When neighbourhood care becomes civic infrastructure Context The fifth letter of Week 3 of One Letter a Day turns to Rainbow Junktion, the pay-as-you-feel community café and food-share based at All Hallows Church in Leeds. Though its mission is rooted in tackling food poverty and social exclusion rather than climate
Given the immense reach of the culture sector and our innate ability for story telling, we have an obligation to help everyone imagine a more sustainable future. However, the only way we can do that meaningfully is by first building trust and being sustainable ourselves
Keeping civic and institutional attention on the transition Date: 29 October 2025 Recipient: Imagine Leeds — City hub of Climate Action Leeds Context The third letter of Week 3 of One Letter a Day turns to Imagine Leeds, the city-centre hub that links neighbourhood action with institutional change. Since its creation
Neighbourhood action as everyday resilience: Building local futures from the ground up Date: 28 October 2025 Recipient: Climate Action Armley — part of Climate Action Leeds, supported by New Wortley Community Centre Context The second letter of Week 3 of One Letter a Day continues the focus on neighbourhood-scale action. Climate
Retrofitting resilience, one street at a time Date: 27 October 2025 Recipient: Zero Carbon Headingley — Headingley Development Trust Context Week 3 of One Letter a Day turns from science to practice — from institutional reflection to the communities that make resilience visible. Zero Carbon Headingley is one Leeds climate active neighbourhood
From neighbourhood action to creative collaboration, exploring how Leeds’ communities turn climate concern into collective strength.
We can no longer bargain with the carbon budget; we can only decide how we respond to its reality. That response is now less about technology than about truthfulness.
From your perspective, what changes to policy and governance are most urgent if we are to adapt to that reality — to build infrastructure and institutions capable of protecting people and livelihoods in a more volatile world?
We are presented with choices, but these often feel narrowly defined, or sometimes even coercive. To create spaces to imagine, people need to be able address the assumptions that shaped these initial options.
Post-growth welfare and the politics of “enough” Date: 23 October 2025 Recipient: Professor Milena Büchs, Professor of Sustainable Welfare — Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds Context As Week 2 of One Letter a Day approaches its close, the conversation turns to the structural roots of sustainability. Professor Milena Büchs has
Ten letters in, the pattern is visible: action and reflection feeding one another; words becoming small instruments of accountability; persistence replacing despair; words of hope, change in the making.
This is not a simple binary between top-down and bottom-up approaches. What’s missing is the middle layer between the two, which I call civic thickness. These organisations harness grassroots innovation from below and connect it with top-down processes, governance and finance.