Green Participatory Budgeting

Shetland

What is Participatory Budgeting?

Participatory Budgeting (PB) is about local people having a direct say in how public money is spent.

PB can support active citizenship, helping build more active and stronger communities that are:

better able to take decisions on where public funds are spent.
more likely to take part in community activities
better informed about public budgets and decision making

PB will only be effective in achieving change if done with and not to communities.

*Source: PB Scotland

A 60 Second guide to Participatory Budgeting

What is Green PB?

Green PB is a way for people to make direct decisions about how budgets are spent addressing climate change and reducing our carbon footprints.

A type of participatory budgeting (PB), Green PB can be about entire PB processes delivering geen aims, or parts of a PB process that make a climate impact.

Green PB is a driver for achieving a Just Transition to Net-Zero for Scotland, and supporting more people to be involved in the decisions that affect them, their communities and the environment.

Source: PB Scotland

Green Particiapatory Budgeting for Shetland - Climate Action Ting

We’re thrilled to have successfully secured funding from The National Lottery Community Fund and the Coastal Communities Fund from Shetland Islands Council to deliver a new project - Climate Action Ting.

Did you know?!

The word ‘Ting’ comes from the Old Norse word þing meaning assembly or meeting place. Tings were an early system of justice and administration.

This Green PB project will distribute grants of up to £7500 to community projects seeking to take climate action. The funds will be allocated via public vote at an event held in Mareel on the 14th March 2026. Community organisations will give a presentation to a public audience in a bid to secure votes. Those with the highest number of votes will recieve the grant requested up to £7500 until the pot is diminished, the total amount available is an impressive £40,000.

Over the Autumn/Winter, community organisations interested in applying are encouraged to attend one of the planned events to understand how the process works and how to apply. These events are as follows:

8th November at Islesburgh Community Centre where community groups will be encouraged to share their experience with climate action projects to inspire project creation.
2nd December will see another event, this time online which will explain how the public vote in March 2026 will work and give some examples of projects which have previously been supported by similar participatory budgeting audiences.
15th January - applications will open and we’ll be on hand to support groups through the application process.

More details of these events and how to attend will be available below.

This project was made possible thanks to #NationalLottery players and the Coastal Communities Fund from Shetland Islands Council.