Collective Climate Repair

Collective Climate Repair is a UK initiative showing how simple, nature-based actions with plants and water can tackle climate change in practical, accessible ways. We are showing that climate action doesn’t have to be distant, technical, or slow. Instead, it can be tangible, local, and immediately impactful.

Led by Sensory Trust and funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, the project brings together partners University of Edinburgh, Trees for Cities, National Wildflower Centre, Scouse Flowerhouse, and a wide network of community and environmental collaborators.

Climate change is no longer a distant issue, climate chaos is here and action is crucial to avert the worst consequences. Many of us are feeling anxious and unsure what to do.

Collective Climate Repair offers practical ways to work together to take positive action now. And it's really quite simple. The approach centres on three themes:

Cool: using plants and water to reduce heat in local environments

Calm: slowing the flow of water and reducing climate anxiety

Collective: bringing people together to act.

Most climate conversations focus on carbon. This project builds on climate research highlighting the importance of plants and the water cycle in opening up climate actions that are cheaper, faster and widely adoptable.

Floods and droughts remind us daily that water is at the heart of climate chaos, but the good news is that water is also our solution. The actions are simple. The result is a healthy planet and more natural beauty in the world.

Simple actions include growing areas of longer grass, sowing wildflowers, planting trees, making rain gardens and creating wetland areas. Our design challenge is to create solutions that are great however small the space and budget.

Instead of focusing only on large-scale policy or technology, Collective Climate Repair emphasizes:

• Planting and caring for vegetation
• Managing water locally (e.g., rain gardens, wetlands)
• Community participation
• Low-cost, scalable solutions

We are putting equity and collective action at the heart of climate repair, breaking the barriers that prevent people from understanding and engaging in climate repair, by:

1. Making the science understandable and accessible. Climate narratives are often complex and hard to relate to. We are using practical demonstration and tangible narratives to share the science and how different climate actions work.
   We are actively supporting British Sign Language (BSL), braille and symbol communition. The Edinburgh science team have developed over 80 new BSL signs already, and these will form the basis of new films and shared resources. This builds on earlier work together developing new biodiversity signs.

1. Scaling climate action to suit. Climate action is often large-scale, from tree plantings to sponge parks. We are creating small-scale interventions, such mini rain gardens and vertical plantings, to show how action can translate to the smallest of spaces and budgets.
   
2. Working together. We are working closely with people who are D/deaf, blind and partially sighted and neurodivergent, and with partners at the University of Edinburgh, Trees for Cities and National Wildflower Centre, to demonstrate and implement practical interventions for climate change.

In simple terms, climate change comes from the warming of the planet and water is central for cooling and repair. The central issue is that the water cycle is out of balance. As a result, water patterns are erratic. Like carbon, water is safer and most useful below ground so the main challenge is to keep rainwater in the land and repair the water retaining capacity of soil and landscapes. Rising temperatures are putting more water in the atmosphere causing the water to behave as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat. We are feeling these impacts through worsening floods and droughts.

Emerging science shows that a focus on water, in addition to carbon opens new routes to climate action that are cheaper, faster and more widely adoptable. The key to this is helping water to soak in slowly to the lower ground. We need to work with nature to cool and calm, and re-balance the water cycle. COP26 called to put water central to climate action and ensure participation by people not currently engaged. By focusing on water, scientists believe that real change is possible within a decade.

We are making demos to show the climate science and how climate action can help. For example, how plants help rain water soak into the ground instead of running off, and how they keep areas cool rather than baking hot in summer. This short film shows our slow the flow demo.

Solutions to climate change rely on biodiversity. The two are linked and cannot be separated.

Biodiversity is a climate regulator. Plants in particular, cool us, capture greenhouse gases and are key players in the water cycle. Natural systems know how to respond to climate change. They are showing us all the time. It's time to work with nature to heal our planet.

Every day plants are working to:

• slow water down - the slower the flow, the more chance of it reaching the lower ground store, where we need it.
• cool the ground by creating shade.
• cool the air by transpiration.

Every day plants are taking climate action, this is our chance to join them. Every metre counts.

This is an opportunity to be part of something collective. Whether it’s planting, growing, or caring for green spaces, every action contributes to a cooler, calmer, more resilient future. We are sharing accessible, practical ways for communities across the UK to take climate action, however small the space and budget.

We are sharing insights in regular online sessions, films, social media posts and mailings. We will also be offering opportunities to get involved and try our techniques and interventions. Join our Collective Climate Repair mailing list and the Collective Climate Repair Facebook group.

Small actions, when taken collectively, can lead to powerful change.