Green Recovery Dialogues
In Autumn of 2020, Glasgow City Council partnered with the University of Glasgow’s Centre for
Sustainable Solutions along with Policy Scotland to deliver a series of three Green Recovery
Dialogues (GRDs). The primary aim of these dialogues was to ensure a just and sustainable
recovery from the extremely challenging period of the COVID-19 pandemic, in a context of
increasing awareness of the relationship between human and planetary wellbeing. The University
of Glasgow and Glasgow City Council working together on this agenda highlights a significant
partnership where the knowledge and research ability of the University is combined with the
Council’s capacity to implement change.
The financial difficulties experienced throughout the COVID pandemic meant that a key priority
has revolved around economic recovery and subsequent growth. The revival of the Scottish
economy poses an opportunity to draw on lessons learnt from the 2008 financial crisis, where
recovery packages were offered. However, the COVID crisis has had structurally different impacts
on the supply and demand side. The widely discussed transition to net-zero emissions has been
at the forefront of global political discourse since the Paris Agreement in 2015, and although
COVID-19 brought a wealth of negative consequences, it also saw measures taken that helped to
decrease greenhouse gas emissions and presents an opportunity to accelerate the transition to
net-zero emissions. The aim of the dialogues was to assist in enabling better-informed partnership
working for the City’s and the University’s carbon neutrality targets of 2030.