Communities Driving Change: Learnings from the Net Zero Living Programme

Insights for empowering communities

Across the UK, support for net zero and clean energy remains high. Yet pressures like the cost of living are understandably taking priority for citizens. Without the right engagement with local communities, this transition can feel expensive, complex, and disconnected from their priority needs.

This report draws together learnings from local authority-led projects in the Net Zero Living Programme and shows the change that is possible when councils bring residents into decision-making and co-design. It draws on real-world case stories from the Programme to surface three practical routes that local authorities can use to evolve their citizen engagement from traditional consultation towards a deeper, two-way relationship.

Firstly, it recommends that councils should bring people directly into local decision-making using participatory approaches such as citizens’ forums and juries and “community conversations” that start in existing, everyday networks. For example in Blaenau Gwent, a Citizens’ Forum brought together a broadly representative group of residents to shape a fairer, greener travel system, producing a shared vision, fairness principles, and actionable recommendations that are now influencing strategy and strengthening political support.

Secondly, the report encourages councils to help people navigate complex choices. The report recognises that low uptake of low-carbon technologies is not just a matter of cost. These technologies are complex leading to uncertainty and mistrust among the residents and businesses being asked to adopt them. Projects from the Net Zero Living Programme showed that information is most effective when it is locally framed, practical, accessible, and paired with human support. In Gateshead, a carefully designed, resident-centred journey for heat network connection achieved full take-up among the pilot households. This support was reinforced by face-to-face engagement, clear visual materials, and peer advocacy through a Green Alumni network.

Lastly, the report advocates for spreading wealth through communities. The programme demonstrates how greater engagement has allowed local people to not only shape a project but retain the benefits, such as reinvesting surplus income from a community-led energy project into fuel poverty support. Two case studies from Leicestershire and Essex show councils playing an enabling role that helps these initiatives move beyond small pilots by convening credible partners, providing early-stage capacity and support and, in some cases, creating delivery vehicles that make projects more investable and easier to scale.

Overall, the report shows that local places and people can thrive when transition is something done with communities, not to them. And when engagement starts early and is designed around lived experience, it becomes a route to quicker and more sustainable adoption.

Key findings

• Projects that start with lived experience and co-design tend to see higher uptake, because solutions fit real constraints and needs.
• Trusted local intermediaries and peer-to-peer forums can reduce uncertainty and speed decision-making.
• Community energy becomes more scalable when councils act as enablers by convening partners, supporting at early stages, and laying out investable pathways.