From Evidence to Action: How We Build a Climate-ready Highland

In the first blog of our series on The Highland Climate Change Risk and Opportunity Assessment, Keith Masson introduces the assessment and the Highland Adapts partnership.

Climate change is no longer a distant risk for the Highlands. It already affects our homes, businesses, infrastructure, landscapes and public services. The choices we collectively make now will shape how well Highland copes in the years and decades ahead.

The latest report from Highland Adapts looks at how the current impacts are likely to accelerate, as well as how, with the right interventions, we might turn risk into opportunity.

The Highland Climate Change Risk and Opportunity Assessment

The Highland Climate Change Risk and Opportunity Assessment (HCCROA) tells the story of climate change in the Highlands, taking us from the present day, right up to 2080. It combines scientific data, economic analysis, regional expertise, and lived experience to understand both risks and opportunities across this timeframe.

Five themes

The report lists 50 risks and opportunities, divided into five themes:

• Health and wellbeing
• Built environment
• Community and economy
• Infrastructure
• Land, nature and food

Across each area, the findings show that climate change risks are already significant and expected to intensify. Examples include extreme weather events disrupting both domestic and commercial electricity supply, and wildfires threatening businesses, critical infrastructure, and homeowners.

Furthermore, the risks are systemic and complex, meaning they can only be successfully addressed by collaborative, long-term approaches. That kind of collaboration cannot be built overnight. But in the Highlands, we already have a strong foundation through the Highland Adapts partnership.

The Highland Adapts Partnership

Highland Adapts was founded in 2021. The idea was to bring together communities, businesses, land managers, and the public sector, so that between us we could work towards a prosperous, climate-ready Highland. The founding partners were:

• Changeworks
• Forestry and Land Scotland
• Highlands and Islands Climate Hub
• Highlands and Islands Enterprise
• NatureScot
• NHS Highland
• The Highland Council
• Verture
• Zero Waste Scotland

This diverse partnership recognises that the risks we face cut across all sectors of our society. As a result, we need to get used to working with organisations we might previously have had very little to do with. And that’s where we find the opportunity for truly creative, joined up thinking and action. How, for example, might Changeworks’ mission to retrofit homes align with NHS Highland’s mission to treat seasonal conditions like pneumonia or heatstroke? How can the management of Scotland’s forests support Zero Waste Scotland’s goal of a Scottish circular economy?

Highland Adapts creates the space to answer these questions. It promotes shared understanding, honest conversation and collective action. This will only become more critical as the risks from the report continue to play out.

Opportunities

Whilst the HCCROA lists many risks, there are opportunities too. These include:

• Restoration of nature and increased peatland resilience
• Investment in climate resilient infrastructure
• Improved energy efficiency and climate future-proofing for homes and businessess
• New local jobs
• Circular economies

Above all, we have the opportunity to make better decisions right now, so the Highlands not only survives a changing climate, but remains a thriving, vibrant place.

A jumping off point

It’s important to note that the Highland Climate Change Risk and Opportunity Assessment is not, in itself, a plan. Instead, it’s a jumping off point. It helps us understand where we are and where we’re going. It’s a call to collective action – not just for the public sector, but for businesses, landowners, utilities, third sector organisations and communities.

The Highland region is well placed to answer this call. It has a strong tradition of collaboration, innovation and place-based thinking. If we can continue and strengthen that tradition, we can make better decisions now that protect what we value, support a resilient regional economy, and leave a fairer legacy for those who come after us.