Driving climate action: brokers as catalysts in EU policy networks

Abstract Innovative, data-driven strategies for research and improved global mitigation action are essential to tackle climate change. This research employs network science methods to understand the transitive network structures of diverse climate action measures or initiatives and reveal patterns that highlight policy pathways and cooperation for these initiatives. Our framing of climate action as a multi-layered network allows us to more explicitly illustrate the interdependencies between government mandates, business sustainability efforts, and social action partnerships. We identify normalized network metrics, such as centrality and structural balance, to reveal proxies for policy pathways that improve coordination while supporting the EU-level focus on influential agents and influential path trajectories for support. This study enhances the field of collaborative sustainability by introducing network science theory into climate action planning. Our results demonstrate that climate action networks leverage the potential of influential nodes that can facilitate larger systemic shifts. This study expands our analytical scope to examine the temporal evolution of climate action within networks, assessing how influencing policy agendas and social mandates affect the trajectory of climate action sustainability implementation. We use case studies of climate action initiatives to demonstrate the utility of the framework in informing decisions. We identify the brokers and present the sectors that should be engaged for effective climate action networks to maximize collaboration and resourceful engagement and learning through climate action policies or programs. The research findings provide actionable recommendations for policymakers, institutions, and advocacy groups in the climate action area.