About Climate Conversations

The Climate Conversations project gathered the views of Greater Manchester residents on what they know about climate change, what action they want to see taken against the climate crisis, and the barriers that are faced in taking such action. This initial project is aimed at gathering insights from residents through a survey, and is intended to be followed by a project based on what the community wants to see implemented locally.

The Climate Conversations project is supported by Sustainable Change Studio and The Climate Reality Project, as well as numerous other individuals and organisations in Greater Manchester.

The Problem 

With the release of the first section of the IPCC’s 6th report in the weeks before COP26 (Glasgow), we wanted to provide some climate education on what this means, as well as clarify climate change and its impacts for the local community. With COVID-19 still obstructing many events, we opted for a webinar. Only 2 people registered. This told us that we needed to adjust our approach.

We decided to focus on developing stronger relationships with our community, to ensure our impact extended beyond one-off events and instead laid the groundwork for more long-term and meaningful change.

Inspired by the extensive reach of Montreal Hub’s Shaping AI project, which saw 1,000 members of the public surveyed, we looked for data around public perceptions of climate change in our city and found … none. Our problem was clear.

Cities play an important role in tackling the climate crisis, both as community hubs and localised forms of governance. Yet there is a lack of city-level data on citizen awareness of the climate crisis, and how they want it tackled. 

Our Solution 

The hub created and launched a perceptions-identifying, awareness-raising, attitude-gauging and change-facilitating survey to form an evidence base and contextual foundation for future work and action in this impact area. The responses are analysed, a report is written and events will be run for disseminating and communicating these findings to a range of stakeholders and the broadest possible audience.

The deliverables of this project are:
1. A knowledge base or playbook that allows replication or scaling of this project
2. A survey to engage with our community
3. A report analysing the survey findings
4. An event to launch the report with the community
5. A project plan to implement a climate action project that the community wants

The Impact

We received USD3,000 of funding from the Climate Reality Project. From 23 Jan 2024 to 7 Oct 2024, we organised or participated in a total of 15 events at 10 community centres and venues across Greater Manchester. Our efforts have successfully engaged the local community and raised awareness about climate change. While some discussions deviated from our survey topics and questions, we received positive feedback overall from the conversations.

Due to time constraints, as well as demographic factors (i.e., living outside of Greater Manchester) and age limitations (i.e., participants under 16 years old), we received a total of 251 responses that included basic details and 199 completed the full survey.

Thanks to the successful impact of this project, our project leaders, Hannah Ballard and Theodor Bratosin, were invited to share their insights in the article “Taking Local Action to Address Global Climate Change” at the World Economic Forum. Additionally, our hub had the opportunity to present our project during the Global Shapers SHAPE Europe 2025 event.

How you can help

1. To use our survey data and analysis report to support your climate projects in Greater Manchester
2. To replicate the project in other cities using our professionally designed survey template
3. To support our project plan to implement a climate action project that the community wants in the near future
4. Please contact us for potential collaboration and further information