan

Cultural Adaptations

It was the success of the earlier Cultural Adaptations project that paved the way for Clyde Rebuilt. Cultural Adaptations refers to culture’s role in society’s adaptation to climate. Clyde Rebuilt brought together cultural and community groups, local councils, universities and others to collaborate on identifying joined actions that could make the region more resilient to the effects of climate change.

Clyde Rebuilt especially focused on the issue of excess heat. The project found that a lot of attention was already being drawn to increased risk of flooding, and less so on how to cool down in a warmer climate. As Glasgow is more known for its rain than heat, this might not be of concern to most, but the future might tell a different story.

‘This is going to become increasingly of concern, as happened last year. If you get a heatwave, you’ve got Glasgow as an urban heat island, which exacerbates the heat, which means it will be a lot hotter than the countryside because you don’t have all the trees to provide a cooling effect by shading. Buildings here were not built for this climate. Cultural buildings will also be affected of a warmer climate – who wants to go out to sit in a hot theatre?’

Ben Twist

Climate justice

Discussions around climate adaptation are often dominated by specialists and scientists. Clyde Rebuilt wanted to bring in new voices with a focus on climate justice, platforming marginalized and less represented groups. Led by Culture for Climate Scotland, working with cultural organisations opened doors to new voices and audiences. A key aspect of this is to recognize the social side of adaptation. Often adaptation is seen as a technological issue, but Clyde Rebuilt found that we also need to see it through a social lens to tackle it.

Lessons, tips and advice

Following the project, participants in workshops and organisations involved expressed what they got out of it. Some of the key findings in the surveys were:

Increased engagement with adaptation work

• Overall, events increased participants’ understanding of adaptation.
• The involvement of cultural organisations helped to include non-specialist voices by presenting adaptation work through a more accessible lens using creative approaches.
• This widened participation for unengaged and unempowered groups.
• Creative approaches deepened participation and helped respondents imagine life in a future climate, but outcomes of conversations were less clear.
• The use of ‘creative disruptions’ to start meetings and events allowed people to think differently and increased systemic thinking.
• Cross-sectoral collaboration.
• Cultural organisations involved had not worked with adaptation previously, but found potential for their audiences and communities to be involved in the future.
• The project team found that Clyde Rebuilt revealed a need for dialogue between policymakers and creatives, to demonstrate positive actions to local authorities.
• An existing bond of trust between involved organisations was crucial in making the collaboration work.

‘I think one of the most successful elements of this project is the impact on the involved organisations’ ways of thinking, and so their way of working longer term. These changes are always bigger than anything else.’

Ben Twist 

A need for understanding how different creative approaches work

• The project identified a need for more robust ways of evaluating the results of creative approaches in environmental projects, and which approaches and practices work for which challenges or issues.
• Although creative approaches were found useful, the team found a need to be more specific about what they were trying to do with certain techniques. Certain forms might be more suited than others in addressing different issues. Sometimes Lego might be better than poetry for example.

Partners and stakeholders

Climate Ready Clyde

Climate Ready Clyde is a cross-sector initiative funded by 13 member organisations, supported by the Scottish Government to create a shared vision, strategy and action plan for an adapting Glasgow City Region. The members consist of local authorities, universities, health trusts and others working together on adaptation in Glasgow City Region, which holds a third of the population of Scotland. Climate Ready Clyde is managed by sustainability charity Verture.

Verture

Verture (formerly Sniffer) is a sustainability charity in Scotland that works as a catalyst for cross-sectoral collaboration on our changing climate. It works with local communities to create a fair future for everyone impacted. Verture partners with academia, science experts, government bodies, creative practitioners, organisations and businesses to transform the way we work together. Its technical, cultural, economic and governance expertise helped to connect sectors during the Clyde Rebuilt project.

Culture for Climate Scotland

Culture for Climate Scotland (formerly Creative Carbon Scotland) is a charity working with cultural and sustainability sectors to harness the role of culture in achieving climate action. Through events, projects and carbon management, Culture for Climate Scotland supports the development of artistic practices that address the climate crisis. Culture for Climate Scotland was the cultural practitioner during Clyde Rebuilt, offering a creative skillset, cultural expertise and an understanding of the arts in sustainability projects.

For Clyde Rebuilt, Culture for Climate Scotland worked on communication of adaptation to non-specialist audiences, and on establishing partnerships with cultural organisations to deliver workshops and events. The cultural organisations involved were: Rig Arts, a socially engaged arts and film charity in Inverclyde, Glasgow Women’s Library, the only accredited museum in the UK dedicated to women’s lives, histories, and achievements and Lateral North, a research and design collective that collaborates with communities and institutions to respond to social, environmental and political change.

Paul Watkiss Associates

Paul Watkiss Associates is an independent research and consultancy group specialising in climate change adaptation, that provided climate change and economic expertise to the Clyde Rebuilt project.

EIT Climate-KIC

EIT Climate-Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) is the European Union’s climate innovation initiative, working to accelerate the transition to a zero carbon, climate resilient society. The initiative supports innovation that helps society to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Headquartered in Amsterdam, it operates from 13 hubs across Europe and is active in 39 countries. EIT Climate-KIC was established in 2010 and is predominately funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union.

Clyde Rebuilt was part of the EIT Climate-KIC ‘Deep Demonstration Resilient Regions’ programme, along with Andalusia in Spain, Nouvelle Aquitaine in France and the Dolomites area in Italy – three European regions that are also at high risk from the impact of climate change.

Funding

The project was funded by Climate Ready Clyde and EIT Climate-KIC, a body of the European Union.

The total cost of the project was €482,716, of which €143,000 was co-funding, including in-kind support provided by Verture and Climate Ready Clyde. Funding of €339,716 was provided by EIT Climate-KIC. Creative Carbon Scotland received €63,428 to cover staff costs and direct costs of running the events, including payments to artists and the cultural organisations.