The urgency of climate action has brought decarbonisation to the forefront of government policy, organisational strategy, investment decisions, and civil society mobilisation. In Cumbria, the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership (ZCCP), its partners, and wider stakeholders play a critical role in shaping and delivering local climate action.
Yet progress depends on overcoming several persistent, deep-rooted challenges—many of which limit the ability of local partners and other key stakeholders to influence policy, secure resources, and implement change at the scale needed.
This project explored four of the most significant barriers to accelerating decarbonisation and identified practical steps that could help unblock them and enable scalable, long-term solutions.
Developed collaboratively by the University of Cumbria and Futureproof Cumbria as part of the Zero Carbon Cumbria Partnership, the four briefing papers each focus on a different dimension of the challenge: influencing policy and practice, improving data and evaluation, strengthening civil society action, and securing the funding and resources required for sustained progress.
Using Jun Han and Sonal Shah’s (2020) Ecosystem of Scaling Social Impact framework, the papers examine the interdependencies between these elements and highlight how each forms part of a wider ecosystem that must be cultivated to drive systemic transformation.
The outcome is a set of clear levers for change at local, regional, and national levels, along with recommendations to advance decarbonisation across Cumbria.
These papers do not claim to provide all the answers or a definitive roadmap. Instead, they aim to stimulate constructive, solutions-focused thinking, encouraging partners to look beyond perceived barriers, explore new approaches, and maintain momentum even when challenges appear difficult or complex.
How can alignment and coherence be strengthened across local, regional, and national levels?
How do we optimise assessment to secure long-term policy commitments?
How can we deepen engagement and participation across Cumbria’s communities?
How do we finance Cumbria’s transition to net zero?
This series of webinars will explore the key themes from the briefing papers. Across the four webinars hear from a range of organisations who will share and discuss their own experiences, practical insights, and lessons learned from implementing decarbonisation approaches in real-world settings. Invited speakers include the Lake District Foundation, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Another Way, North East Combined Authority, Local Partnerships and Small World Consulting, with more to be confirmed.
Please note you will be taken to the Futureproof Cumbria website.
Influencing decarbonisation policy and practice David is Associate Professor of Sustainability & Collaborative Leadership and Academic Lead of the Initiative for Leadership & Sustainability, University of Cumbria.
Improving decarbonisation data aggregation and evaluation
David is the Carbon Monitoring Officer for Zero Carbon Cumbria. He specialises in finding and interrogating data systems that track emissions and provide the insight needed to develop an understanding of Cumbria’s decarbonisation progress.
Strengthening civil society decarbonisation action Michael is a postgraduate researcher in the Institute of Business, Industry and Leadership at the University of Cumbria, currently completing his doctoral thesis.
Funding and resourcing decarbonisation Bex is the Project Manager for Emission Reduction as part of the ZCC team, working with the Sector Groups to build momentum for climate action based around the 4 Emission Reduction Action Plans.
This work was supported by the UKRI Research England Policy Support Fund through the University of Cumbria
