Coming Together for Climate Action
ECCI's Head of Climate Partnerships and Edinburgh Climate Commission Chair, Jamie Brogan, shares his views on why 2023 is going to be a vital year in shifting from climate ambition to climate action.
What we’re seeing across all of work with businesses and public bodies is an increasing commitment to climate action and an increasing appetite to do more, but a number of factors constraining the pace and scale of climate action. What’s clear is that we can only achieve the pace and scale we need by working together.
We started the year by promoting the Edinburgh Climate Compact to people and businesses in the city, and by showing where businesses are taking action and building a discussion about where they can and must do more together. The event was kindly hosted by one of our founder members, the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (you can watch a recording of the event below).
The event wanted to show how local business can and are working together to deliver local climate action. The discussion really brought out where we can use the different strengths, skills and capabilities of different businesses to accelerate action in the city, and our audience highlighted how everyone can play their part, and what different parties can bring to the table – the agility and innovation capacity of small businesses; the scale, resources and assets of bigger organisations; and the knowledge, influence and ability to engage of sectors like festivals and education.
What we learned from the event is how much different stakeholders can and must contribute to local climate action, and how essential they all are. What we were also reminded of is not to be complacent and how much you need to keep working at it – we can’t assume that everyone shares our climate vision, or agrees on the path and priorities of delivering it.
What we did leave with is a real sense of people wanting to contribute. We want more organisations to join the Compact, to make the same commitments on climate, and to share their knowledge, energy and resources to working together on climate action across the city.