Guide to meeting with your mayoral candidates

Meeting with candidates provides an important opportunity to get them to pledge their support for urgent climate and nature action. It also gives you the space to explore their position on key environmental justice issues and helps you build relationships for your future campaigning.

Invite your candidates to meet

First things first, we’ve drafted a template email you can use to ask candidates to meet. We’ve left space for you to tailor the email so you can place your local environmental concerns front and centre. As you’d expect, candidates are very busy during the election period, so try to remain flexible on dates.

Choose a venue

Many candidates will have headquarters which will act as a natural venue for your meeting. In the absence of a HQ, a local cafe (if it’s not too busy) or even your local library can work well as a place to meet. Candidates may also offer to meet online.

Plan your agenda for the meeting

To help structure your meetings with mayoral candidates and get the most out of them, we’ve created a 10-point Climate Action Plan for your combined authority region. The Climate Action Plan breaks down key environmental actions that need to be taken by your elected Mayor to ensure the region is doing all it can to combat climate breakdown and restore nature. 

Download a printable version of the Climate Action Plan for your mayoral combined authority:

Secure climate action commitments

The important outcome you should focus on is asking candidates if they agree to sign our climate action pledge:

“I recognise the vital role I have in working with communities to meet our legally binding 2030 climate and nature commitments. I pledge, if elected, to use my powers, funding and influence to implement a climate action plan to tackle the climate and nature emergencies and build a fairer society for all in my area.”

Candidates can sign the pledge themselves, or you can sign it on their behalf with their permission. Find out more about the pledge and how to sign.

Once they’ve signed the pledge, ask candidates to take a photo with our printable pledge poster. Make sure to post the photo on social media.

If a candidate declines to support the climate action pledge, then still take a photo with them to show you’ve met, but don't use the pledge poster.

If you’re meeting online, you can take a screenshot while you’re all on the call with your cameras on.

Host your meeting

Before your meeting

• Decide who’s going. We recommend going as a group, along with representatives from local partner organisations to help represent the broad support you have for your campaign. At a minimum, 2 people from the group should attend to ensure that one person can take notes while the other speaks. If possible, include people who represent the diversity and geographical breadth of the area. 
• Print off our climate action pledge poster ready for your photo with candidates, and create a checklist to talk through in the meeting.
• You might also want to research whether the candidate has made any previous statements on climate justice, as well as their background in general. Through this, you can identify their interests and the aspects of environmental change they’re going to be most interested in acting on. 
• If you need help with gathering local data about your area, check out our “Near You” tool, which shows data on how your local area is performing on various climate issues. Our Climate Action Plans also contain data on how each region is performing.

Structure of the meeting

• Introduce yourself and the group to the candidate. Don’t expect them to remember who you are or why you’re meeting them.
• If appropriate, establish as early as you can how much time you have, and make sure that you pace your discussion so that you don’t run out of time.
• Remind them about what you wanted to discuss and ask if there’s anything they want to raise.
• Discuss the Climate Action Plan as a whole, or specific parts you want to focus on. This should take up most of the meeting.
• Ask the candidate if they would agree to sign our climate action pledge. If they agree, take a photo with the pledge poster. If they decline, still ask to take a photo with them but don't include the poster.
• Close the meeting with thanks and a run-through of any action points agreed.

After your meeting

Let us know what your candidates said during your meetings and if they took the pledge. This way we’ll be able to build a national picture of what candidates are saying, and help you hold them to account for any pledges they made to you.

Post your photos on social media using the hashtag #ClimateMayors2025. If you’re struggling to meet with other candidates, tagging them could encourage them to meet with you too. When posting your photos, make it clear whether the candidate took the climate pledge or not.

Write to the candidate thanking them for meeting you, and outline what you discussed including any commitments they made.

If the candidate didn’t pledge their support, don’t give up hope. Remember, meeting with candidates is only one route to creating change. You can also take other actions in the lead-up to the elections, like holding a hustings, running a social media campaign or engaging local media with your campaign.