Climate Action, Strategy & Empowerment

During Climate Week 2026, we invite you to help shape our climate and nature action strategy over the next 5years as well as to join our General Circle that will help be a key driving factor in our work going forward.

Climate and nature action across East Lothian needs to be driven by the people. From here, we can work with the council to drive change, build vital areas of action and understand where we need to support our communities to become more resilient.

In order to build our strategy, we want to understand the vital work taking place across the East Lothian as an ecosystem. We need your input to help us understand the gaps and critical areas of work necessary to help reduce our emissions and to become more resilient, if that is around food, nature or energy,

As we pass 1.5°C warming, and with the first Net Zero targets less than 5 years away, this is a critical moment for communities across East Lothian.

Two days prior to this event (Tues 29th Sept) we will be hosting a screening of the National Emergency Briefing, which features UK leading experts on climate science, nature, food security, the economy and health. This will help us focus on where the main pressure points lie and where we can take action. For our strategy, we plan to work alongside the East Lothian Council who will be creating their area-wide climate change strategy, and will likely be addressing themes such as Land Use, Transport and Industry.

For this gathering, we would love your input to help us consider what what is vital for our communities and our land, where are the gaps of action lie and how we can address these with a clear strategy for mitigation, biodiversity enhancement and community resilience.

We ran a Theme Decision Making in June 2024, where our ELCAN members and the public chose the themes the Climate Hub would focus on: Biodiversity, Food, Energy and Circular economy. From there, we developed themes of work, around hedgerow restoration, working with farmers around knowledge exchange for regenerative farming and biodiversity enhancement, started an Energy Learning Network, as well as a Food Growers Collective and a Biodiversity Collective and a Policy Circle. Your input into our 5year strategy will again result in us taking direction action on the themes you view as important.

We will also look invite ELCAN members to join our General Circle, which will effectively act as a steering group for ELCAN and our streams of work. This is part of the sociocractic structure we are developing for ELCAN, to ensure decision-making is both democractic and sits close to the people carrying out the work in East Lothian. Its an exciting way of working to be part of and we invite you to come with an open mind to learn about this process on the night.

If you are interested in getting in feeding in but can’t make this event, contact: tess@eastlothianclimatehub.org

Photos will be taken at this event. If you do not want your photo taken, please let us know on the night.

The venue is wheel chair accessible.