Skip to main content

West Midlands Greener Together Forum - June 2022

Financial Sustainability transitions

Since the signing of the UNFCCC's Paris Agreement in 2015, $3.8 trillion has been invested in fossil fuels, and much of the money set aside to 'build back better' will not address climate change. The role of finance in both the causes of climate breakdown and how we pull our societies back from the brink is a crucial and hot topic that many individual organisations pursuing a low-carbon, climate-resilient, just, and inclusive future are grappling with.

We think there are four key ingredients.
Hyper-local engagement and ownership

Addressing low levels of trust and weak mobilisation of residents to act / lead their local transitions through street-scale 'Civic associations' with collective imagining and shared decision-making mechanisms.

Neighbourhood Retrofit agency

Addressing Issues of credibility, compliance & capitalisation through neighbourhood-scale transition entities' with asset ownership and service delivery capacity.

City region scale spiral

Addressing historic power imbalances through city-scale capital funds designed to spiral investment capacity downwards to build community wealth and local economic empowerment.

National-scale open infrastructure

Addressing scaling barriers through explicit proliferation infrastructure including legal, procurement, democratic templates & protocols as well as platforms.