113: The UK Co-Benefits Atlas: mapping the positive side-effects of reaching net zero

Matt and Fraser explore the UK Co-Benefits Atlas, a new, interactive platform for communicating the co-benefits of reaching net zero across the UK. Co-benefits are the positive changes that could happen as a side-effect of cutting carbon emissions – such as cleaner air, healthier homes, and better diets.

This is the third and final episode in our series focusing on projects funded by the Scottish Research Alliance for Energy Homes and Livelihoods (EHL). Our guests are Dr Andrew Sudmant, Data Programme Manager at the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute and co-lead of the EHL’s “Financial Pathways” theme, and Dr Sean Field, Director of Policy and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Energy Ethics at the University of St Andrews and Lead Analyst at the UK Government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Follow EHL on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/energy-homes-livelihoods/

Sign up to the EHL newsletter: https://energy-homes-livelihoods.us17.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=95f64f8471e335ca66577e8ac&id=8f3acb33ed

Links:

UK Co-Benefits Atlas: https://ukcobenefitsatlas.net/

Dr Andrew Sudmant: https://www.energy-homes-livelihoods.ac.uk/team-1/andrew-sudmant-2/

Dr Sean Field: https://energyethics.st-andrews.ac.uk/people/sean-field/

Transcript

Andrew: Climate change is not separate from a host of other challenges we face in different communities across the UK. Each community is facing its own set of challenges, but there are key areas around economic development, around public health, around the economy, other environmental challenges. So our work, to a small degree, helps to address that misconception. 

Matt: Hello and welcome to Local Zero. I'm Matt Hannon. 

Fraser: And I'm Fraser Stewart. 

Matt: And this is the third and final episode in our miniseries showcasing projects supported by the Scottish Research Alliance for Energy, Homes and Livelihoods, or EHL for short.

Fraser: EHL brings together researchers from different fields to collaborate, to share information, as part of the effort to move towards a more sustainable, net zero Scotland. You can find out more about EHL and sign up for their newsletter at energy-homes-livelihoods.ac.uk 

Matt: In this episode, we're hearing about the UK Co-Benefits Atlas, developed through the EHL's Financial Pathways theme.

The Atlas is an interactive map that spotlights the co-benefits of reaching net zero across the UK. In other words, all the positive outcomes that happen alongside the other benefits directly associated with cutting carbon emissions. And you can find the Atlas at ukcobenefitsatlas.net

Fraser: And joining us to discuss the Co-Benefits Atlas will be two people from the team behind it, Dr Andrew Sudmant and Dr Sean Field. Andrew is Lead Researcher on the Co-Benefits of Climate Action at the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, and he's also the Co-Lead of the EHL'S Financial Pathways theme. 

Matt: And Sean is Director of Policy and a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Energy Ethics at the University of St Andrews. And he's also Lead Analyst at the UK Government's Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. 

Fraser: Lots of hats. But before we get into the discussion, as always, a reminder to follow Local Zero on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date with the podcast and to let us know your feedback and suggestions. Just search for "Local Zero podcast".

Matt: And wherever you listen, don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

So, Fraser, how the devil are you? 

Fraser: Oh, I'm just enjoying the utter uncontrollable chaos of life, Matt. How are you? 

Matt: I'm fine. Yeah, I mean that, and also kind of quasi-enjoying the, uh, the, the interminable heat and sunshine, um, which makes me sound very grumpy indeed. I am enjoying it. But it's also like, it just feels like we're into kind of heatwave number three or four, and that's me talking from Glasgow, which is not known, not known for its uh, dry spells, particularly.

But I mean, you'll be feeling it. You're on the east coast, right? 

Fraser: Yeah. Yeah. A little bit further north, as well. We actually, yesterday we had a very light, drizzly rain. 

Matt: Lucky you.

Fraser: And I just stood out in it with my arms open like a Hollywood movie scene. Uh, just soaking it all in. 

Matt: Uh, I wish I'd have seen that. That does sound quite fantastic. This has been an exceptionally warm year. I think, you know, for for listeners it's, sometimes it's just, it's important just to pause and take stock about where we're at, how far kind of through this climate change we are, what impacts we're already feeling. Um, you know, we, we don't want to get too bogged down in this, but it is important to talk, when you talk about some of the solutions, um, you need to know why you're doing it.

And we will talk about some success stories in a moment. But one thing I've really noticed, and Fraser, I wonder if you've noticed the same, is that autumn has come early this year. And some telltale signs are those typically associated with autumn: leaves falling from the trees, berries, uh, ripening, uh, you name it.

Uh, just slow, plants just generally slowing down. And I'm a keen and avid gardener, to listeners, you've suffered on having to listen to me talk about greenhouses and veg patches and all the rest. But it does kind of feel like we are at a point that I would normally expect in late September. Where, it feels like we're weeks ahead. But that's from a gardening standpoint.

We don't have too many tractors rolling past here, so I can't speak for the farming community, Fraser, but I think you are a bit closer to them than maybe I am. 

Fraser: Yeah uh, wife and I were talking about this literally just a, a couple of days ago. Scottish listeners will know we have a tradition, the "tattie holidays", which are our two weeks off for the schools in the middle of October, historically, so that you'd send the kids out to the field to help with the, the tattie roguing: with, uh, picking potatoes, for the uninitiated.

Matt: Mm-hmm. 

Fraser: The harvest in the fields around us this year is already almost done.

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Fraser: Which is noticeably about six weeks early from when it would typically start. Uh, so partly, you know, capitalising on the weather - we've had a good balance of heat wave and then bits of rain in the middle, which has sped things up a little. But noticeably, noticeably early.

Compared to not, not just last year or the year before. Decades. Decades of this being the case. 

Matt: Yeah, I, I mean, last year was particularly bad, right? We had a, had a pretty awful summer, certainly up, up this way.

Fraser: Mm-hmm.

Matt: So I guess, yeah, it'd be interesting to know has this been a bumper harvest, but has it just come early? Because actually, you know, you can have a glut of foods and fruits and veg, but, you know, at the wrong time, or at least concentrated and squeezed into a very, very short period. So I do, you know, wonder how impactful this is for, uh, the farming community, but also for consumers. You know, they might be seeing prices fluctuate or availability of things. Maybe it's good news now, but could be some pain in the pipeline there. 

Fraser: Yeah, yeah. You'll notice it down at whatever superstore you go to for your, your weekly shop. Things like, uh, strawberries. You know, a prime example. Already, more or less out of season.

Matt: Yeah.

Fraser: Probably about a month ago, started to, started to turn.

Matt: Yeah.

Fraser: It's these little things that you think, ah, you know, strawberries aren't that good this week. That's, that's unusual. These are the quiet signs. 

Matt: And, and there's the knock-on, right? It's not just humans, but then you know, all the animals that are, are so dependent on having those berries. And I often get, I associate here, seeing berries all the way up to the first frosts.

That's maybe not gonna happen this year. So there's been warnings out by various, uh, conservation groups, scientists saying, "Well, humans, you know, gotta pick up the tab here. What are you gonna do to support, uh, local wildlife during this potential hungry gap?" The signs are there, you know, if we look for them, they're all around.

You know. I mean, the other, the other one I, I'm kind of picking up: our kids, uh, have a bedroom up in the attic. You know, I've gone to great lengths to try and insulate that, not just for the warmth, but to keep the heat off. Triple glazing kind of velux windows and, and all the rest. It's just been unbearably hot up there.

So they've, this is, I think, the first year I can remember where for prolonged period of time, they've slept down on the same floor as us in the, you know, spare room next to us.

Fraser: Just because of the heat? 

Matt: Just 'cause of the heat, you know?

Fraser: Yeah.

Matt: And don't get me wrong, I mean, I lived in London for four years and in a flat with windows on, you know, on one side. That was deeply uncomfortable. That was 10 years ago. God knows, you know, how uncomfortable it has been for some folk in certain housing. And it's been, you know, BBC news has been reporting on this. It's, it's our, our housing stock isn't fit for winter. It's increasingly unfit for summer.

I mean, that, that's probably a bit of a hard-hitting way to start, but you know, positive actions are being taken. And I'd really like to flag one that was noted in the papers just this week. So for most listeners, they will be familiar with low emission zones. Glasgow introduced its own two years ago now, I think. But you know, this was to tackle a myriad of emissions, not just carbon, but also a nitrogen dioxide and all manner of nasties, of particulate matter. But yeah, they've, some of the first sort of results have come in. Nitrogen dioxide levels in the low emission zone, which isn't big compared to London. I mean, Glasgow's not big compared to London, but it's, versus the ULEZ this, you know, kind of super low emission zone, uh, this is a very small part.

If anybody does know Glasgow, it's basically north of the river and east and south of the motorway. Yes: for those who haven't visited Glasgow, we made the interesting decision to build a motorway through the centre... 

Fraser: Straight through the middle.

Matt: Of the city. 

Fraser: Straight through the middle. 

Matt: Uh, yeah. It's, it's, it's an interesting one. Um, it's not a big area. It's maybe, what, Fraser: a two, three miles squared? It's probably a bit bigger than that, but it's, it's not ginormous. So nitrogen dioxide levels significantly lower, decreased by 34%, by a third, since the scheme was implemented. 21%, fifth, reduction in harmful pollutants outside the low emission zone area.

So these kind of knock-on effects and, you know, significant cuts, you know, across the board. So Hope Street, which is, was regularly identified as one of the most polluted streets in all of Christendom, um, i.e. Scotland, um, has, you know, really cleaned up its act. So I want to just say that we can do things.

This is a great example of local action on Local Zero. Um, there are many, many more. So when we feel those, those negative impacts and those effects of climate change biting, just know we, you can be empowered and take, take some guts for the glory. 

Fraser: It is a very nice example. And of course it's, as we're gonna come to later in the episode, it's not just about the reduction in specific particles or, or pollutants.

It's about the benefits that that then knocks onto, isn't it? It's about improved health, uh, reduced levels of respiratory disease or asthma associated with those types of harmful, harmful pollutants. And that in itself then creates savings to local services, to the NHS, improves livelihoods and, and wellbeing.

So thinking about these things in the round and the apparent success of the, the Glasgow case, I think is, is a positive frame, particularly for this moment in time where things might be a little bit more politically contentious than they have been. 

Matt: Yeah, so there's a couple of things to say. I think that the first is a low emissions zone, is a really good example of something that can cut carbon emissions.

And if we're in, in the context of climate action, it is a direct benefit, or there are direct benefits, associated with cutting those emissions, not least mitigating climate change, right? But then there are, you can make one intervention that has impacts beyond carbon emissions. And in this instance it's nitrogen dioxide and particulate matters, PM2.5s, PM10s, uh, that get in the bloodstream and cause all sorts of damage.

Uh, and that can create, you know, whole air quality improvements, loads of benefits. But actually more generally, maybe reducing traffic or shifting that, that demand, as long as there's the support for different types of travel, whether it's public transport, active travel. These can have another myriad of, of benefits, whether it's noise pollution, improved, uh, physical activity, and the health benefits of that.

So, you know, today we are gonna talk about co-benefits, which we've talked at, you know, on other episodes. Um, we're gonna get into Atlas, which is there, about to kind of like capture these and project these going forward. But selling this politically, particularly in the climate now, where parties like Reform, which have a, you know, an anti-net zero agenda alongside the conservative party, which has very much shifted, uh, tack, uh, in the years since, you know, "Hug a husky", Cameron and co.

It's now, now moved. And so for those in that greener camp, which I think it's fair to say, you and I are firmly in, how do we sell the policy beyond carbon emissions and climate? And, and I think if you can't sell it that way, you're gonna struggle.

Fraser: I think that's right. We, we hear a lot about the consensus on climate. The, the big figure recently in The Guardian was 80% of everyone around the world supports action on climate. But invariably the follow-on question is, "What does that then mean for me? What do I have to do? What do I have to spend? What does it cost me? And what is the, the value on the back of it?" So providing some of the evidence behind this and some of the detail behind this not only I think supports sharper policy-making that seeks to enable the co-benefits as well as achieve the core mission, um, but it serves to demonstrate the value and enable people to feel the benefits through the process. 

Matt: And I can't profess to have dug in enough into, um, this framing of sort of eco-populism. Um, we're seeing people running Green Party, um, trying to take a populist stance to, to, to the green agenda.

I think that's maybe to scratch a slightly different itch. But my, my point is that there are those on the other side, maybe where one might normally frame, uh, populist policies, more on the right wing, that have an anti-net zero stance. Eventually, they're still gonna be attracted by policies that do things alongside tackling climate change.

So you can't change the biological, the physical, and the chemical consequences of climate change. And these are gonna impact everybody. Whether you believe in climate change or not, it's gonna happen. And the policies that come around to try and lessen those impacts, now that might be mitigation and/or adaptation.

But they're still gonna be on the table, whether you believe it or not, and you can still sell them without even saying the word "climate".

Fraser: Yeah.

Matt: You know, "Do you like your house burning down because of wildfires? Do you like your harvests failing? Do you like your home being flooded every other year? No? Well, these are the policies".

I actually think one of the, the antidotes to, or, or one of the responses to these kind of anti-net zero agendas is, is to actually remove "climate" from a lot of the, the rhetoric and marketing of these. 

Fraser: Yeah.

Matt: Um, and the reason being is because it, it's just almost cutting out the middleman. You're actually just selling the policy for what it does, not the chain effect that gets you there.

Fraser: Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. Completely agree. And it feels like, in our sector at least, there's a growing consensus on this point, right? That it's, climate is naturally, goes without saying, the core driver of why we need to do this, but it's, it's warmer homes, it's improved health, it's jobs and skills, if that's, if that's the thing that gets you. And the benefit, or let's say the co-benefit of the, the work that we're about to dig into in this session is that it puts tangible data, evidence and, and value on those, on those benefits. So again, works well from, from the policy side. The last quick point I'd like to make is that on the back of the energy crisis, of, of cost of living, which, you know, we're not out of the throes of yet, things are still getting more and more expensive.

At this moment in time, I think it's one thing to support action on climate. Uh, but when you're still struggling at the end of every month, even people who are fairly well-off...

Matt: Mm-hmm.

Fraser: Um, at the end of every month having a look at the bank balance and going, "Jesus, I've got seven pounds to do me until I get paid next week".

Matt: Yeah. 

Fraser: Times is still very, very tough. And I think the, the challenge is so long as that persists, it starts to erode trust in the ability of government to do things that make things better. So when we talk about climate, which is the big programme. And energy in particular for the current UK Government is the big thing they're investing time and money into, delivering these co-benefits, framing these co-benefits when we're designing and pushing policies, but delivering them so people feel and understand the value, is an investment in trust, which is an investment in getting people on-side for the future, to make the other changes that have to happen. So I think this, we're getting a bit philosophical and a little bit political, but I think in the round, this work speaks to a far bigger picture. On that note should we bring in the guests? 

Matt: We should. I, I wanted to say something very briefly about, I totally agree, is that it's about where the benefits land. So if, if the benefits land and, and directly impact, let's say the bottom line of that household or their life, that there's a tangible difference made to their life, that is an easier sell than the indirect benefit that kind of trickles down from some societal or, or economic wide impact.

And I think that's the other bit I would say, um, that, that requires work is that messaging. If you are talking about communal effort for communal benefit but you're actually, you're looking at one person casting a vote, or one person investing or making a different financial decision, you've got to distill the complexity of that communal benefit or co-benefit to the individual, and I think that's really hard to do, actually. Um, so anyway, but yes, bring the guests in 'cause they'll probably got the answer. So.

Andrew: Hi, I am Andrew Sudmant from the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute. 

Sean: Hi, my name is Sean Field. I'm the Director of Policy at the Centre for Energy Ethics at the University of St Andrews. 

Fraser: Andrew, Sean, thank you very much for joining us today for what I'm sure will be a very exciting and, and deep discussion. Before we get kicked off: the language of co-benefits is something that those of us in certain pockets of the sector, uh, throw around quite often. But Andrew, if I can come to you first, what are co-benefits of climate action, and why do they matter? 

Andrew: Thank you for, for starting there just to make sure we're, we're all on the, the same page, more or less. Co-benefits are all the indirect impacts of climate action. So they are the health benefits from cycling and walking, the impacts on the local economy from a, a retrofit scheme, the noise benefits of electric cars. There's a really diverse and broad set of, of these wider impacts. And I, I think the, the, the part to address early on is that there's kind of a funny thing that we do in the climate space, which is that we look at a, a new home or a home that's being retrofit and we think of the benefits to how comfortable it is to live in that home.

Or we, we look at a new bike lane and how that affects urban mobility and we understand those things as the co-benefits or the secondary benefits. Um, which is a bit strange because usually we retrofit a home for comfort and wellbeing, and we build transport infrastructure for, you know, to improve, um, mobility in, in cities.

But from a climate lens, we, we call these "co-benefits" and that's just a way of separating the, these impacts on society, nature, the economy from the impacts on the climate. 

Fraser: And the, the golden follow on question, Sean, I wonder if you want to come in, is, why does this matter? 

Sean: Yeah, no, absolutely. Why does it matter? Well, it matters for a couple of different reasons. Um, in particular, thinking about policy and how we make climate policy, right now, I'm seconded into the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, and a lot of policy decisions are made on the economic case. And so what I mean by that is we stack up what we think the costs are going to be, which are relatively clear.

We know what these technologies cost, we know how much the government wants to spend and what those projections look like into the future. The benefits are much harder to stack up. So we look at the benefits column. We look at CO2 displaced. We look at jobs. We might look at some air quality, but we don't really incorporate all of these other things that we know and say are the benefits of climate action.

And so I think what's a really important piece of this work, um, is trying to put those into the benefits column. Trying to put those into the sort of cost-benefit projections of these major policy decisions. So I think this is the real importance of, of this kind of work, um, in, in its foundation. And then with the Atlas itself to bring that to, uh, a public space to make it more sort of digestible for broader audiences. 

Fraser: That's really interesting and I think a really clear way to communicate it. So it's in essence broadening out when we're, you know, treasury are thinking about signing off on a policy or funding a policy, not just thinking about what will this cost and what carbon will it reduce, but actually what are the, the other parts of value that we might see returned, either economically, socially, or environmentally, in all the different parts of policy and the economy.

Is that a sort of fair assessment, sort of making a more comprehensive policy-making process? 

Sean: Yeah, I believe so. Because if we can't win the argument on the economic case and we stack up the benefits and the costs, if they don't make a good economic case, it's very difficult to push policy through government and through treasury. So I think that's the, like one of the real important pieces of this, of this work.

Matt: Fantastic. So, um, I think you've both made a very eloquent and, and convincing case about the importance of spotlighting these co-benefits. I imagine this is why you've spent so long and so much effort developing this UK Co-Benefits Atlas. Um, so just for listeners who maybe haven't had a play yet, and it will all be in the show notes for people to get stuck right in, uh, what is the Co-Benefits Atlas, and how does it work?

Andrew: So the UK  Co-Benefits Atlas is our way of trying to bring to a wide audience the work we're doing on co-benefits. We've done this, this big analysis that is trying to understand: how will climate action in the UK affect public health? How will it affect mobility in cities? What are these wider impacts that are gonna happen as we retrofit our homes, invest in electric cars, take all kinds of other measures?

And so we have this website and it's, it's trying to present, in different ways to different audiences, the different kinds of impacts that our work has found will come from climate action. We use the CCC's modelling, so the Climate Change Committee gives advice to the UK Government on how to meet its emissions targets, and they develop a pathway to net zero.

And associated with that pathway are a whole bunch of different kinds of interventions. So electric cars, home retrofits, solar panels, and they ascribe those actions to 15 different kinds of households across the UK. So these households represent all the different kinds of people across the country. And what we do is we look at the local level, so the LSOA level or the data zone level.

We look at a geography that has about a thousand people, and we bring together different data sets and we try to say: what kinds of households are in this local area? And by knowing the kinds of households, we have an idea of what kind of climate actions happen in that place. And taking into consideration when we're doing that is also, is this an urban place?

Is this a rural place? And what does that mean about the kinds of climate actions? And then we look at how those climate actions take place through 2050, and we do some analysis to say, how will that affect air quality? How will that affect mobility? How will that affect a whole range of things, which lead to co-benefits?

Matt: Fantastic. And, and having had a play with it and, you know, I've spent a fair bit of time already using it for my own research, it, it presents a sort of interactive toolkit, which has got, you know, I can tailor it to whichever local authority I want in the whole of the UK and it spits out a total sum of co-benefits.

It splits that per capita, it breaks them down by type of co-benefit as well. But it also gives me a profile of the, the local authority to give me a flavour of how that compares to the rest of the UK. Um, so I mean, Sean, you know, if you were trying to pitch this, let, let's imagine, and you probably don't have to imagine, because you probably, you've had it yourself, being seconded over it, uh, uh, down in Westminster at the moment, pitching this to minister X, Y or Z. Um, why is it needed? 

Sean: I think it might be one of the best examples that I've, I've had a chance to collaborate on in terms of knowledge exchange, in terms of bringing what is, like, deep academic research into this, to different audiences in a, in a way that uses technology at, at its best.

Why is it needed? Because I think this is a burning question. Looking at local authorities across the UK, they're all struggling with how do we quantify, monetise co-benefits? How can we understand this in a way that we can integrate it into our policy making? And I think one of the really important things to understand is that, I think everybody will probably appreciate this, just how busy local authorities are, just how busy analysts are, just how busy policy makers are, and to have a tool like this where it's presented to them to say, "These are the co-benefits.

This is how we can understand it. This is how it could be visualised in this accessible platform". I think that really is the benefit and it's really advancing this, this area of research that I know at least several local authorities are really trying to quantify and then integrate into their policymaking process.

Matt: So I think there's some useful context, is there not, for, for listeners, and many of our listeners will know this, many of our listeners may even be at the, at the coalface on this. Um, but certain councils across the UK, we've, we've had Durham County Council, we've also had West Northamptonshire Council, all making noises or even casting votes to step back from their net zero commitments.

Um, and these net zero commitments, well, there's various analysis, which is far better than mine, but we've had the climate emergency, uh, scoreboard presenting this previously. Most UK councils across the piece have their net zero commitments on the back of COP 26, but now this is where the rubber meets the road.

I think as that deadline approaches, there's a greater pressure on delivery, but also the political climate is changing, is it not? 

Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, unfortunately that's not just here in the UK. That's, that's globally. What I would hope is that our work helps to tell a story about the degree to which climate action isn't separate from a, a wide range of other social, economic, environmental challenges we are facing.

So if you are, uh, focused more on the local economy, investing in something like solar panels, setting aside its impact on the climate, is something that will have, uh, an impact on, on jobs, on wellbeing in your local area. If you are investing in the transport network, that's gonna affect local mobility, productivity.

It will also have a climate impact. These challenges are tied together and, and coming from a climate institute, uh, I perhaps unsurprisingly have strong opinions about the extent to which we should be focusing on, on climate change. But from a political perspective, I think what we're trying to, to speak to here is the scientific reality that climate isn't separate from a host of other challenges that we're we're facing.

Sean: If I could just chip in here, I think, you know, totally agree with what Andrew said. I think a really important thing to understand, which I think politicians and policy makers have come to grapple with, is that climate change arguments and public arguments will not be won on net zero alone. Like for what, what is net zero to most people in the public?

They, what they really want to know in terms of, I think, in terms of everyday people is terms of how are these interventions going to benefit them? How are they gonna see changes in their health impact or their wellbeing, or how happy their kids are? And I think that talking about these larger sets of co-benefits has been a missing piece in the climate change policy argument.

'cause I again, think about the discussion about, with your local neighbors, about reductions in CO2 equivalents. What does that really mean to them on, on their day-to-day lives? And I think talking about in terms of co-benefits is a way to ground that discussion in a way that's meaningful for most people.

Fraser: I think, I think a, a very, a very fair reflection from, from both there. And it's something that Matt and I have discussed, that listeners will be familiar with as well, that against a backdrop of prolonged austerity of, of cost of living, of, of energy prices, it's, it's that narrative that, that seems to be the essential narrative for, for moving ahead.

Shifting on slightly then from the, I guess the purpose and the, the use cases of the Atlas. What do you see as the main evidence gaps? I'll direct this to Andrew first. What are the main evidence gaps that the Atlas fills and, and what data does it pull together? 

Andrew: I think what's happening at a, a, a very high level, in the UK but also globally, is that there's a, a shift happening, which is that climate action, historically, has really been led by interventions in the energy sector, which is, is fantastic.

And in, in the UK in particular, the UK is, as a global leader in, in its decarbonisation of, of the grid. But looking to the future, we have these big challenges. We have to decarbonise housing and buildings, we have to decarbonise transport, and we don't yet know how to do those things. So we know how to do those things insofar as we know that heat pumps can replace boilers, we know that, uh, electric cars can replace, uh, diesel and petrol cars, but we don't know about the business models.

We don't know about how these interventions fit into and will affect, uh, our daily lives and our current economy. And so with the work we're doing on co-benefits, we're trying to take a more sort of system-level understanding of how these interventions will be affecting communities and you know, quite specifically what that's doing for local authorities, or what we hope we're able to contribute to, is the development of, of business cases and financial models that can then help to, to realise these climate actions.

Matt: So I have a kind of burning question around this. You know, having built this fantastic sort of interactive toolkit, drawing this data together for all the reasons you've outlined. Have you produced any compelling results and findings from this? I mean, I know a toolkit in and of itself doesn't just spit out findings and results.

It's how you use it and what kind of questions you're trying to answer with it. Um, I feel like I may end up generating some interesting, you know, insights on the basis of East Ayrshire as part of research I'm doing. But have you applied it to any of your own research or, or colleagues who've already applied this?

Like, what has it spat out and, and, and what interesting findings maybe have you captured already? 

Andrew: There are two things I think that have jumped out for me. The first is that there is a huge degree to which climate action is a local story. If you are looking in East Ayrshire, if you're looking in, uh, London, in that case, it's probably not surprising that the, the stories of action, the impacts, the measures we need are different.

Central London is extremely urban context, but looking across the UK, aspects of place hugely show up in the way climate will affect local communities and in the, the opportunities for different kinds of actions. So this, this place story really comes out. I think the second aspect that has really interested and excited me is the extent to which there are health benefits from climate interventions.

I think before doing this work, I had the idea that, uh, the UK being a, a wealthy country has quite, uh, clean air by global standards. That is a sort of fact. But looking at these models, you find that the kind of climate actions that we need to take in the coming decades will add further benefits that are themselves hugely valuable.

And, and what that is showing is that climate action and health interventions for the future, in the UK they're, they're really closely connected and there's this huge complementarity. 

Matt: I mean, just, just using it, I, I, I've found some interesting things that jump out at me. I think, you know how the total, the absolute co-benefit value is different from council to council. I, I know that sounds like an obvious thing to say, but that's important, right? You know, some councils, there's more reward at the end of that, that rainbow if, if they, if they go for it. The per capita really starts to bring it into focus.

So I'm just looking at three areas here: East Ayrshire, uh, County Durham, which is where I have, I have family living and also East Renfrewshire, which is where I'm based. Wildly different per capita values. So when you actually speak about that, that that individual. And I think the final thing that really jumped out at me is that you, your, your Atlas usefully breaks down, quantifies total co-benefit, but also the dis-benefit, like the cost of doing net zero by a particular activity.

So I think in some instances it might be longer travel times because you are doing active travel, i.e. you're busting a gut on a bicycle for an hour instead of being in the car for 20 minutes. But you know, all this stuff, it brings the data, it brings it into focus and it makes you go, "Ah, right, that's cool and I can do something with that".

Andrew: I, I think the points you bring up, Matt, are, are really interesting and, and really important. The, particularly to do with dis-benefits. So. The term is co-benefits, and we're stuck with that terminology a little bit. But what we're showing here is that there are not just benefits from climate actions, there is a more complex story, and that means that the choices we make between electric vehicles and public transport, between retrofitting buildings and putting in larger heat pumps - those decisions matter, and they have consequences that are not just for the homeowner or the business or the local authority, but for the communities that live there as well.

And I think if I could just add one other aspect of this work that surprised me and I think is important to note, is that a lot of these co-benefits emerge quite quickly, and this is important because there's a, a, a narrative that's quite prevalent that's, that you see in the newspapers every week about climate action imposing a lot of these costs, and there's this complicated story about investment today for benefits in the future.

And when will the Treasury start to receive its, its return on investment? And this, this is an important, true story when it comes to the financial cost of action. But when it comes to the co-benefits, these health impacts, these impacts in the local economy, a lot of them emerge almost instantaneously if we can get more people.

Matt: They also grow over time. You know, you've got figures in here that, you feel them quickly, but they grow. It's like the perfect investment kind of scheme. You're gonna get quick returns, but these are gonna grow and grow and grow. Uh, so I mean, I think the way you visualise this is, is it really speaks to that.

Sean: Yeah. If I can just chip in. I wanted to come back to your original question, Matt, in terms of like who's using it and what it's produced, and I think, I've shared it around colleagues in government and local authorities, and I think the unanimous reaction's been, "Ooh, this looks really cool. I've been, this is exactly what we've been needing".

And so I think the benefits of this and what's gonna be produced, I think, 'cause we, we really just launched it, I think we're yet to see those and I, I think hopefully it will be really impactful. And I just wanna add that, you know, the real geniuses behind this work are Andrew and our other colleague, Ben Bach.

Fraser: Excellent to give credit where it's due. Another question I had on the back of Matt's question on findings, insights, interesting things that have come out, and it speaks to your point, Andrew, around how surprising the scale of some of the health impacts were. I'm interested in the distributional aspect of that across different social, economic demographic groups.

In theory, big health impacts should be, I guess, a greater benefit to, to lower income, those experiencing deprivation who tend to experience adverse health impacts disproportionately. Do you have any insights that have come out of the Atlas work on this distributional side? 

Andrew: Yeah, that's a, that's a great question and something we're continuing to dig into. There are a, a couple of, of early findings to do with the distribution of benefits. One finding is that there are relatively larger per capita benefits, speaking very generally, in more rural contexts. And that was quite a, a surprising finding for us because if you think of where, uh, the opportunity for walking and cycling is, for example, with those being two climate-related interventions that generate big health impacts, you immediately think of, of urban contexts.

But what we discovered in our work is that, built into the transport interventions, where there's a lot of opportunity for expanding bus networks, is in kind of suburban and semi-rural areas, and if you build public transport in those areas, it's very infrequent that the bus stops and starts just where somebody wants to get on and get off.

And so if you build bus networks and they are available to people and have the frequency that they need to rely on, they actually end up walking and cycling more as well. And this can be relatively modest amounts, but this can amount to, uh, really meaningful health benefits over millions of people and decades of time.

So one finding is these opportunity for health benefits that's modestly larger in, uh, relatively more rural areas.

Matt: So, I think maybe before we, we move on to who this is useful to, and this might be something that, you know, any good academic will just lump this into, "Well, that's what we'd like to do next if somebody will give us some money to do it" category, the, uh, you know, seeing those headline figures of, of the value, total value in the local authority of these co-benefits and the per capita, have you any sense about how these compare with the value of the, the direct climate benefits, uh, and the per capita?

Because I, I, I, I imagine at some point that, you know, and Sean, as I say, you're, you're seconded to the government at the moment, and you'll be, various connections across departments and local authorities, they'll be asking, "Okay, that's the co-benefits piece, but the climate piece?" Has somebody already done that bit? 'Cause then actually, if you marry the two together, you've got a total package of value and you can then pitch, or at least understand from a policy standpoint, is this going to save us money or cost us money?

Sean: Yeah. Thinking about this, I think that's a good question, Matt. And I think inside, and I'll put it on the policy hat at the moment, policy analysis hat. I think within government, the climate story is relatively well understood, even if the calculations are relatively limited, um, in terms of what we understand and how, and how policy makers add that up in terms of a cost-benefit analysis, is almost purely based on CO2 equivalents displaced. Now the thing is, is that, and as you know, is the grid decarbonises, uh, the electricity grid, those benefits decrease over time. And I think this is actually an opportunity for the co-benefits to come in to say, you know, "If, if the climate argument is kind of decreasing over time, if we're decarbonising the electricity grid, perhaps there's a bigger role for these co-benefits in our economic analyses. Again, thinking that these economic analyses, these cases, are what policy decisions turn on, whether we implement a particular policy programme or not.

I think one of the challenges, while the Atlas is out there and is demonstrating what these benefits look like, a very real challenge for policy makers is now integrating this into their analyses in a way that's gonna be palatable to treasury. That is a major challenge, still, in terms of taking these, integrating them into the analysis in a way that is then credible within government. And I think maybe that's, maybe not far away. But we're not there yet. 

Matt: Okay. Sean, thank you. Because I, I think this then begs the question like, who's gonna use this? Bits of my brain are, like, screaming "This is, this is for local authorities and councillors or, or actually, maybe this is more for combined authorities. Maybe it's devolved administrations. Actually, no, this is Whitehall and Westminster". Maybe it's all of the above, but are you already seeing certain stakeholders using this? Uh, And I know it's early days, so this might be you're hoping that they use it or people are already picking this up and running with it.

Andrew: So it's local authorities who've really come to us, after we released the Atlas, to say that this is something that could be helpful. And that is where we really want to focus our, our attention. We, we now have the Atlas website and it has a lot of information, but we're under no illusions that you can just sort of drop, uh, a website on people in local government who are al, already extremely busy, who are facing a lot of, a lot of challenges.

And so what we're doing is we're, we're working with a, a, a few different local authorities to understand where the co-benefits of climate action fit into the development of business cases for, for climate actions. And where I think there's particular potential is around developing blended finance models.

Now, I'm an economist, so when I speak about finance, I, I step in it quite frequently, but there are, uh, a lot of places where we're investing in programmes to provide warmer homes for people who are in need, for example, and we're doing that separately from programmes that are retrofitting homes to fight climate change.

And there's this opportunity to say, well, we have two programmes here - and that's an example I just made up - that has very similar interventions. Let's bring this together and let's find where there are opportunities to get two birds with one stone. 

Matt: Yeah. So, so that's, that, that's great to hear, uh, the local authorities are after this. I, I think, you know, and some of our listeners will be working at local authorities or supporting local authorities. Large number of our listeners will, maybe, not be affiliated in any sense, do something entirely different. Are looking at this Atlas and asking themselves a question: "How could I use this to inform decisions either I make as an individual, uh, or decisions I make as part of my local community?" So, I don't know, Sean, Andrew, who wants to, to grab this, but is your intention with this Atlas that it could be used at the individual or community level as well? 

Andrew: We love to hear that people are using this in all kinds of ways that, that, that we didn't think about. So we're really eager for people to, to look at this, to give us feedback, and I think that there, at the highest level is, is kind of a simple thing that we hope our work can do, which is to help to, to change some of the, the narratives we have about climate change. Climate change is not separate from a host of other challenges we face in different communities across the UK. Each community is facing its own set of challenges, but there are key areas around economic development, around public health, around the economy.

Other environmental challenges, so our work, to a small degree, helps to address that misconception. Our work also hopefully helps to, in some small way, address an idea that climate action is some sort of obviously costly thing. If we're retrofitting homes, if we're improving transport networks, these are things we need to do to make our communities more cohesive, to make them stronger, to improve our economies.

And these are things that are, are connected to the the need to address climate change. So people taking this data, using it to, to showcase those kind of, of stories and, and other stories that, that we haven't thought of are, uh, something that we hugely support and are very grateful for. 

Matt: Yeah. And just to generally just inform citizens and, you know, is a really important part of that. Sean, did you want to, to add? 

Sean: Yeah, if I can come in real quick. You know, thinking about the co-benefits discussion, which I know has been going on for a very long time in academia and has to some degree been going in, on in some policy circles, but not everywhere. And I think one of the major benefits of this Atlas is to convince audiences, whether it be policy makers or publics or academics, that co-benefits are actually worth paying attention to.

And I'm thinking here about very, like, hard-nosed policy makers and economists that are used to using particular frameworks to assessing what sort of public interventions in climate change should happen, and I think this is a really helpful tool for putting some numbers and a visualisation on what is often a very nebulous social benefits that are often talked about and alluded to, and I think that this is a really powerful tool for drawing attention to what exactly do we mean when we say co-benefits or social benefits, and what might they look like.

Fraser: I think that's, that's a fascinating point. And, and Sean, you and I have, have discussed in the past this, the idea of social value from, for instance, community-owned energy projects or local energy, energy systems. I guess we've talked a little bit about could this be scaled both down and up. Moving forward, what would you like to do next with the Atlas? We want to influence policy. We want to influence public. How might you improve it, expand it, or, or deepen the work you're doing with it? 

Andrew: Yeah, so there are a couple of things we want to do with the Atlas. The first is we are looking to work with local authorities to figure out how, specifically, is this data useful for you?

We have all this information, but there's a complex process that takes place to use public money for, uh, local authority priorities. There's a whole set of ways of working that we are just not experts in. So we wanna work with local governments to figure out how we can support what they're doing. The second programme we're looking at is to understand how adaptation is part of this story.

Right now, the Atlas is mitigation focused, so mitigation is reducing emissions. Adaptation is responding to how the climate is gonna change in the future. These things have to go hand in hand, and that's a big limitation of our, our work right now. 

Matt: Well, fascinating. And Andrew, Sean, well done. Uh, it's a fantastic piece of work and we look forward to hearing more, hopefully on a future episode about how people have used it and how it's helped them.

Fraser: Thanks for listening to this episode of Local Zero. If you enjoy the podcast, as ever, please do share with a friend or colleague. Hit the "share" button now and send them a link to this episode. 

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