How to Engage Citizens in Climate Action? Learnings from the TU Delft Citizen Voice Initiative

In response to increasing climate risks, cities have set ambitious sustainability targets, aiming to become climate-proof through various urban interventions. Many of these interventions require citizen support and direct action, from the adoption of solar energy and rainwater collectors to behaviour change towards sustainable living. Citizen engagement is thus crucial for the success of climate initiatives in urban areas. Digital participation tools can support this process, given their potential to enable remote participation, reach a large number of citizens, and enhance governance transparency. While digital tools have been used in planning for many years, these tools focus on generic urban planning issues and do not address the complexity and uncertainties inherent to climate change from a citizen perspective. This paper presents insights from the TU Delft Citizen Voice Initiative. Citizen Voice aims to empower communities in urban planning and design by fostering situated participation and open data practices. The initiative has been active since 2021, using a transdisciplinary approach in different research projects to understand how to engage citizens in climate action. This paper synthesises the main lessons learned from these projects into three dimensions: Climate communication, process challenges, and digital requirements. Through these dimensions, the paper provides concrete recommendations to engage citizens in climate action through digital technologies while also offering critical reflections on the opportunities and limitations of digital tools in citizen engagement in urban planning and design processes.