PSCF2020: designing for a changing climate

A selection of online resources from the Public Sector Client Forum event 'Climate, health and place' including presentations, interviews and more.

A pencil illustration birds-eye view of a rural community along a river, showing green fields, and a cluster of buildings.

Event objectives

The event and resources aim to explore the following questions:

  • How do we plan, design and develop places to effectively respond to a changing climate, reduce carbon emissions and improve people’s lives across Scotland?
  • Why should we put place and health at the centre of our approach to achieving a net-zero carbon Scotland?
  • What does a low carbon, climate considerate place look like?
  • How can we use design to help create a healthy and climate-ready place?

With this range of resources we will take a creative look at how we can use design and collaborative placemaking to shape places that are climate ready, healthier, happier and support low carbon lifestyles.

Online learning resources and information on the event

We would like to thank all of our collaborators who have responded in such a positive way to the changing situation and helping us create this online learning resource.

The Public Sector Client Forum event took place on Tuesday 9th June, 2020. Chaired by Ben Twist, Director of Creative Carbon Scotland, this online event took a creative look at how we can use design and collaborative placemaking to shape places that are climate ready, healthier, happier and support low carbon lifestyles.

We hosted the event using Microsoft Teams Live and below is the full recording of the event.  

This event was originally due to take place in early April 2020, but had to be changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We are now pleased to be able to present some of the content that you would have been able to see at the event. 

PSCF2020 event running order and speakers' biographies

Online Question and Answers open on Teams Live site

Introduction and Welcome by Ben Twist

Session 1

Interview and discussion with Nadine Andrews and Claudia Zeiske

Session 2

Interview and discussion with Alette Willis and Clive Bowman

Reflections and Summary

Live event closes

Chair – Ben Twist, Director 

Ben has been Director of Creative Carbon Scotland since 2011, combining over 25 years’ experience of producing events and running permanent and temporary venues in the cultural sector with an MSc in Carbon Management and a doctorate in applying complexity theory to social systems in order to bring about more sustainable social practices. He has developed CCS into a leader in both technical support for cultural organisations in carbon management and developing culture’s influencing role in addressing climate change.Page Break

Session 1

Claudia ZeiskeDevron Projects 

Claudia is a founding member  of Deveron Projects. Her balanced approach lies between artistic criticality and community involvement with artists from across the globe including our very own locality. An Anthropologist, she started her career in human rights. Since coming to Scotland, she has worked across the arts, including Duff House and Glenfiddich distillery. A devout European, she was voted Huntly citizen of the year in 2013.  

Deveron Projects is an arts organisation based in Huntly, a market town in the north east of Scotland with a population of 4,500. Since 1995 Deveron Projects worked here with the history, context and identity of the town. Working with the town is the venue methodology, they create projects that connect artists, communities and places. 

Dr Nadine Andrews, The Scottish Government 

Dr. Nadine Andrews is a social researcher in the Scottish Government. In her presentation she discusses ‘climate resilient communities’, describing what this means and discussing some of the evidence with a focus on aspects of the model relating to social capital and human health and wellbeing. 

Nadine works in the Communities Analysis Division of the Scottish Government, currently leading the Housing and Regeneration Research Team. Research areas include energy efficiency, fuel poverty, regeneration, and climate adaptation. She is a member of the Place Based Adaptation working group coordinated by Adaptation Scotland. Nadine is also co-chair of Climate Psychology Alliance Scotland, a Visiting Researcher at Lancaster University’s Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business, and teaches mindfulness and nature connection as part of her independent practice. Prior to joining the Scottish Government in 2018, Nadine worked in the science team of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group II: impacts, vulnerability and adaptation, with responsibility for social sciences and psychology.  

Session 2

Dr Alette WillisReStoryLab 

We will explore how stories connect people to places and inform their attitudes, values and behaviours.  Building on these insights, we will look at the role storytelling can play in shaping places and communities now and into the future.   

Dr Alette Willis is a collector and teller of tales, an author and a researcher with a central interest in understanding the power of stories to shape our world. She is Secretary to the Scottish Storytelling Forum, spent years as a Talking Tree at the Royal Botanic Garden Scotland, was Storyteller in Residence to the Royal Zoological Society Scotland and worked with Scottish Book Trust to evaluate their John Muir Graphic Novel Project. She holds a PhD in Cultural Geography with a focus on the use of narratives in connecting people to places and to the more-than-human world around them and is currently senior lecturer in Applied Social Science at the University of Edinburgh.  She recently published Dancing with Trees: Eco-tales of the British Isles (History Press, 2017). 

Clive Bowman, Zero Waste Scotland 

Clive works with planners, designers, product manufacturers, contractors, builders, tradesmen, clients, procurers, facilities managers, or anyone involved in construction, maintenance, and demolition of our built environment in Scotland, who have a desire to be part of the change to reduce carbon emissions, reduce waste and adopt Circular Economy principles in their activities.  Zero Waste Scotland can help identify and support opportunities that increase resource efficiency in the construction sector through 1 to 1 advice, guides, tools, training, events, loans and grant funding. 

PSCF2020: designing for a changing climate

Full video event from 9th June 2020

Header image credit: Richard Carman

A man in a virtual meeting with a book opened next to the computer screen.

PSCF2020: Ben Twist and Jim MacDonald discussion

In advance of PSCF 2020 'Designing for a changing climate', event chair Ben Twist, Creative Carbon Scotland, spoke to Jim MacDonald, Chief Executive of A&DS, online to discuss the topics of the Public Sector Client Forum. The interview is broken in to broad topics. 

Image credit: Dylan Ferreira on Unsplash

Watch interview
People sitting around a table during a LLTNP workshop in Strathard.

PSCF2020: world cafe sessions

The speakers that would have delivered at the Public Sector Client Forum 2020 'Designing for a changing climate' world cafe sessions, have provided their presentations with voice overs. These have been converted to video to allow access from as many devices as possible.

Watch sessions