At the end of consultation on Scotland’s Climate Change Plan – which will shape the country’s response for the next 15 years – the East Lothian Climate Hub has published an open letter outlining their thoughts:
The CCP must recognise the role of resilient communities and value of Climate Hubs in an unpredictable future
Dear Ministers,
The Scottish Government has committed £6m to the Climate Action Hub Programme for 2026-27, which is welcome news indeed. It is a positive sign that you are committed to continuing support for this internationally unique programme to support community-based climate action at its roots, via its canopy.
2025-26 was the first financial year that Scotland had a fully operational Climate Action Hub programme. There are now 24 Hubs which cover every square metre of land, every stretch of coastline; every person in Scotland now has access to a bespoke, community-driven Climate Action Hub. This is unique in our chaotic world. It is incredibly precious.
Despite just getting up and running, the Hubs are doing groundbreaking work. I’ll tell you a bit more about the work of my Hub and our Climate Action Network community, which I am extremely proud of.
East Lothian’s locally-grown climate action
The Hedgerow Restoration Project has engaged communities by recruiting and retaining over 100 volunteers, many new to climate and nature action. We have built mindful and considerate relationships with landowners, farmers, councillors, rangers, coppicers, and community groups. We hope to restore 1km of hedgerows from barren twigs to biodiverse nature networks criss-crossing East Lothian just in this, our pilot year. We are well on our way.
Our Community Heat Teams have shown we can innovate, connect, and scale. Our friends in West Linton, the Borders, developed an inspirational model to use sophisticated technology and well-trained volunteers to detect areas of heat loss and damp in cold homes over winter. They found that nearly 100% of households that received a home heat survey took at least one measure to reduce their carbon footprint and reduce their heating bills. To build on this foundation, the East Lothian and Borders Hubs collaborated to identify 10 further community based organisations that could scale this model last winter, found them funding, got them trained up, and they set off to do 100s of surveys.
Through our Learning for Sustainability Schools Network, we are growing the roots of climate action where they matter most: with young people and educators. By convening schools, lecturers, outdoor learning providers, and community organisations, the Hub is helping turn climate literacy from an abstract aspiration into lived practice. We are building confidence, capability, and curiosity that will shape decisions for decades to come.
The ELCAN Policy Circle helps communities advocate for themselves, translating community voices into informed, strategic influence. Rather than relying only on reactive consultation responses, the Policy Circle enables communities to shape agendas, challenge assumptions, and engage decision-makers with clarity and credibility. We aim to ensure that policy is informed not only by data, but by lived experience and collective intelligence.
Crucially, we deliver – for example through the East Lammermuir Local Place Plan to Action Plan project, where the Hub has helped turn vision into delivery. We are supporting a community otherwise suffering some adverse effects of the net zero transition to move from aspiration to funded, coordinated action across biodiversity, energy efficiency, active travel, and transport by effectively planning for their renewables community benefits funding. By aligning community priorities, partners, and funding streams, this work demonstrates that when communities are properly supported, they do not just plan for change, they can deliver it.
This is simply some of what I see happening through my own window, because of your support to date. Thank you.
Strong communities mean a resilient future
I hope you can see that by supporting the Climate Action Hub programme, you are doing something that may prove incredibly important to the future generations that will inherit this Earth. You may allow us to build something that helps us see ourselves better through the tumultuous times to come. To do so, you would need to support this programme long-term. We can not have last minute annual funding decisions stalling our progress. We must be resourced properly and be allowed to plan long-term. We must have the job security that will allow us to attract and retain the calibre of staff needed to engage, connect, grow, and deliver in collaboration with our communities, to network these islands of coherence in rough seas.
Communities are the future. In a world shaped by accelerating climate impacts, economic uncertainty, and social fragmentation, resilience will not be delivered within a monotonously over-evaluated financial year; it must be cultivated locally, patiently, and collaboratively. The adaptation required of us will be intense and uneven; much of what we face cannot yet be fully predicted or planned for. Communities must therefore be agile, trusted, and self-sufficient. We must be able to respond quickly, care for one another, learn as conditions change, and act with confidence rather than fear. The Climate Action Hub programme is quietly building this capacity across Scotland: stitching together relationships, skills, knowledge and hope at a human scale. If we get this right, we will not just be preparing communities for climate change, we will be strengthening the social fabric that allows us to navigate whatever comes next.
I am asking you to provide longer term funding to the Climate Action Hub Programme, and to adjust the Climate Change Plan to more explicitly take advantage of the Hubs as the conduit to the communities who must take many of the actions forward. We are up for it. Act local; change the world.
Thank you,
Bobby Pembleton
East Lothian Climate Hub Manager
