Climate Futures for Ecological Citizen(s)
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Preferable, contextual and sustainable… climate futures for Ecological Citizen(s).
Ecological Citizens, a collaborative research initiative between Royal College of Art, York University, and Wrexham University aims to fund a variety of projects that can help our citizens become more eco-savvy and contribute to slowing climate change. Representing Wrexham University is Alec Shepley, Professor of Arts in Society and Daniel Knox, Lecturer in Product Design.
Ecological citizens is community-led work that intends to create, navigate, and signpost to preferable sustainable futures built around ecological citizenship.
The team hosted an online workshop to explore ecological citizenship and climate futures with a group of participants representing various organisations that had an interest and expertise in the area, e.g., Wildlife Trusts, Forestry England, Open Data Institute.
Attendees split in smaller groups of relevant interests and discussed ‘a day in the life’ of an ecological citizen and what might be involved from systems and individual actions. Narratives were eventually critiqued as ‘preferable futures’ and mapped to viable actions within the ecological citizens framework, which were represented visually by the team’s illustrator.
Several important themes were developed from the online workshop:
- Ecological Citizen accreditation.
- Material passports.
- Digital economies.
- Empowered citizens.
- Resource transparency.
- Community empowerment.
- De-Centred Human(s).
- Environmental 'Custodians’.
The method highlighted the value of co-creating and shaping research directions and solutions. The narrative scenarios developed are signposts to preferable futures that could be possible through ecological citizenship.