Climate Action

How Manchester will boost jobs, improve housing and cut emissions

07 Sep 2023

Learn how Greater Manchester’s smart energy plan will improve energy performance and lower carbon emissions. This plan forms part of the 50-point Climate Action Plan for Councils under Action 19, to develop a heating and energy efficiency strategy for the area, including providing skills and training to increase local employment to aid recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

How Reading uses planning to deliver new zero-carbon homes

25 Jul 2023

Learn how Reading Borough Council is using planning to ensure new homes are built to zero-carbon standards. This is part of Action 16 under the 50-point Climate Action Plan for Councils. Through Local Plan policies, councils should require that new housing development is zero carbon by 2025, including the incorporation of renewable energy in the development, using low-carbon materials, and building to extremely high energy-efficient standards (higher than current national standards) using the Passivhaus standard or similar.

How Barnsley's pioneering community energy scheme tackled fuel poverty

21 Jul 2023

Learn how Barnsley's community energy scheme tackled fuel poverty among older people and helped fund neighbourhood projects. Installing local renewable energy sources in council developments and within private and public sector developments is part of Action 32 in the 50-point Climate Action Plan for Councils.

How Hastings is cutting energy use and combatting fuel poverty

23 May 2022

Learn how Hastings Borough Council has partnered with other East Sussex councils to help low-income residents become more energy efficient. Increasing the energy efficiency of homes is Action 14 of the 50-point Climate Action Plan for councils.

How South Gloucestershire Council raised £1.5 m from housebuilding

15 Aug 2023

Learn how South Gloucestershire Council raised £1.5 million from a housebuilding levy to fund climate infrastructure improvements. Using a housebuilding levy is Action 9 in the 50-point Climate Action Plan for Councils: use legal and planning mechanisms such as Section 106 agreements, the Community Infrastructure Levy, and other mechanisms to fund climate actions and nature restoration projects.

How Dundee is focusing climate action on helping people most at risk

24 Apr 2024

Find out how Dundee City Council is developing climate policies by prioritising residents most at risk of extreme weather events and fuel poverty. Prioritising those most at risk is Action 11 in the 50-point Climate Action Plan for Councils.

How Blaenau Gwent involved its community in climate action decisions

18 Oct 2023

Learn how Blaenau Gwent set up a citizens' assembly for £50,000 and made sure local people have a say on climate decisions in Wales. Listening to local people forms Action 6 in the 50-point Climate Action Plan for Councils, which is to review and improve how we involve citizens in our existing decision-making processes.

How Waltham Forest engaged its community to take climate action

26 Apr 2024

Learn how Waltham Forest engaged the local community to drive positive climate action that would last. Engaging the community is Action 3 in the 50-points Climate Action Plan for Councils, to use additional decision-making approaches for complex or contentious choices, such as representative citizen assemblies or citizens’ juries, participatory mapping and budgeting etc.

How Hull co-designed flood defences with residents

23 Aug 2023

Find out how Hull City Council ensured the opinions of vulnerable communities were used to help co-design much-needed flood defences in the city. This approach forms Action 12 of the 50-point Climate Action Plan for Councils, to ensure that the voices of the most vulnerable communities are also represented in council decision-making and council-citizen deliberations.

How landlord engagement and licensing is creating warmer homes in Liverpool

11 Jan 2023

Learn how Liverpool City Council is creating warmer homes, by engaging with landlords and introducing a new 5-year selective licensing designation. This case study relates to Actions 10 and 15 of the 50-point Climate Action Plan for Councils. Action 10 involves implementing private-rented sector licensing to cover the enforcement costs of energy-efficiency compliance, while Action 15 is about rapidly enforcing minimum energy-efficiency standards and encouraging higher EPC levels in the private-rented sector.