Creative Climate Cities

World Cities Culture Forum

Julie’s Bicycle is excited to be working once again with World Cities Culture Forum (WCCF), a group of X cities, who are already delivering Creative Climate Action. A strategic report on this work will be launched at the World Cities Culture Forum in November in Barcelona.

JB worked with the World Cities Culture Forum (WCCF) and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group to develop a Handbook for City Leaders and a Cities Support Programme focused on integrating environmental sustainability into cultural policy.

The Handbook showcases global case studies from WCCF cities – from embedding climate ambition in arts funding to launching cultural campaigns for environmental engagement. The support programme enabled cultural and environmental departments in participating cities to assess their current work, identify gaps, and create shared roadmaps for action. Building on this, 14 cities were then spotlighted in a case study report highlighting creative climate initiatives across four thematic areas: policy and strategy; resource and support; partnerships and innovation; and creative programmes and campaigns.

This work reinforced culture as a core driver of resilient, future-ready cities and continues to shape municipal strategies around the world.

ROCK Project: Cultural heritage as a driver of sustainable regeneration

ROCK (Regeneration and Optimisation of Cultural heritage in creative and Knowledge cities) was a Horizon 2020 project involving 32 partners across 13 countries. Julie’s Bicycle contributed policy expertise at the intersection of cultural heritage and environmental sustainability.

We collaborated with three ‘replicator cities’ — Bologna, Lisbon and Skopje — helping them embed green thinking into heritage-led regeneration. This was informed by practices from seven ‘role model’ cities: Athens, Cluj-Napoca, Eindhoven, Liverpool, Turin, Vilnius and others.

Outcomes included:

• Tailored green cultural strategies for historic centres
  
• The ROCK Roadmap to Green Culture – a framework for embedding climate action across internal governance and sector engagement
  
• Sustainable events guidance co-developed with Eurocities

C-Change: From local practice to European collaboration

C-Change began with the Manchester Arts Sustainability Team (MAST) and evolved into a European programme connecting cities to embed environmental action into cultural life.

Julie’s Bicycle supported six cities – Manchester, Mantova, Águeda, Wrocław, Šibenik and Gelsenkirchen – to align cultural and environmental strategies, deliver new training programmes, and activate arts organisations around climate goals.

Key impacts included:

• Training over 160 cultural professionals with 12 new city-based trainers
• Launching city-wide climate initiatives led by the cultural sector
• Securing new climate funding for cultural action
• Hosting more than 20 public engagement festivals, exhibitions, and events

C-Change has shown how creative collaboration, when framed by policy and supported with funding and skills, can lead to measurable progress on climate action in cities.

Spotlight: Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds

These three UK cities are at the forefront of connecting cultural action with local climate goals — each supported by Julie’s Bicycle through bespoke programmes and resources:

• Manchester: A pioneer since 2011, the Zero Carbon Culture Guide and Sustainable Events Guides were co-developed with Manchester City Council. These are now used as national best practice to support event organisers, venues and cultural leaders in reducing emissions.
  
• Liverpool: Shift in Liverpool unites cultural organisations across the city region to reduce carbon, embed sustainability, and advocate collectively for change.
  
• Leeds: The SAIL initiative mirrors the Liverpool model – helping the city’s creative community work together toward shared environmental goals.

Each city is piloting place-based collaboration between arts, government and civil society – showing the potential for culture to lead locally and ripple globally.