The Decarbonising Together project engages five communities from the Limerick metropolitan area to examine how meaningful climate action can become part of their day-to-day lives. Through the project, each group explores an aspect of decarbonisation that matters to them through a creative collaboration with an arts or creative industry partner. The project focuses on making and doing together to enable behaviour change towards decarbonisation in Limerick.
Local
Ireland
Limerick City and County
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
Yes
Creative Climate Action Fund - Irish Government Funding through Creative Ireland 2021/22
No
Yes
2022-10-31
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Limerick City and County Council Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Sinead Last name of representative: Hourigan Gender: Female Nationality: Ireland Function: Local Government Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Merchants Quay Town: Limerick Postal code: V94 EH90 Country: Ireland Direct Tel:+353 61 556 000 E-mail:sinead.hourigan@limerick.ie Website:https://www.limerick.ie/
URL:https://citizeninnovationlab.ie/ Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): #creativeclimateaction #decarbonisigtogether
Yes
New European Bauhaus or European Commission websites
Decarbonising Together invited five communities from Limerick City to examine how meaningful climate action can become part of their day-to-day lives. Each group explored an aspect of Decarbonisation that matters to them through a creative collaboration with arts and creative industry partners resulting in five creative outputs. The project focused on making and doing together to enable behaviour change towards Decarbonisation in Limerick. Project implementation began with a series of information events and drop-in-days at Limerick’s new Citizen Innovation Lab.
The Decarbonising Together project was delivered through Limerick’s Citizen Innovation Lab, a new space for observation, co-creation and experimentation, where digital tools – e.g. the city digital twin and community mapping tool – and non-digital tools and processes can support collaboration. Successful participants had access to Fab Lab Limerick, a maker space and digital fabrication laboratory run by the School of Architecture at University of Limerick and co-located with the Citizen Innovation Lab on Sarsfield Street. The five creative outputs of Decarbonising Together were shared within the networks of participating communities and with the wider Limerick Community
Communities were recruited through an Open call process which prioritized those communities that are hard to reach and were then match with a creative partner. The project focused on exploring behavioral changes through activities of co-learning and co-designing in communities who have not tended to engage with climate action, sustainability and the scale of the change required from society. The project was developed as a mechanism to enable community-led open innovation in Limerick’s decarbonisation mission through collaboration between communities and the arts, culture and creative sectors, supported by Limerick City and County Council (LCCC), University of Limerick and others project partners.
Creative Climate Action
Decarbonisation
Collaboration
Creativity
Innovation
Decarbonising Together (DT) sought to build on a series of interconnected concepts known as CommunityxChange, developed in the EU Horizon 2020 +CityxChange project to support top-down and bottom-up processes of engagement to enable and to accelerate the co-creation of a decarbonised city. The project was programmed to promote and support change at a local level and in day-to-day activities of people and communities in Limerick with the objective to help facilitate a just transition towards decarbonising Limerick by 2050. A key objective was to explore how creativity can be used to inform and empower communities to begin the process of meaningful climate action while maintaining and building community cohesion. The project focused on exploring behavioural changes through activities of co-learning and co-designing in communities who have not tended to engage with climate action, sustainability and the scale of the change required from society. The community and creative collaborations supported learning and doing together, within the Citizen Innovation Lab mechanism to create impact through:
• Building capacity to take positive action to enable decarbonisation
• Introducing new communities to the Citizen Innovation Lab and Fab Lab Limerick spaces for collaboration and co-creation
• Deepening understanding of the need for decarbonisation amongst participating groups through active learning events,
• Enabling interactions with new tools, technologies and processes,
It’s clear from the activities and outcomes of Decarbonising Together that creativity can be a powerful catalyst for community climate action. Where rapid change is required to meet Climate targets up to 2030, Decarbonising Together has shown that embedding an artist/ creative in a hard to reach community and have impactful and lasting results in terms of changing community mind-sets on Climate action
Following the selection of community partners for Decarbonising Together an Open Call for Creative Industry partners was launched. The Open Call was left very open, creative practitioners from a wide range of disciplines including Arts: Music, performing and visual arts, Architecture, Crafts, Design: product, graphic and fashion design, Audiovisual: Film, TV productions, TV, video, radio and photography, IT: software and computer game development and more. DT aimed to support the community partners through creative journey that was unique to their environment and meaningful to them. It asked stakeholders to take a step back to look around their own homes and neighborhoods and consider what the future will hold and how their environment might change in terms of decarbonisation. Within this space they explored alternative visions of the world through speculation, play, and experiential learning. Although each artist approached their community in a different way many used narrative and storytelling to connect people to place, and to one another, looking for moments that capture something true, sometimes messy, sometimes composed, sometimes contentious, but moments that are meaningful to that community and spark the imagination. This dynamic led to
A good example of this is the Orchard project which focused on creating urban orchards building on the cultural and horticultural heritage on the Limerick Civic Trust community. https://vimeo.com/781879320
In this way Decarbonising Together is a truly bottom up community led process that is centered in place and people's experience of place in their day to day, it enabled them to share their worry, frustration and aspirations in terms of climate change for their own street and neighborhood. This in turn focused on the journey and experience of those involved and built capacity and empowered the community consider how their environment could be improved by taking climate action.
Decarbonising Together takes a community-led open collaboration approach that prioritises equity of opportunity for communities to participate. Five communities from across a spectrum of representation participated in the project from areas of social disadvantage to immigrant communities. They were recruited through an Open Call process based across the metropolitan area of Limerick City. The objective of the Open Call selection committee was to recruit community groups that represented a spread of communities across the Metropolitan area of Limerick with a particular focus on those that do not normally participate in activities around Climate Action. In addition to funding the creative partners, communities received a small amount (€2,000) community fund in order to support their participation in the collaboration. This money was utilised for administrative costs, community events and equipment, this funding facilitated equity in the opportunity and full participation for the communities to participate.
The project was exemplary in terms of recruiting creative partners whose practice is collaborative, participatory and involves people as the medium or material of the work. An emphasis by the practitioner on the participatory element of socially engaged practice was key, where the artworks or outputs created often hold equal or less importance to the collaborative act of creating them. It aimed to promote localized generative action that would help to address climate challenges in an inclusive way, making work that is creative, community led, environmentally focused and builds resilience.
The project was exemplary in terms of the support it provided to communities throughout the process, A key legacy of the project was a commitment by the city to continue to support the communities in their decarbonisation journey.
The community response to DT has been overwhelmingly positive with the many communities stating that they felt more empowered, more positive about the future and how they as individuals and collectively as communities can come together to take action on decarbonisation. As part of the process each community was sent a survey close to the end of the project to collect community feedback. Full details Report attached. When asked, 84% of respondents said they felt more informed about Decarbonisation and 85% said they felt more empowered to take action after the project. Respondents were very positive about the role creativity can play in climate projects, 87% agreed that the creative aspect of the project helped them to be more engaged. Here are a sample of the community comments submitted;
"As we went through the process of the project, and as a result of ongoing discussions about Decarbonisation it became apparent that there is a lot we can do at a local level. While not everyone can afford to have solar panels or an electric car, through ongoing activities and practices as a group, myself and my other team members will be able to easily weave the narrative of Decarbonisation into our ongoing activities, and discussions that we have with family friends and neighbours around the area. We will be in a stronger position going forward to help in promotion of Decarbonisation initiatives and education of the community as to how they can play a constructive role in same"
A key outcome of Decarbonising Together has been the formation of a Sustainable Energy Community in one of the communities, that will see that communities draft and Energy Master plan for the area. Other key legacies include the significant decarbonisation of the event planning in the MICA community and the instigation of the orchard project on King’s Island. The work done by the communities through the project will give them a significant benefit when applying for funding under Ireland Community Climate
Decarbonising Together engaged with stakeholders at European, national, local and community level. The project was developed through the legacy of an EU Horizon 2020 project in which Limerick is a Lighthouse City. The project team was formed from partners in the +Cityxchange Consortium, LCCC, UL, Collaborativa and Space Engagers which through the Citizen Innovation Lab and CommunityxChange Frameworks provided an existing collaboration to support Decarbonising Together. At a regional level input to project design was provided by Limerick & Clare energy Agency through it's participation with +Cityxchange. In addition a range of city department assisted in engaging with community through their decarbonisation journey including the Active Travel Unit, Climate Education Officer & Communications department. Expressions of interest at community level were sought by engaging with the People’s Participation Network which represents over 150 community, voluntary and social inclusion and environmental organizations in Limerick. There is a huge variety of groups within the PPN membership, town and village associations, Sports and leisure clubs and societies to cross-cutting thematic associations. The project is funded nationally by Creative Ireland through Ireland's Climate Action Fund which seeks to support imaginative creative projects that build awareness around climate change and empower citizens to make meaningful behavioural changes. They provided valuable input to the project implementation design following the awarding of funds and also gave communications support to the project.
The DT project team who designed & implemented the project was formed from consortium established in the CityXChange project, LCCC, University of Limerick, Space Engagers & Collaborativa with the addition of the City's Arts Office. This multidisciplinary team was led by LCCC coordinated, implemented and managed the collaboration within the project. LCCC's Urban Innovation Engagement Lead coordinated & implemented the project using the Citizen Innovation Lab framework and utilizing the long established connections between the city and communities on the ground. The Art's Office managed the relationship with the funder Creative Ireland and also provided administrative support to the project and particularly the creative partners. UL’s Kemmy Business School (KBS) lead coordinated UL’s contribution to DT and worked closely with LCCC on project initiation, planning and programming, project framing, implementation and monitoring and evaluation. The UL lead connected Decarbonising Together project to the Innovation Lab and other CommunityxChange concepts developed in +CityxChange with a particular role in realizing the positive cycle of collaboration, where project learnings could feed into LCCC governance processes and project outcomes can contribute to an open record of knowledge and learning accessed through the virtual and physical spaces of the Citizen Innovation Lab to support dissemination and replication within Limerick and beyond. COL- Colaborativa and Space Engagers used the tools and experience they developed within the +CityXchange project to mentor Community groups and creative industries . They contributed to the framing, implementation and review of the project in particular with regard to the Innovation Playground Journey concept and the use of community mapping and auditing tools. UL's Fab Lab Limerick supported the communities through mentoring and provided a physical space for making almost anything and supports digital experimentation
Five Communities took part in creative climate collaborations with an creative industry partners resulting in five creative outputs. Community legacies include the formation of an Energy Community and Urban Orchard project among other. However, the creative outputs are only a small portion of the wider outcomes of Decarbonising together. There is clear evidence through the monitoring and evaluation framework that the creative process has resulted in significant behaviour change. Communities stated that they felt more empowered, more positive about the future and how they as individuals and collectively as communities can come together to take action on decarbonisation. When asked, 85% said they felt more empowered to take action after the project. Respondents were very positive about the role creativity can play in climate projects, 87% agreed that the creative aspect of the project helped them to be more engaged and 81% of respondents indicated they planned on taking further actions on behaviour and lifestyle to decarbonise as a result of their participation. The project used an adapted version of the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) of behaviour change to track the impact of its programme of engagement on citizen behaviour. Well established in health and travel behaviour research, TTM structures progress towards a particular change in behaviour in five stages including “precontemplation”, “contemplation” and “preparation”, which precede “action” and “maintenance” of the behavior change desired. Within TTM, particular emphasis is placed on the value of individualised advice and the setting of individual goals and timelines for change. The Citizen Innovation Lab locates the TTM model in the open innovation ecosystem it orchestrates, where the open call and mentoring processes allows citizens and communities to articulate their own behaviour change goals within the broader context of decarbonisation and progress towards the UN SDGs. Report Attached
This project is the first of it's kind in Ireland, supported through Creative Ireland's Creative Climate Action Fund. It explored the role creativity can have in influencing change at a community and individual level. The project built on the Commmunitychange framework developed in +Cityxchange which provide detailed guidance of the engagement and participation mechanisms developed in the project specifically the Citizen Participation Playbook and the Development of the Citizen's observatory / Innovation. The Citizen Innovation Lab platform for collaboration supported implementation of the Decarbonising Together project. An adapted version of the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) of behaviour change was used by the Citizen Innovation Lab to track the impact of its programme of engagement on citizen behaviour. It draws on an approach to behaviour change piloted in Limerick through the +CityxChange Positive Energy Champion Campaign.
Well established in health and travel behaviour research, TTM structures progress towards a particular change in behaviour in five stages including “precontemplation”, “contemplation” and “preparation”, which precede “action” and “maintenance” of the behavior change desired. The Citizen Innovation Lab locates the TTM model in the open innovation ecosystem it orchestrates, where the open call and mentoring processes allows citizens and communities to articulate their own behaviour change goals within the broader context of decarbonisation and progress towards the UN SDGs. The process is community-led.
, in the Decarbonising Together creative collaboration process and projects have been mapped against the TTM stages of behaviour change, and the activities that enable progression through the stages are described. The objective of mapping the creative collaborations against the TTM stages in this way, is to demonstrate progression on a TTM pathway, recognising that each creative collaboration has different levels of readiness and capacity fo
The Citizen Innovation Lab platform for collaboration has supported implementation of the Decarbonising Together project. An adapted version of the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) of behaviour change is used by the Citizen Innovation Lab to track the impact of its programme of engagement on citizen behaviour. This draws on an approach to behaviour change piloted in Limerick through the +CityxChange Positive Energy Champion Campaign.
Well established in health and travel behaviour research, TTM structures progress towards a particular change in behaviour in five stages including “precontemplation”, “contemplation” and “preparation”, which precede “action” and “maintenance” of the behavior change desired. Within TTM, particular emphasis is placed on the value of individualised advice and the setting of individual goals and timelines for change. The Citizen Innovation Lab locates the TTM model in the open innovation ecosystem it orchestrates, where the open call and mentoring processes allows citizens and communities to articulate their own behaviour change goals within the broader context of decarbonisation and progress towards the UN SDGs. The process is community-led. Detailed results are outlined in the the attached report
Decarbonising Together sought to build on a series of interconnected concepts developed through the project known as CommunityxChange, developed in the +CityxChange project to support top-down and bottom-up processes of engagement to enable and to accelerate the co-creation of a decarbonised city. Decarbonising Together is likely to be the first project to use the innovation ecosystem developed through +CityxChange, which has initiated open innovation infrastructure, both physical and digital to enable citizen contributions to have longevity and to create real impact in decarbonisation. A digital record of project outputs – an open record of knowledge and learning – will be stored on LCCC’s cloud based virtual location of the Citizen Innovation Lab to support dissemination and broader replication in Limerick’s decarbonisation mission.
The emphasis on local dissemination by the creative teams ensured project outputs were shared widely within the target communities and networks.
The decarbonisation theme enabled wider sharing and an increased potential for scaling up and replication through alignment with the Climate action Plan being drafterd by the city. The Climate Action Plan LCCC’s will set out a clear path for the development of a sustainable City and County, which is aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. A decarbonisation zone will be a demonstrator for the just transition to a low carbon, climate resilient society and economy, by achieving at least a 51% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050, enabling national climate change policy. The city hope to use the Decarbonising Together model of engagement and co creation to achieve the goals set out in the Climate Action Plan. The use of creativity in localized community conversations supported by city stakeholders has the potential to be easily replicated in any setting by using the publicly available frameworks developed through +Cityxhchange.
Significant cultural and systemic change is needed to address the climate crisis. The cultural and creativity sector has such a crucial role to play in bringing the many issues and stories that we have to tell about climate to life, through art, theatre, literature, film and media. It can expose, highlight and raise awareness about a myriad of climate issues, connecting with people in a way that policies or politics often can’t. Only by connecting and engaging with people at a local community level will cities be allowed to implement the type of structural changes that are required in communities. Creativity has an important role to play in unlocking communities to climate changes measures by building awareness, educating, countering misinformation and stimulating localised climate conversations that also have a global outlook. The community led engagement, innovation and co creation process developed through +CityXChange and further explored through Decarbonising together provide a tangible pathway for communities to take action and to feel empowered to have agency over climate action. Climate Action is a collective effort that must include all aspects of society from Government to all areas of industry and public service, importantly however effective climate action measures will only be successful where they are community-led and evidence based, Decarbonising together used creative collaborations to unlock climate action in communities, to co create climate solutions, to educate, empower and motivate communities to take action, supported by state agencies.
