How building community resilience to climate change benefits us all

Community organisations are often at the heart of communities – they understand local challenges and offer a wide range of advice and support to many. As extreme weather becomes more common, these organisations are well-placed to provide guidance on prevention and what to do if an event occurs while considering the needs and capabilities of the wider community. This builds community resilience, which is how a community responds to and adapts to the impacts of climate change in their area.

The Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) has been working with Bristol Climate & Nature Partnership to develop bespoke guides for community organisations to understand and plan for extreme weather events. In this blog, Leah Bromley and Robin Bell from the Local and Community Empowerment team at CSE explain why this work is so valuable.

It’s been a hot, dry summer of record-breaking weather. From school closures and train disruptions to broken supermarket fridges, we’re seeing and feeling the impact of hotter weather in our daily lives. As a society, we’re learning how to adapt to events like extreme heat, but how can we collectively increase our resilience while supporting people most affected by climate impacts?

At the Centre for Sustainable Energy our work with local communities brings us closer to these impacts. We’ve been working with community organisations in the west of England to develop Climate Resilience Guides and we think community level planning and action matters more than ever.

Why community level action matters

Extreme summer heat and wetter winters are becoming more common with climate change, with alarming stats published in the Met Office’s State of the UK Climate annual report. But research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tells us that it’s not just the scale of a heatwave or flood that can determine how much people are harmed, but how resilient a community is. Resilience is about people’s capacity and ability to anticipate and cope with shocks (like a heatwave or flood) and recover from their impacts.

This is important for community organisations, because their planning, support and action can make a big difference. Hillfields Park Community Centre in Bristol opened its doors to local people during extreme heat in June 2026. With schools and other public spaces like cafes and gyms shut, their free, air-conditioned Cool Play sessions offered a welcoming space. More than 500 local people visited across two days. Accessing space like this is particularly important for people whose health and wellbeing may be more impacted by heat such as young children, older people, and those with physical and mental health challenges. During May and June this year, more than 2,700 people have died from heat-related causes. It’s estimated that 42% died from the extra heat caused by human-induced warming. Community spaces like Hillfields provide important respite from heat, enabling people to reduce the risk to their health.

Embedding community resilience into planning

We’re developing Climate Resilience Guides – a new approach to supporting community organisations with embedding resilience as part of Bristol Climate & Nature Partnership’s Community Climate & Nature Action Project, funded by the National Lottery. The guide brings together local heat and flood risk statistics with practical resources for households and communities to prepare and adapt to extreme weather events such as heatwaves, flooding, drought and wildfires.

Included are local maps highlighting an area’s vulnerability to heatwaves and floods, using data commissioned by the Climate Change Committee. This helps local organisations understand where there is most vulnerability in their community, and therefore where to target engagement or action planning efforts. This is important because people have different abilities to respond to climate risks, with some communities disproportionately affected depending on factors like income, housing, health and where they live.

Examples from CSE’s own literature review and risk factor analysis include that older people may have physical health challenges which mean they’re more affected by high temperatures, while reduced mobility and lower digital capability may make it harder to access support. Another example is that Disabled people may have additional needs during evacuation plans for a flood or wildfire.

How community organisations are uniquely placed to enable resilience

At a national level, the role of community action and resilience has been reiterated in recent reports. The Government Office for Science report ‘Putting people at the centre of UK climate adaptation and resilience’ reflects on the importance of involving people with place-based knowledge and expertise when making climate action plans and projects. Similarly, A Well Adapted UK emphasises the importance of targeted and tailored support for people with more vulnerability, with community-based planning enabling people to be more informed and prepared for climate risks.

In our work, we’ve seen how community organisations are trusted and embedded in their local area. We think they can play a crucial role in ensuring climate and nature action plans are inclusive and shared widely, giving everyone the best chance to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate.

Our Climate Resilience Guide supports community organisations to embed resilience planning in their work. Find out more in our example guide, developed through the Community Climate and Nature Action Project. Please note this is a new approach, and the guide should be viewed as a prototype. It’s being tested and refined with community partners throughout phase three of the project.

Read an example Climate Resilience Guide

Find out more about the Community Climate & Nature Action Project

On 6 October the Partnership are bringing together businesses, communities and decision-makers to explore what our region’s climate will look like in the near and longer term, and what we can do about it together. We’d love you to be part of that conversation. Book your place.