Assembling the impossible: how games can support action on net zero

Increasingly, games are used by researchers to engage people with subjects that they may otherwise find intangible, abstract, or remote. Acting on climate change is widely regarded to be one such subject. In this paper we introduce a new game-based workshop that blends art, performance and humour within scenario-based role-play to facilitate understanding of how local organisations might assemble the governance structures and resources capable of navigating local decarbonisation pathways. The game-based workshop builds on a narrative review of place-based governance of net zero, two embedded case studies examining interactions between national and local policymaking in England, and ten practitioner/expert interviews, which resulted in identifying seven challenges of organising to deliver transformative change. Developing this game approach through an iterative co-creation process in collaboration with artists facilitates the playful exploration of the challenges local actors face, and ways in which existing multilayered and fragmented governance can be negotiated. Our experience suggests this game approach is both a research tool and a means of creating an open, collaborative space for practitioners, policymakers, and academics which encourages participants to mobilise diverse knowledges, to sequence actions and resources for local action, and to develop local strategy on net zero.