The Climate Heritage Network (CHN) Steering Committee confirmed Ian Banks’ membership as part of Atoll Ltd was unanimously approved by them in January 2024.

The CHN views arts, culture, and heritage not just as assets to be protected from climate change, but as essential catalysts for climate action, adaptation, and mitigation. Launched in 2019, the CHN brings together a global alliance of cultural institutions, artists, and policymakers to help societies achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.Mobilised in 2018 during the Global Climate Action Summit and launched in 2019, the CHN works to re-orient climate policy, planning, and action at all levels to account for dimensions of culture – from arts to heritage.

Previously, a formal demand urged the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to adopt a “Joint Work on Culture and Climate Action” (JWD). The process officially tried to task governments with bridging the gap between national climate goals and the cultural sector. At COP28, CHN advocated for Parties to adopt a resolution to launch a ‘Joint Work Decision on Culture and Climate Action’.

But later, realising that any stand-alone “Joint Work Decision” like this was facing political gridlock, CHN and partners shifted their stance toward the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) framework in COP30. The CGA is a collective commitment established under Article 7 of the Paris Agreement to elevate climate resilience, enhance adaptive capacity, and reduce vulnerability to the exact same political and financial scale as emission reductions (mitigation). At the time of writing this (August 2026), for the upcoming COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye in November 2026, the GGA is seen as a major political battleground where countries must finalise how to fund and measure local adaptations.

Other news in 2026 regarding the CHN relates to Heritage Adapts! This is the new focus on the global campaign’s active roll-out during the “Road to COP31” phase following its official launch this year on June 4, 2026. The CHN have been an active, core founding partner in The Heritage Adapts! campaign. They are part of a coalition that includes ICOMOS (the international non-governmental organisation that works for the conservation of monuments and sites around the world), Preserving Legacies, and the World Monuments Fund. The Heritage Adapts! initiative looks to mobilise global actions to safeguard cultural assets.

Environmental Associations

As well as Atoll being a member of The Climate Heritage Network , Ian is also now a member of the European Team Hub of the ‘Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature’ and an ‘Open Doors Member’ of the Society for Ecological Restoration. Ian has volunteered since 2016 as part of the nationwide ‘citizen science’ programme called The Riverfly Monitoring Initiative (RMI) run by The Riverfly Partnership and hosted by the Freshwater Biological Association.