Governing Net Zero Missions: Innovation, Alignment, and Mobilisation Insights from Bristol and Fellow Cities

Fourth brief in the Net Zero Futures Research Series. Draws on 16 stakeholder interviews with 18 experts across Bristol's public, knowledge and advisory, and VCSE sectors — with comparative insights from fellow EU Cities Mission cities and UK Net Zero Living places — to examine how mission governance is actually experienced. Analyses the Bristol Net Zero Investment Co-Innovation Lab across four overlapping funded projects (Community Climate Action, EU Cities Mission, Net Zero Investment Co-Innovation Lab, Mission Net Zero Demonstrator) and three institutional logics (governance/compliance, financial/technical, and community/legitimacy). Finds that mission delivery depends not primarily on new governance tools but on the sustained, chronically under-resourced 'people work' of cross-sector alignment — and that Bristol's enabling ecosystem took 20–30 years to build. Introduces analysis of the foundational climate action journeys of 31 Mission Label cities, of which 28 were engaged in climate action for nine or more years before joining the Mission. Argues for a UK statutory local authority climate duty (or EU member country/international equivalent) with dedicated resourcing as the single most consequential enabling condition identified across the study.