Putting people at the heart of climate action

“We believe that climate action should happen *with people, not to people**, and deliver benefits such as cleaner air, warmer homes, lower bills and fairer communities. At CAST we research how to make this happen.”*

– Prof Lorraine Whitmarsh MBE, Director of CAST

Work with us

We work with policymakers, businesses, civil sector organisations and communicators to test new ways of engaging with a range of people and groups on climate issues. We offer bespoke research insights, collaborative research projects, co-hosted webinars, tailored expert advice, co-designed tools, event speakers, and more. Discover how we can support you.

Our five key messages

Learn more about our five key messages

Read our key messages report

Developing a tool to accelerate climate action at the city scale

CAST has developed a 'Carbon and Co-benefits Decision Support Tool’ in collaboration with Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. This tool enables decisions on policies and initiatives to be assessed on various sustainability criteria, including their contribution to climate change and their impact on things like nature, equality and health. The tool is now fully integrated into GMCA’s decision-making process and has also been adopted by the Greater London Authority and Flintshire County Council. An online version is freely available to all local authorities.

Access the tool Read the full case study
Influencing national climate policy

CAST has contributed to and advised on several UK government policy reports, including the Skidmore Review of Net Zero, the Climate Change Committee’s 7th Carbon Budget and Wales’ report on Enabling the Transition to Net Zero by 2035. In September 2025, CAST Director Lorraine Whitmarsh gave expert evidence in the House of Commons to support Parliament’s inquiry into ‘how to build support for the energy transition’.

Read more about our work with policymakers
Training and educating climate professionals

CAST delivers training sessions and speaking engagements on a range of topics related to climate action. We have trained policy officials and practitioners on behaviour change, public engagement and communications. We have helped climate organisations better engage with MPs. And we’ve raised awareness among researchers about the need for greater diversity in climate work.

View our resources
Tracking public attitudes to climate change

CAST’s annual global survey measures public perceptions of climate change, low-carbon behaviour, climate policy, trust and responsibility. The results – based on data from over 15,500 (adult) participants from the UK, Brazil, China and Sweden – are freely available in the CAST Data Portal. You can explore perceptions over time, by socio-demographic variables (e.g. age, income, political orientation) and by country.

Explore our results in the Data Portal

Research Themes

Our research programme is structured around four Themes that reflect the ingredients necessary to achieve transformational change.

Theme 4: Engaging - How can transformation be embedded within society?

CAST Theme 4: Engaging is all about making sure organisations, policymakers and practitioners get the insights they need to deliver people-focused climate solutions. We focus less on data collection and more on synthesising CAST’s research and sharing it with relevant stakeholders. We also work to build CAST’s varied network of partners and collaborators, and support CAST researchers to complete policy/business secondments and sit on advisory committees and boards.

Theme 3: Trialling - How can we accelerate transformations?

In CAST Theme 3: Trialling, researchers work with a range of partners to develop, test and evaluate transformative interventions across a range of contexts and scales. We’re interested in people doing things differently – from live music venues trying to decarbonise concerts to football clubs helping their fans be more sustainable. We apply a ‘learning by doing’ methodology and support change in a collaborative, ongoing and iterative way.

Theme 2: Learning - How and why have transformations occurred?

In CAST Theme 2: Learning, we are continuing to explore historic experiences of and new opportunities for transformational change, as we did in our first five years of research. We focus on understanding the process of change – what drives it and what holds it back – using insights from multiple disciplines. Theme 2’s work complements the present - and future-oriented work of Theme 1 and provides the foundations for the experimental and action-oriented work of Themes 3 and 4

Theme 1: Visioning - What could low-carbon transformed futures look like?

In CAST Theme 1: Visioning, we are examining feasible and desirable visions for low-carbon futures – in other words, we ask: ‘what could sustainable transformed societies look like?’. We’re diving deeper into public preferences for behaviours that might be part of low-carbon futures, such as active travel and reduced meat consumption, and how these vary within the UK and across other countries. We make use of the data CAST produced in Phase 1, including interactive visioning workshops, policy roundtables and public perceptions surveys. We also analyse data from external sources, as well as collecting new survey data.

Career opportunities

CAST PhD studentship – University of Bath (UK students only)

Understanding consumer attitudes to lead pipe replacement

Primary supervisor: includes Prof Lorraine Whitmarsh, CAST Director & Theme 4 Co-lead & Prof Julie Barnett
Job type: Full-time
Location: University of Bath
Deadline: Thursday, October 22, 2026

Topic overview:

This PhD aims to address this significant societal challenge by exploring the drivers of and barriers to lead pipe replacement by consumers. The outcome of the PhD will be the development of practical, evidence-based tools aimed at increasing uptake of replacement across customer groups.

The studentship is funded by UKWIR, the leading independent research organisation for the UK and Irish water sector. The student will work closely with Wessex Water and other water companies to ensure the research has real-world impact in tackling this major environmental health risk.

Find out more and apply

Senior Research Associate in Climate Change Policy, People and Action – University of East Anglia

Job type: Full-time, Fixed Term until 31 March 2030
Location: University of East Anglia, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Deadline: Monday, 26 October 2026

Role overview:

You will conduct research on what motivates governments and people to address the grand societal challenge of mitigating and adapting adequately to climate change, and work with project partners to generate societal impact outside of academia.

You will collaborate closely with the Centre for Climate Change Research and Social Transformations (CAST), which is a major ESRC investment founded in 2019. The Universities of Bath, East Anglia and Manchester are its main partners, together with the charity Climate Outreach.

Find out more and apply

Latest News

For the latest CAST news including centre announcements, climate news commentary, research findings and guest blog posts, read from our selection of blog posts below.