Net zero and sustainable development
‘Net zero’ refers to achieving a balance between the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) produced and the amount left in the atmosphere. This is accomplished through a combination of drastically reducing emissions, and removing the remaining, unavoidable residues through other methods. ‘Net zero’ forms part of many national policies or commitments, including the ‘Net Zero Strategy’ developed by the UK government (
BEIS 2021;
Burnett 2024). Sustainable development is defined by the Brundtland Report as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (
WCED 1987). It emphasises a balanced set of compromises between economic growth, environmental protection, and social well-being. Net zero can and should be aligned with sustainable development by integrating environmental, social, and economic objectives. Contradictions arise when carbon metrics dominate at the expense of broader sustainability values. Challenging trade-offs exist between the objectives of net zero and sustainable development, which includes social and economic considerations next to environmental targets and objectives. For instance, techno-centric net-zero pathways (for example, heavy reliance on offsets or carbon markets) may neglect social justice or ecological integrity. Rapid decarbonisation might lead to resource-intensive solutions (for example, rare earth mining for renewables) that undermine community resilience and enforce rapid changes with unintended consequences onto communities.
Stronger governance, systemic coordination, and broad stakeholder mobilisation—including communities, local authorities, and industry—are essential to delivering a just and sustainable transition (
O’Riordan & Pennington 2023;
Zhao 2023). Evidence has shown that with integrated, equitable approaches, net zero can help drive broader sustainability benefits (
Zhang et al. 2024;
Fankhauser et al. 2021).
Participatory approaches in net-zero transition
Participatory and creative practice is vital for navigating trade-offs, fostering innovation, and ensuring equitable, effective transitions. Participatory approaches—such as community empowerment, co-creation, and participatory modelling—are crucial for building consensus and legitimacy for net-zero policies (
Stern & Valero 2021;
Li & Lange 2022), tailoring solutions to local contexts and needs, and enhancing innovation and creative problem-solving, including through game-based and collaborative methods, which creatively foster stakeholder engagement and shared learning (
Moallemi et al. 2020;
Zhou et al. 2024). The
Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre (2023) highlights the sector’s role in catalysing systemic change through imaginative responses to the climate emergency. For instance,
Daly et al. (2022) show how co-production integrates local knowledge with scientific expertise to support tailored climate services.
Ford et al. (2017) argue for community involvement in climate-health research, especially in vulnerable regions, to enhance resilience and relevance.
Holmes et al. (2022) demonstrate how co-created socio-technical scenarios embed lived experiences into net-zero policy design.
Meyrick (2022) advocates arts-based research to challenge dominant rationalist paradigms and deepen emotional engagement.
As this collection will demonstrate, co-design, or gamification alone is insufficient to achieve equitable transition (
Stephens & Robinson 2023). Legal framework, stakeholders’ buy-in, accessibility and inclusivity, and social and economic disparities are key barriers to best practice and successful implementation. Participatory strategies should not be viewed as a standalone solution but as one component in a toolkit for systemic sustainability education.
To this end, this collection emphasises the role of participatory approaches in addressing goals of sustainable development in net-zero transitions, and explores how far participatory approaches can help to address the trade-offs and challenges between those two strategic directions to ensure a sustainable, equitable future. These articles stem from the 2nd Sustainability Multidisciplinary Meetup, held on 8 April 2024 at UWE Bristol, supported by the British Academy Early Career Researcher Network. The event convened early-career researchers from over twenty UK institutions, spanning disciplines such as environmental law, architecture, social policy, and behavioural science. Following the event, participants formed the SHAPEing Net Zero Collective, a network committed to advancing net zero through systems thinking, creative engagement, and climate justice. This collection marks the network’s inception.
Overview of the contributing essays
The first two articles examine community engagement in achieving net zero and environmental justice through recent UK-based initiatives. Both emphasise embedding public participation in climate action at the intersection of governance, technology, and social equity.
Alessia Vacca and Karolina Glowka’s ‘The role of public involvement in achieving net-zero goals’ reviews international and European laws—such as the Aarhus Convention and Escazú Agreement—highlighting legal foundations for environmental participation. Whilst showing how energy communities enhance transparency, accountability, and grass-roots innovation, the article stresses that systemic, institutional, and socio-economic barriers often reduce participation to tokenism, with decisions predetermined rather than genuinely inclusive. It reflects that effective participation often remains weak due to poor enforcement, flawed consultation design, unequal representation, low transparency in using citizen input, with no obligation to provide feedback on its incorporation. Using The Green Planet AR Experience as a case study, they demonstrate how immersive storytelling fosters pro-environmental behaviours through embodied cognition. They call for climate policy, as well as emerging technology to integrate inclusive participation with innovative communication to foster cohesion and collective action, and strengthen behavioural change and implementation.
Sarah Jasim and colleagues’ ‘Imagining future homes’ reports on a London co-design workshop addressing domestic retrofit. Using drawing, collage, and storytelling, participants explored making retrofit more inclusive and responsive to local needs. The study revealed tensions between affordability, comfort, and housing conditions versus policy-driven carbon goals, as well as a lack of setting out of contracts for home insulation installation, and adequate monitoring. These frustrate the residents and hinder the uptake of retrofit. The authors stress that trust-building, accessible information, and cross-sector collaboration are necessary to overcome barriers like landlord–tenant dynamics. Creative engagement, they argue, can democratise retrofit decision-making and foster genuine research–policy–practice partnerships centred on marginalised communities’ lived experiences.
The next three articles use gamification as a tool for climate engagement. They demonstrate the potential of gamification in engaging the public, whilst reflecting on its limitations on accessibility and inclusion, design trade-offs, and on measuring its outcome and impact to influence policy. An integrated approach is needed to overcome its shortfalls.
Eirini Gallou and Andrew Crerand’s ‘Co-developing evidence on climate justice’ details a multi-stakeholder climate justice dilemma game. By exploring disproportionate climate impacts, it fosters sustainability assessment skills and anticipatory thinking. The game integrates diverse voices into impact assessments, supporting ‘value pluralism’ across economic, health, and cultural considerations. Gallou and Crerand highlight how gamification can bridge expert and non-expert knowledge for socio-environmental evaluations aligned with climate justice principles, while noting the challenges of engaging diverse participants. Although games can open minds, they rarely influence policy unless major stakeholders adopt them. This underscores the gap between the artificial setting of the game and the harsh realities of implementation failures.
David White et al.’s ‘In My Boat’ describes a Participatory Action Research project co-developing a marine ecosystem card game with a grass-roots UK community group. The paper focuses on an iterative research process throughout four workshops, reflecting on the trade-offs between complexities of reality, and simplicity and playability represented in the game. Addressing climate and pollution threats, the game raises awareness of issues like microplastic pollution while countering climate anxiety. Designed to be low-cost and accessible, it aims to bridge educational gaps and foster personal environmental responsibility through playful learning.
Max White et al.’s ‘Play to CHANGE’ explores digital gamification in promoting domestic energy retrofit. The prototype simulation game lets players test retrofit measures, visualise energy impacts, and assess outcomes in a risk-free environment. Combining literature review and user feedback, the study shows that gamified tools can make sustainability concepts tangible and reinforces self-efficacy in behaviour change. At the same time, the paper reflects on the accessibility and inclusivity of digital games, suggesting that gamification should be embedded within a larger ecosystem of engagement: workshops, community events, or school-based programmes.
The final article presents a Global South case study on sustainable affordable housing. ‘Community-driven innovation: the social impact of Africa’s first net-zero sustainable innovative affordable house’, by Alireza Moghayedi, addresses housing shortages, energy crises, and carbon-neutral transitions in South Africa. It examines the barriers—regulatory, financial, and social—to adopting Net Zero Energy Housing. The SIAH-NZ project demonstrates strong engagement from a diverse group of participants for a community-driven, scalable housing model using Community-Based Participatory Research and modern construction techniques. It stresses that social and economic disparities remain the biggest barriers to best practice and successful implementation. However, if well recognised, those barriers can be overcome by introducing regulatory reform and financial incentives, and by training local communities in net-zero skills through social enterprise partnerships to enhance economic empowerment and workforce capacity, thus making sustainable housing more accessible at scale. The study underscores how local decision-making and humanities-informed policy can advance net zero while ensuring justice-oriented, replicable solutions for developing nations.
Summary
Achieving net zero is as much a cultural challenge as it is a technical one. This collection of articles confronts the reality that technology-driven net-zero strategies risk deepening inequalities unless grounded in community agency, creativity, and justice. This collection showcases Early Career Researchers using participatory art, storytelling, gamification, and co-design to demystify climate science, spark dialogue, and empower local decision-making. From retrofitting London homes to protecting marine ecosystems through card games, from dilemma-based climate justice training to Africa’s first community-driven net-zero affordable house, these case studies share a common thread: meaningful engagement transforms climate ambition into lived, equitable action.
By embedding participatory approaches and gamification into climate governance, these projects challenge tokenistic consultation and invite shared ownership of solutions. They reveal that inclusive processes—rooted in local knowledge and creativity—generate more relevant, resilient, and trusted pathways to sustainability. The collection calls on policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to move beyond ‘informing’ communities to collaborating with them as co-designers of the future. In doing so, it reframes net zero not just as a carbon target, but as an opportunity to reimagine our social contract—one game, one story, and one community at a time.
Eirini Gallou‡
