World Cities Culture Forum (WCCF) is a global network of creative civic leaders from over 40 cities, spanning six continents, focused on sharing ideas and solutions to build a world where culture is at the heart of thriving cities, acting as a driver to create equitable, prosperous and sustainable places to live, work and play. 

In 2025, the Foundation supported WCCF with a grant of £32,400 to analyse and report on the contribution of local cultural policy in tackling climate change across the world. This funding supported climate experts Julie’s Bicycle, a nonprofit organisation mobilising the culture sector to take action on climate and nature, to analyse the data and author a commentary  which was featured in the World Cities Culture Report 2025.  WCCF’s report provides the most comprehensive dataset on culture in cities, and supports city leaders to deliver more impactful and sustainable cultural policy.

“Climate and Culture Chapter” was one of six thematic chapters, which found that, as a trend, culture teams in cities have significantly increased their focus on climate, with 82% reporting an increase in cultural engagement in climate and environment in the last five years. The chapter highlights five key findings:

• Advancing decarbonisation in culture: 70% of cities are improving energy efficiency in cultural infrastructure, 76% are promoting low-emission travel linked to culture, and 73% support creative industries to reduce their carbon footprint.

• Growing creative circular economy: 70% of cities are adopting circular economy practices in the cultural sector, signalling growing commitment to sustainable resource use and greener creative production.

• Strengthening climate engagement and storytelling: 79% of cities use culture to strengthen relationships with nature, 67% use it to communicate the climate crisis, and 64% engage residents in climate policy through cultural initiatives.

• Enhancing resilience and adaptation: 73% of cities are redesigning public spaces to support climate resilience, while 61% are adapting cultural infrastructure to better withstand climate impacts.
• Unlocking policy and funding innovation: 88% of cities report collaboration between culture and climate departments, while 21% have dedicated climate roles within culture teams, showing increasing strategic investment and recognition of the role of culture in delivering on climate goals.