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5 key messages from five years of CAST research: New report

5 key messages from five years of CAST research: New report

Read our latest CAST report: 'Catalysts of Change: People at the Heart of Climate Transformations', and watch our animation summarising 5 key messages from five years of CAST social science research on climate change and how we can achieve the social changes needed to tackle climate change.

Our Vision

The Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST) is a global hub for understanding the systemic and society-wide transformations that are required to address climate change. At the core of our work is a fundamental question of enormous social significance: how can we as a society live differently - and better - in ways that meet the urgent need for rapid and far-reaching emission reductions?

People at the heart of transformations

We want to understand how people can participate in transformation in their multiple roles as citizens, consumers, parents, employees, business leaders, policy-makers. This means recognising that people can act both directly to reduce emissions – like driving less – but equally have the ability to shape wider structural change – like changing organisational practices and shaping policies.

A focus on values and co-benefits

We set out to align the positive outcomes of action on climate change with those in other domains like health and wellbeing. CAST seeks to identify low-carbon futures and actions that also provide other co-benefits - like cleaner air, lower bills, more resilient or fairer communities.

"We want to work closely with people and organisations to achieve positive low-carbon futures — transforming the way we live our lives, and reconfiguring organisations and cities."

Prof. Lorraine Whitmarsh MBE, CAST Director

Explore our four areas of focus

Find out why we are focusing on four key areas: Diet, Mobility, Material Consumption and Thermal Comfort.

Our resources include policy briefings, working papers, academic articles, reports and other resources exploring the science of climate action.

We believe effective change requires working with people to understand their values and needs.

News from CAST

Our latest report

CAST Phase 2 announcement: What we plan to achieve in the next five years

CAST has received a further five years of funding from the ESRC for Phase 2 of our research. We will be focused on tackling hard-to-change behaviours – aka ‘sticky issues’ like flying and eating meat – in order to accelerate social transformations to net zero.

4 ways social science can help us reach Net Zero, according to the CCC’s 2024 Progress Report

We explore four insights from the CCC’s 2024 Progress Report that highlight the necessity of social science in the pursuit of Net Zero.

Why better insights on ethnicity are important for climate communication

Photo Credit: The Active Well-Being Society (formerly Big Birmingham Bikes) / Ashden (Words by Climate Barometer team, originally posted on the Climate Barometer blog) It’s well established that the UK climate sector is very unrepresentative in terms of ethnic diversity – but climate opinion data is too often under-representative too….

5 key messages from five years of CAST research: Why and how to put people at the heart of climate action

A new CAST report highlights the importance of putting people at the heart of climate change action and reveals how policymakers and practitioners can better engage people with climate initiatives.