Glasgow aims to become the UK’s first carbon-neutral city by 2030, but it lacks a detailed, coordinated plan to get there. Cities worldwide are pledging carbon neutrality without the strategies or coordination needed to deliver rapid, meaningful change. Glasgow is a test case: it has the most ambitious target in the UK, deep social and environmental inequalities that must benefit from any solution, and will host the COP26 climate summit in 2021. The GALLANT project treats the entire city as a living laboratory, bringing together natural scientists, social scientists, local government, and communities to solve five concrete environmental problems at once. If successful, the project will transform how cities plan and govern themselves. It will turn polluted vacant land into carbon-absorbing green spaces, restore river edges as functional floodplains and public parks, connect fragmented habitats with nature-based solutions, improve air quality by making active travel safer and more inclusive, and use green and blue spaces as smart local energy systems to bring heat to deprived neighbourhoods. The framework—a whole-systems approach that puts data at the heart of decision-making—is designed to be replicable in other cities, creating scalable, rapid change.
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GALLANT's vision is to develop whole-systems solutions for a just and sustainable transition delivered at the city scale. Corporate and political leaders are committing to carbon neutrality locally and globally, often without detailed strategies in place or coordination. This will likely lead to delays and suboptimal outcomes when we need rapid, impactful transformation. Cities are increasingly seen as drivers of a carbon neutral future (e.g., Carbon Neutral City Alliance) because through shared policy and knowledge exchange it is possible for successful action in one city to be adopted by others, creating scalable and rapid change. Glasgow is a model city to lead innovation because it has the UK's most ambitious carbon neutrality target of 2030; has challenging social and environmental inequities that will need to co-benefit from proposed solutions; and is due to host COP26 in 2021. Making meaningful, lasting change requires a commitment to the environment that embeds sustainability across major policy decisions and empowers communities as stewards of their local places. In GALLANT, we seek to work with local partners and communities to transform the city into a thriving place for people and nature. Our overarching goal is to implement a systems-based science approach to solve five environmental problems that will accelerate Glasgow's ability to adapt to and manage climate change. The approach integrates natural science and social science disciplines, putting data at the heart of decision-making. We will create the Glasgow Living Lab, delivering a framework that will be readily deployable to solve emerging environmental problems that show how academic, public and private sectors can act together to make progress. The five environmental solutions that we have prioritised with Glasgow City Council are: 1. Working to transform urban river-edge land-use governance to create functional floodplains and new accessible green spaces for community use. 2. Working to deliver biodiversity benefits from green infrastructure throughout Glasgow, restoring and connecting habitats using nature-based solutions, and matching ecosystem service demand with provision. 3. Working to turn vacant, derelict, and polluted land into spaces for carbon sequestration and pollution remediation that can be returned to communities in line with local needs. 4. Working to make the most of current and planned infrastructure by understanding community perceptions of active and safe travel, use these to increase inclusive urban active travel and mobility improving air quality and reducing CO2 emissions . 5. Working to maximise the value of Glasgow green-blue-grey spaces as a Smart Local Energy System that bring heat to some of the most deprived areas of Glasgow.
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