More than 140 initiatives across the North of England are redefining what a just transition can look like. 

Text by Surabhi Mantha

The JUST Centre (Centre for Joined‑Up Sustainability Transformations) – a major multi-university ESRC-funded research centre launched in 2025 and led by colleagues in the SCI – hosted a webinar on 6 March presenting Rapid Evidence Review. The aim is to explore how climate action and social justice are being brought together through local and regional initiatives across the North of England. Led by the Deputy Director of the JUST Centre, Professor Matthew Patterson (SCI, University of Manchester), the session presented findings from a major review of more than 140 initiatives working at the intersection of climate, justice, and place‑based transformation.

The event brought together both researchers and practitioners whose work exemplifies these principles: Anisa Saleh from the Women’s Environmental Network’s (WEN) Climate Sisters programme, Professor Lucie Middlemiss from the University of Leeds, Samanthi Theminimulle from The Young Foundation, and Andrew Pinches from Rossendale Valley Energy. Their contributions offered a grounded, multi‑perspective view of what joined‑up sustainability looks like in practice – and what it demands from institutions, communities and policymakers.

Mapping joined‑up sustainability transformations

Patterson opened the session by highlighting that the purpose of the JUST Centre is to understand and accelerate sustainability transformations that are people‑centred, socially just, and joined-up. The Centre’s work is guided by three core questions: what works, when, where, and for whom; how such transformations can be accelerated; and who participates in shaping them. At the heart of this approach is a commitment to learning from place‑based, joined‑up action research, and to identifying lessons that governments, businesses, and communities can use to advance just and equitable sustainability transitions. To answer these questions, the team partnered with universities across the regions to build a database of initiatives across five major focus areas: Greater Manchester, Merseyside, West Cumbria, the North East, and West Yorkshire. This database forms the foundation for the Rapid Evidence Review.

Feminist approach to climate leadership

Anisa Saleh introduced the Climate Sisters programme, an inclusive, feminist, intersectional climate leadership initiative run by WEN (UK-based organisation championing gender-centric climate action through curated community projects). The programme amplifies the voices of racialised and marginalised women in climate action, whose perspectives are often excluded from climate debates. Instead, it positions women as knowledge‑holders, not merely participants, and aims to build a movement of women leading climate action. Its vision is to build a world in which communities and the planet can thrive. 

Recognising that climate impacts are experienced differently across places and communities, Saleh highlighted the importance of designing structures informed by lived experience. This includes connecting climate justice to housing, health, migration, and safety. The 12‑week, place‑based programme explores local, national, and international climate concerns while supporting the creative co‑production of climate responses and solutions, culminating in public exhibitions. Working with organisations such as SAWN (Support and Action for Women’s Network) in Oldham, Women’s Voices, local authorities, policy spaces, and others, the programme centres lived experience, gender, racial, and social equity. It also engages with wider climate and environmental networks, as well as academic and research partners, ensuring that community‑led perspectives shape broader climate discourse.

Who is leading just sustainability action?

Lucie Middlemiss presented key findings on the types of actors driving joined‑up climate and justice initiatives across the North of England. The review revealed a diverse ecosystem of organisations involved in this work, including local and combined authorities, NGOs and charities, community groups, businesses, and regional networks such as the Yorkshire & Humber Climate Commission (YHCC). The YHCC brings together local authorities, businesses, and community actors to accelerate climate action in the region, and has recently partnered with the JUST Centre.

A major challenge highlighted in the report is the funding landscape. Grassroots organisations – often the closest to community needs – struggle to access stable, long‑term funding, while larger institutions are sometimes perceived as disconnected from lived realities. Most funding comes from government sources (local, regional, and national) and the National Lottery, but these streams are typically short‑term, competitive, and inconsistent. Across regions, participants expressed a strong desire for greater coordination, emphasising the need to connect initiatives within and across regions to share learning and build collective capacity.

The review also found that initiatives tend to begin from either a climate or a justice starting point and then expand to incorporate the other. Government‑led projects often start with climate goals and integrate justice later, while community‑led projects typically begin with social justice and then connect to climate action. Examples include Recycling Lives (Preston), which supports ex‑offenders through skills training and food redistribution – a justice‑led initiative with strong environmental benefits – and the Atom Valley project in Rochdale, Oldham and Bury, which supports Manchester’s 2038 net‑zero ambitions with a focus on jobs and skills.

Net Zero Terrace Streets

Andrew Pinches from Rossendale Valley Energy, a community‑led organisation supporting residents through practical, place‑based climate action, presented an innovative retrofit model designed for terraced housing, one of the UK’s hardest‑to‑decarbonise housing types. He  introduced the Net Zero Terrace Streets (NZTS) application as a tool to support this approach.

Terraced homes that included limited space for air‑source heat pumps, complex building layouts and high risk of fuel poverty if poorly designed solutions are used. The solution, Pinches says, is ground‑source ambient loops in streets. Rossendale Valley Energy is piloting a street‑level ground‑source heat network, where boreholes run beneath the street and each home receives a compact shoebox heat pump. These fabric retrofit measures are tailored to each property where solar and battery systems are integrated into a smart local energy system and energy is shared fairly across homes regardless of roof orientation.

The project works with local grassroots organisations to build delivery partnerships and train energy champions, while a “fairer warmth” digital portal supports residents through the retrofit process. After piloting the approach in three homes, Pinches hopes the model can make net‑zero retrofits more affordable, inclusive, and community‑led.

What agendas are being joined-up?

Samanthi Theminimulle summarised four agendas commonly linked to socially just climate action. Regional development is being advanced through job creation and strategic investment, exemplified by Atom Valley in Greater Manchester and locally controlled economic models such as Project Kar. Health and wellbeing improvements are visible in initiatives such as the Bee Network’s air‑quality measures and energy‑efficiency retrofits that create warmer homes. Community resilience and place‑strengthening are becoming central to climate action. Networks such as Zero Carbon Cumbria foster shared learning and coordinated regional responses, while food and solidarity initiatives in Newcastle address fairer outcomes in food and housing systems. These agendas reflect the multidimensional nature of just climate transitions.

Across the initiatives reviewed, five broad modes of public engagement emerged. Many projects sought to strengthen political participation, whether through deliberative processes such as the Copeland People’s Panel on Climate Change or leadership‑building programmes like Climate Sisters. A significant trend was the rise of collective low‑carbon living, moving beyond individual choices to foster shared action. Community climate hubs, for example, create local networks that help residents reduce their carbon footprints together. Initiatives such as Wellbeing Sheffield use wellbeing as an entry point into low‑carbon lifestyles. The research also highlighted a strong focus on skills and employment. Programmes such as Groundwork’s apprenticeships and initiatives targeting women for low‑carbon roles ensure that the transition includes economic opportunity and professional growth. Finally, some engagement is indirect or passive, where residents participate as citizen‑consumers who benefit from large‑scale infrastructure improvements in energy, housing, and transport without needing to be actively involved in project delivery.

The Rapid Evidence Review highlights the diversity and value of climate‑justice initiatives across the North of England, showing how climate action becomes transformative when it is inclusive, place‑based and socially just. 

Watch the recording of the JUST Centre’s webinar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTg8y26DB4E

Access the full report here: https://pure.manchester.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/1834357876/JUST_Centre_Rapid_Evidence_Review_March_2026.pdf

Related