Interactive stakeholder meeting held by LUNZ Wales National Team in partnership with AICCF

On 5th June 2024, the LUNZ Wales National Team in partnership with the Agricultural Industry Climate Change Forum (AICCF) held a stakeholder workshop at the Royal Welsh Showground. This brought together voices from 32 organisations across a range of industries (agriculture, environment, woodland, supply chain, water and policy) to discuss the evidence needs and feasible pathways for net zero in Wales. Titled ‘What do we know?; What do we not know?; and options for net zero, nature and people in Wales’, participants were invited to engage in a 1 day active workshop. where the focus was on our current evidence for net zero pathways in Wales.

The morning session divided people into break-out groups made up of different organisations and industries to discuss the evidence for a list of net zero actions based on the LULUCF and Agricultural GHG inventories. Their task was to highlight where the evidence gaps lie and to create clarity over what evidence is accepted and known so we might move to build on from that foundation and not revisit well trodden ground.

This session summarised that there is generally good evidence for most net zero actions. Yet, it was noted by many that the unknown was why this evidence has not translated into behavioural change, or indeed what is needed to aid this behavioural change. Additionally, multiple groups discussed the evidence for the knock-on impacts (i.e. offshoring carbon), and a common theme in response to discussion was ‘It depends’, highlighting the nuance involved with many of these actions, with sub-categories and ways of implementing being key to the evidence and known impact they would have. A simple headline toolkit is not sufficient to achieve positive impact for net zero, nature and people. This is a complex challenge.

The afternoon session used the same inventory lists to discuss and highlight agreeable ‘low-hanging fruit’, plausible but more challenging options and then future options that show good promise for Wales to take forward with a framework for a bottom-up approach to net zero. This discussion was framed with a presentation of responses from 15 stakeholders to a pre-workshop survey of perceptions of net zero options for Wales. Responses touched on the complexity and different ways people approach and view net zero, highlighting the importance of workshops like this to bring these different voices together to find common ground and work through differences and knowledge gaps.

The workshop was very well received with calls for a series of follow-on meetings with similar groups of stakeholders to move this approach forward and make the most of the LUNZ Hub. Hopefully the next such meeting will take place in October 2024 to support the improvement of the wider knowledge base for key issues and to explore the wider social and economic barriers that are currently preventing uptake of actions.