Place leadership and the net zero challenge in Scotland’s Cities
Published: 4 November 2025
Commentary
How are Scotland’s city leaders tackling the challenges of reaching net zero? New research from the University of Glasgow and the University of Strathclyde sheds light on how leadership, collaboration and innovation are shaping climate action in urban Scotland.
As cities across the globe race to meet net zero targets, local leaders are increasingly at the forefront of climate action. New research by Glasgow academics David Waite and Graeme Roy, along with their Strathclyde colleague Grant Allan, explores how leaders in Scotland’s four largest cities — Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow — are responding to the complex boundary challenges that shape their efforts to reduce emissions.
The work is part of a Regional Studies article collection: “Leadership in city and regional development: new perspectives from within and across borders.”
Boundaries — whether spatial, institutional, temporal or policy-related — emerge as central obstacles in the net zero journey. Leaders must navigate overlapping responsibilities between local and national governments, reconcile short-term political cycles with long-term climate goals, and balance economic recovery with environmental ambition. These tensions are particularly acute in urban areas, where decisions taken within city limits often ripple across regions.
The Glasgow–Strathclyde study finds that effective leadership is developing not from formal structures but from individual agency and informal networks. In the absence of coherent governance frameworks, visible city leaders are driving change by building coalitions, leveraging external expertise, and embedding data-led decision-making. Yet this reliance on personal leadership brings risks: progress can stall if key individuals move on.
Importantly, leaders are not just managing boundaries but reshaping them. By engaging anchor institutions, creating new forums for collaboration, and aligning local strategies with national and global commitments, cities are forging innovative pathways to net zero. The lessons from Scotland’s cities offer valuable insights for urban areas worldwide grappling with similar challenges.
Ultimately, the transition to net zero demands leadership that is adaptive, inclusive and boundary-crossing. The research highlights the need to invest in leadership capacity and foster shared learning across cities to sustain momentum in the face of complexity. There is scope, in future research, to explore how complex multi-level governance architectures shape the practices of urban leaders in addressing the net zero challenge.
The full article is available here.
First published: 4 November 2025