The United Kingdom (U.K.) and London, in particular, are hotspots for political activism and organized advocacy, especially when it comes to climate change. In partnership with HERO, the world’s first content subscription platform powered by climate mobilizers, a team of master's students from the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) set out to understand the impacts of grassroots climate advocacy on U.K. policy. 

They found that there was a strong importance of direct, in-person communication between Members of Parliament (MPs) and advocates, a decrease in the influence that protest has on policymakers despite its efficiency in advocate mobilization, a reinforcement of the impact of local public gathering laws in reshaping the climate movement, and the importance of local-level action for influencing policy.

Samantha Harman (MS ’26), Kassandra Maraz (MS/MURP ’27), Sarah Meadows (MS ’26) and Paula Perez Cassidy (MS ’26), alongside their advisor, SEAS Assistant Professor Geoffrey Henderson, spent the past 18 months conducting research on climate policy for their master's project. They surveyed the literature, interviewed advocates and U.K. MPs, and analyzed qualitative and quantitative data to gain a strong understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of advocacy methods to better understand how to influence climate policy decisions. The primary goal was to assist HERO in developing methods to support their clients, who are largely advocates pushing for climate policy reforms. 

"Elected officials rarely take bold action on the climate crisis of their own accord; advocates need to pressure them to make it a priority. But the question of which advocacy strategies are most effective is very dependent on context and difficult to answer. Our capstone project addresses this challenging but critical question,” explains Henderson.

For the qualitative research, and through outreach with nearly 800 individuals and organizations, including all 650 MP offices in the House of Commons and advocate organizations throughout the region, the team spoke with 25 individuals, consisting of 20 advocates and 5 MPs. Communication with MP offices was a longstanding challenge for the team, as many offices had policies against participating in interviews such as theirs, speaking with non-constituents, or having schedule constraints. The team interviewed, transcribed, blinded, and coded the interviews using NVivo, a qualitative data analysis software.

In the interviews, the team asked MPs and advocates questions related to their views on disruptive protests, social and traditional media, other forms of communication, interaction with each other, party alignment, and key policy positions.

“It was fascinating to see how the U.K. climate space had many similarities to the U.S. I was able to have genuine conversations and expand my knowledge on how the international community is tackling climate change,” says Harman.

For the quantitative analysis, the research team compared protests in the U.K. with those in other European countries and graphed the impact of the U.K.’s Public Order Act. They also used GIS to map the districts supporting the Climate and Nature Bill and protests related to climate change throughout the U.K., showcasing the correlation between protest and political change. 

“In the current political climate, I have had a personal feeling that my participation in protest does not have as much effect as it may have in the past,” says Maraz. “While our research on climate change protest impact on climate advocacy in the U.K. seems to have supported this conclusion, it also solidified the importance of protests for more than shifting policy. This project affirmed in me the importance of protest for coalition and community building, raising awareness and creating collective action."

In April 2026, the research team traveled to London to present their findings to HERO and other relevant stakeholders and interviewees who attended their internal conference. The research team's work will be compiled as recommendations for HERO, but has the potential to be used by other advocacy organizations to support efforts to effectively push politicians to take climate action at the legislative level.  

"We have the technical solutions that we need to shift away from fossil fuels; what we need now is policy change to advance an equitable energy transition,” says Henderson. “We hope that our research can inform the strategies that advocates use, both within the United Kingdom and around the world, to ensure that elected representatives enact the policy change that their voters demand."