Our Scotland, Our Future: Public Engagement Strategy for Climate and Nature

6. Annex B – Review of Net Zero Nation: Public Engagement Strategy 2021–26

Introduction

Over the last five years, Scotland’s Public Engagement Strategy for Climate Change, ‘Net Zero Nation’ has enabled people across Scotland to engage on climate change and explore climate action through schools, communities, workplaces, cultural organisations, sports clubs, voluntary organisations and local networks. It has supported thousands of conversations, inspired practical action and enabled people from all backgrounds to play a part in Scotland’s journey to a net zero, climate resilient nation. This Annex reflects on progress against ‘Net Zero Nation’: Public Engagement Strategy for Climate Change (2021)^[22], building on the Mid-Point Review^[23] completed in March 2025. Evidence referenced in this document draws on the following sources: ClimateXChange climate engagement evidence report (2026)^[24]; Ipsos effective climate engagement review (2025)^[25]; Climate Action Hubs evaluation^[26]; and individual project reporting.

‘Net Zero Nation’ inspired projects delivered by a range of organisations that demonstrated the extraordinary creativity, commitment and innovation that exists in communities across Scotland. They show that climate action is not something separate from everyday life. It is about warmer homes, health and wellbeing, stronger communities, new skills, greater participation and a fairer future.

The lessons captured here will continue to inform the delivery of Scotland’s public engagement for climate and nature, acknowledging people are not simply audiences for climate communication; they are partners in shaping the transition.

We would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this work – community organisations, schools, children and young people, local authorities, third sector delivery partners, volunteers and members of the public – for helping to build a more climate-aware, climate-ready Scotland.

Overview

‘Net Zero Nation’ set out an ambitious vision to involve people across Scotland in the just transition to net zero and climate resilience. It signified a step change in Scottish Government’s approach, moving away from a focus on individual actions alone towards a whole of society approach, and working more directly through trusted messengers.

The Strategy set out three strategic objectives:

Understand

Communicating Climate Change:

People are aware of the action that all of Scotland is taking to tackle climate change and understand how it relates to their lives.

Participate

Enabling Participation in Policy Design:

People actively participate in shaping just, fair and inclusive policies that promote mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.

Act

Encouraging Action:

Taking action on climate change is normalised and encouraged in households, communities and places across Scotland.

Summary of Delivery

‘Net Zero Nation’ demonstrated best practice through its use of a mixed-method approach, combining national campaigns, local delivery, and participative engagement. Over the delivery period, this approach contributed to an increase in awareness of climate change and how it affects people’s lives, a strengthening of public support for action, and increased opportunities for participation. Working with trusted messengers—including community organisations and third sector delivery partners—was consistently identified as critical to effectiveness.

Outlined below are details of delivery from the primary mechanisms put in place to deliver on ‘Net Zero Nation’. Further activities not detailed here included projects under the Just Transition Fund, Ministerial events and engagements, including with organisations such as Scottish Youth Parliament, bespoke participative engagement to inform sectoral policy, including energy, transport, agriculture and circular economy, and engagements led by other public and third sector organisations independent of Scottish Government.

Marketing and communications

The Let’s Do Net Zero campaign combined national messaging with audience segmentation and targeted communications. The campaign launched in the first year of the PES with a year-long campaign which delivered strong results, with subsequent years running smaller campaigns focused on communicating key behaviour changes required to meet net zero targets. These were complemented by active social media engagement and the Net Zero Nation website, forming a source of credible information on climate action.

Let’s Do Net Zero marketing campaign

“The advice felt relevant to my life. It made me think I could actually do something.” (Participant in campaign focus group, 2024-25)

The marketing campaigns served to increase awareness and motivation to act by promoting practical actions and encouraging people to engage in climate action in their everyday lives. However, assessing the impact of these communications on behaviour change remained challenging within a complex and crowded media landscape.

In addition, Scotland’s annual Climate Week enabled organisations across the country to use events and communications to raise the profile of their climate actions and initiatives. Social media posts reached thousands of people, sharing success stories, business innovations and information to improve climate literacy and inspire action and support for climate goals.

Place-based engagement

Evidence from the past five years of delivery has consistently shown the importance of taking a place-based approach to climate engagement.

The Community Climate Action Hubs have become a national network, with hubs delivering in every region in Scotland supporting locally led approaches that reflect community priorities and needs.

In the last two years, the climate hubs have engaged over 49,950 participants; supported 3,737 community groups; with almost £1.8 million distributed to communities through local grants.

“People come for practical help, but stay to talk about climate and community.” Local organiser, North East Climate Action Hub (2025–26)

The evaluation of the Hubs Programme has found they have helped to embed climate awareness, skills and behaviours in communities by providing accessible opportunities for learning, participation and collective action. They strengthened partnerships, enabled collaboration, and supported locally relevant responses. Key to this success has been the flexible, place-based model that has enabled Hubs to respond to local priorities and build strong relationships with communities and partners.^[27] There is emerging evidence that local innovations are being scaled or replicated, and participants reporting that Hubs are likely to have a lasting legacy. The programme also generates wider secondary benefits, including improved wellbeing, reduced social isolation, cost savings for households, and new green job opportunities.

“Time and time again, we have learned that a first visible sign of community‑led development is the appearance of a raised bed, a polytunnel or a polycrub. When people become connected to a piece of land, they begin to see it differently – no longer as empty or ornamental space, or as land that belongs to someone else, but as living nature that they are part of and can care for.” (Moray Climate Action Network on the Community Growing Network)

The place-based approach to climate action is vital in our rural and island communities where it has been widely implemented. The National Islands Plan includes a number of commitments supporting island communities in their net zero ambitions. The Carbon Neutral Islands Programme has provided support to a number of Scottish island communities helping them to develop and implement their own decarbonisation pathways whilst currently putting the climate conversation front and centre. The Community Led Local Development (CLLD) Programme, alongside supporting wider community priorities, empowers rural and island communities to design and deliver grassroots climate action projects that respond to local needs and opportunities.

“People learn when they feel” (CEF project leader, Jhankar Beats, 2025-26)

Trusted Messenger-led engagement

In 2023, the Climate Engagement Fund (CEF) was launched as an annual competitive grant funding process. The Fund has supported trusted messengers to engage new audiences, explore how climate change relates to their lives and to equip them with knowledge and skills to take action. It has aimed to diversify engagement methods and approaches, and widen the pool of partners. Selection prioritised the best quality projects aiming to reach audiences often excluded from climate discourse. It has enabled delivery in urban places, rural areas and islands in Scotland, allowing for a national approach to local engagement delivery. The fund was designed to enable people to increase their understanding of climate change, prioritising inclusive and accessible approaches that put audience needs first.

The CEF has funded 24 projects to completion since its inception, with a further eight projects being delivered in the financial year 2026-27. The projects have actively engaged over 50,000 people directly, with hundreds of thousands more reached through filmed and other media content shared online. For example, one CEF project, delivered by SAGES (Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society), supported a national podcast aiming to make climate science more accessible. It gained over 20,000 listens and 285,000 social media views by the point of completion in spring 2025. Other projects have delivered resources and legacy that extend their impact beyond the project completion – such as Forth Valley Sensory Centre’s innovation to create a sustainability map of local places and services to support those with sensory loss to access them. This innovative approach could be adopted in other locations to broaden accessibility of climate action. In addition, arts-based approaches, engaging on climate through the likes of dance, film, craft and music, consistently helped audiences which might not respond to traditional engagement approaches, to connect and relate to climate issues.

The CEF has proved successful in supporting organisations that had already established trusted relationships with their target audiences to engage on climate change in a way that was relevant and meaningful to them, building knowledge and skills and creating a legacy of climate action as a result. Projects have received strong, positive feedback from participants, and demonstrated a lasting impact on the people and organisations involved.

“Now we’ve insulated the loft and changed how we heat our home. It’s saving us money and feels like we’re doing our bit.” (Participant in CEF project, Highlands Energy Advice, 2024–25)

The demand for CEF funding has been consistently higher than budgets have allowed, highlighting the interest and plethora of opportunities among a diverse range of organisations, but also leading to frustration at lack of resourcing. The CEF has faced challenges with working to single year project timeframes limiting the ability to build on early successes with key audiences. Links between CEF projects and engagement priorities for core climate and nature goals would also strengthen the fund. In addition, the challenge of inconsistency in monitoring and evaluation of CEF projects has highlighted the need for clearer outcome frameworks and guidance to partners.

In addition to the CEF, engagement through trusted messengers has also been delivered with sports and cultural organisations, delivering innovative approaches to engagement on climate change in a way that links with people’s interests and creativity. These approaches have sought to encourage people to take action, such as changing how they travel to events, using creative approaches to explore new ideas around climate action, and advocate for their favourite sports and institutions to reduce waste and emissions, and adapt to climate impacts

Children and Young People

‘Net Zero Nation’ has highlighted the importance for young people to have access to climate education and a genuine role in decision making on climate change, recognising the next generations will be most impacted by a changing climate.

The Climate Action Schools (CAS) programme, run by Keep Scotland Beautiful, was supported in every year of delivery engaging over 1,160 schools annually in understanding and taking environmental action.

“Viola” Child at Park Primary in Oban, Children’s Parliament Climate Week and Beyond project

The programme helped children and young people to develop climate literacy, confidence and leadership skills through locally relevant learning activities. It incorporated the globally recognised Eco-Schools programme alongside a series of activities to enable classroom learning. It also supported young people to interact with local decision makers and youth forums and to contribute their views and ideas to decisions around climate action and policy making. More than 33,500 pupil engagements were recorded across over 1,000 participating schools per year from 2022 to date. Experiential learning, outdoor activities and pupil-led projects were particularly effective in helping young people connect climate change with their own lives.

“It’s not just about learning facts – it’s about being heard.” (CAS Student participant, 2024–25)

In 2025, Children’s Parliament worked directly with children in three schools: Park Primary School Oban, Alva Primary School, Clackmannanshire and Ashpark Primary School, Glasgow. The project supported a rights-based approach for children to explore climate change and its relevance to their lives, providing opportunities for children to influence and create climate engagement activity for Climate Week, and have their voices heard by decision-makers. Alongside projects in school and events in their local areas, designed to engage businesses and decision makers, the children also co-create the ‘Your Climate Week’ resource^[28] which is now a freely available tool for practitioners working with children and young people.

“If we share the same sea and the same air, we should be sharing our ideas and actions with everyone.” (Member of the Children’s Parliament 2025)

In addition, the Community Climate Action hubs have supported climate engagement with children and young people. Argyll & Bute’s Climate Hub, ABCAN, has, with partners, developed future learning pathways whose overall aim is to ensure local communities have increasing work opportunities in the green and blue (and renewable) economies and introduce qualifications related to climate action. This includes development of Future Learning Pathways resource for teachers which provides educators with support for a whole class effort on climate action and links local and national providers with rural schools. ABCAN’s support has also resulted in Cardross Primary School becoming the first primary school to hold a Carbon Literacy Educator award, and all 60 of its pupil’s certified as carbon literate. Scottish Borders Hub seed fund has also been successful in developing their Youth Fund which saw 33 projects take part in 2025/26, and enabling over 3,000 young people to take part in climate action across the Borders.

Participation

In 2022, the Participation Programme launched as an umbrella programme established to support public input into the planning of the Just Transition, Scottish National Adaptation Plan and the Climate Change Plan.

The engagements sought to bring sectoral expertise and diverse audiences together to discuss key policy design that would meet public needs, especially of those most impacted by climate impacts and the changes required as part of the transition to net zero. The delivery demonstrated the value of inclusive and structured approaches led by trusted messengers to work directly with their audiences to ensure conversations were relevant and meaningful. A key part of the programme was to ensure inclusion of audiences often excluded from traditional consultation methods, such as groups representing those living with disabilities, in poverty, from ethnic minority backgrounds, and young people. Over its full delivery the programme received contributions from over 3,800 members of the public, which directly informed sectoral policy making.

“Climate action has to work for our communities, not against them.” (Participant in Engagement on the Transport Just Transition Participation Programme, 2025)

Wider lessons from this work include the importance of early engagement and building understanding among participants to ensure capability to input, and ensuring information and material is appropriately accessible. In addition, it proved challenging to track how inputs were utilised in policy development or to explicitly link insights from the participation directly to policy decisions. As such, issues arose around providing clear feedback on how contributions were taken into account as part of a consultation or in policy development. Methods were adopted during the programme period to address this, with measures put in place to ensure public input was acknowledged early on and to provide summary feedback. Providing detailed feedback remains a significant challenge given the volume of material that emerges from events and consultations.

In addition, some participants also demonstrated a lack of awareness and accurate knowledge on climate policies and goals, meaning that some suggestions or proposals had been, or were already being, put in place. This demonstrated a need for clearer, more accessible communications and resources on climate policies prior to the engagements to give participants the opportunity to offer informed and meaningful feedback.

As part of the Open Government Action Plan 2021-2025, ‘Net Zero Nation’ delivery also supported the creation of a new platform to engage representative organisations and trusted messengers on policy development and engagement. Branded as the Climate Policy Engagement Network (CPEN), it comprised of 120 members engaging through an online social media style closed platform. It encouraged honest conversation with specific events arranged to enable members to help design and input to climate policy consultations and participation projects. The CPEN was found to be a useful forum, particularly in aiding the design of consultations, with CPEN inputs leading to more accessible and inclusive questions for consultations on the draft Climate Change Plan and the Transport Just Transition Plan. Early expectations that CPEN could support a member-driven knowledge exchange platform were not realised due to lack of demand and active membership.

Lessons and Opportunities

While the fundamental approach adopted has been consistently supported by evidence, there has been continuous improvement sought in how best to successfully deliver on the strategic objectives in the PES. This has been achieved through learning from feedback from partners, stakeholders and participants, and from ongoing research and review at both the strategic and project level. This section articulates some of these key findings and lessons learnt.

Context Agility and policy integration

The strategy directly specified a few measures on which success depended. This proved challenging to respond to as there was insufficient flexibility for activities to be developed in line with emerging policy, context and resource priorities. Despite this, evidence from the mid-point review and evaluation of key programmes indicates that engagement has become more embedded across policy delivery. Findings from ClimateXChange report 2026 highlight that demonstrating clear links between engagement activity, behaviour change and emissions outcomes remains challenging and future approaches that have greater agility could align more closely with behaviour change frameworks and policy objectives. Engagement activity relies on clearly identified policy purpose with accompanying supports and guidance in place to enable people to respond and take action. A more integrated cross-government approach would build engagement and behavioural insight into policy planning. In addition, the current context, including cost of living pressures and evolving public attitudes, requires engagement that is flexible, practical, and relevant to daily life.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Further review identified lessons regarding the approach to monitoring and evaluation. Throughout delivery of ‘Net Zero Nation’, reporting often focused on measuring outputs and reporting at a project level, with limited routes to measure outcomes and progress on the Strategy overall. Projects have sought to deliver in a highly complex landscape of messaging and activity relating both directly and indirectly to climate change. Research has shown that this complexity makes it difficult to isolate the impact of activity undertaken, thus hampering meaningful evaluation.

A key lesson is the need to shift from activity-based reporting to a clearer outcomes and impact focus, whilst also providing delivery partners with a clearer approach to measurement to encourage consistency, coherence and improved data sharing across project M&E.

Embedding monitoring and evaluation throughout delivery will strengthen accountability and further enable continuous improvement. It will also support flexibility, allowing adaptation to changing social, economic, and climate contexts while maintaining focus on outcomes. This aligns with wider Scottish Government priorities on evidence-based policy delivery.

Resourcing and Project timeframes

As is highlighted in the Mid-Point Review, the scale of activity delivered through both marketing and trusted messenger funding has continued to be reduced from the level envisaged at the start of ‘Net Zero Nation’. While it is difficult to accurately attribute the impact of activities in climate engagement, budget constraints are likely to have limited what could be achieved over the past five years. Uncertainty of funding has also been seen to hinder delivery by Climate Action Hubs. It was reported that short-term funding and late confirmation of grant awards created disruption, and constrained long-term planning, staff recruitment and retention, and the ability to build and sustain relationships. The CEF’s constraint to annual funding cycles has also limited project timeframes and the scale and ambition of project proposals. A more consistent and multi-year planning cycle, aligned with budgetary constraints, would help to alleviate these issues.

Conclusion

Overall, the fundamental approach to ‘Net Zero Nation’ and the continuous improvement applied to delivery remains sound. The strategy provided clear strategic objectives and a framework to support a coordinated and coherent long-term approach. The use of a mix of engagement methods meant that building understanding and encouraging action were delivered through both mass communications and more tailored approaches with national reach. It also helped a wide range of groups and communities to develop deeper knowledge and skills, whilst also supporting public input to influence key climate policies. Working with trusted messengers demonstrated that people are more likely to engage when messages come from organisations and individuals they already trust, and projects that actively removed barriers enabled broader participation and more equitable outcomes. The place-based method delivered strong projects, connecting climate change to everyday life and local experience, and demonstrated that people are most likely to act when action feels achievable, relevant and supported.

This next iteration of the PES, Our Scotland, Our Future, builds on this approach and aims to address some of the challenges detailed in this annex – seeking to integrate engagement across climate and nature policy, enable flexibility to adapt to shifting context, focus on outcomes with coherent monitoring and evaluation, and improve delivery planning.

Appendix: Projects and Partners

National Programmes

Community Climate Action Hubs

Climate Action Schools (led by Keep Scotland Beautiful)

Scotland’s Climate Week

Let’s Do Net Zero marketing campaign

Net Zero Nation website

Climate Engagement Fund 2023–24 partners:

2050 Climate Group

Building Futures Galloway

Edinburgh Science

Loco Home Retrofit

Outside the Box

Rowanbank Environmental Arts & Education

Scottish Library & Information Council

UHI Moray / SAMS

Climate Engagement Fund 2024–25

National Museums Scotland

The Prince’s Trust

SWAN Autism

SAGES (Scottish Alliance for Geoscience, Environment and Society)

Dundee & Angus College

Scottish Association for Marine Science

Lairg & District Learning Centre

Loco Home Retrofit

Climate Engagement Fund 2025–26

Arran Eco Savvy

Glenkens Community & Arts Trust

Changeworks

BE-ST

Jhankar Beats

Greener Kirkcaldy

RIG Arts

Forth Valley Sensory Centre

Participation Programme partners:

23-24 (Just Transition planning and Adaptation Plan):

TPXimpact

Arup

Improvement Service

Deciding Matters

BE-ST

One Parent Families Scotland

YouthLink Scotland

Eco-congregation Scotland

Poverty Alliance

Children in Scotland

Outer Hebrides Climate Hub

Ipsos

Scottish Rural Network

National Rural Mental Health Forum

Scotland’s Rural College

NFU Scotland Next Generation Committee

SEDA

Glasgow Disability Alliance

25-26 (Just Transition planning and Climate Change Plan):

YouthLink Scotland

Royal Scottish Geographical Society

Forth Environment Link

Scottish Women’s Budget Group

CEMVO

Poverty Alliance

Mental Health Foundation

Glasgow Science Centre

NESCAN Hub

SEDA

Scottish Youth Parliament

Children’s Parliament

Other engagement programmes

Culture for Climate Scotland

Children’s Parliament

Climate Café CIC