Challenge
The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames (LBRuT) needed to ensure broad and inclusive community engagement to shape its next climate emergency plan (post-2025).
Key challenges included:
- reaching under-represented and disengaged groups
- avoiding over-reliance on individuals who regularly engage in council processes
- designing and delivering an innovative engagement model that reflected the borough’s diverse population.
Approach
Copper created and implemented a first-of-its-kind Community Reporter scheme, designed to empower residents to act as ambassadors for local climate conversations.
Key steps included:
- recruiting 18 Community Reporters (one per borough ward) through a public callout and structured sortition process, ensuring demographic alignment within 5% of borough averages
- onboarding and training each volunteer through interactive workshops, playbooks and 1:1 check-ins to cover engagement strategies, data protection, safety and how to have meaningful conversations
- supporting the wider consultation through additional public engagement events and direct council-led sessions.
Value delivered
- Reporters gathered rich, representative insights from groups that had not previously participated in climate consultations
- Built a base of genuine, grassroots input that reflected the real diversity of the borough – in age, ethnicity, housing tenure, and more
- Enabled LBRuT to draft a more inclusive and robust climate emergency plan informed by seldom-heard voices
- Created a replicable engagement model for future council consultations.