Colchester commits to tackling Climate Emergency

PUBLISHED: 20 January 2023


Colchester City Council has released its Climate Emergency Action Plan for 2023, committing the city to a greener, more sustainable future.

Taking action to tackle the climate emergency is a priority for Colchester City Council, and a key part of the commitment to deliver a greener future. The plan, released today, aims to address the urgent challenge of climate change. Since declaring a climate emergency on 17 July 2019, the council has taken action to calculate the emissions from its activities and operations and set an emissions baseline from which to measure progress against towards the net zero emissions target by 2030.

The action plan contains nine key themes:
  • Reduce emissions from our buildings and fleet
  • Adapting to a changing climate
  • Produce renewable energy
  • Enhance biodiversity and protect our environment
  • Facilitate sustainable and active travel and improve air quality
  • Provide sustainable waste management and support residents to reduce, reuse and recycle
  • Enable partnerships and community action for sustainability
  • Sustainable planning, built environment and green economy
  • Change the way we work to achieve our climate commitment
Cllr Steph Nissen, Portfolio Holder for Environment and Sustainability said: “This updated and enhanced Climate Action Plan demonstrates the progress already made since we declared the climate emergency, and the steps we will now take in proactively tackling it. It’s essential we all work together; council staff, partners and city residents need to be on board with addressing the climate emergency and make the vital changes so Colchester becomes cleaner and greener. This new plan gives us a great way forward.”

The climate emergency action plan details key actions taken in 2021/22 including sourcing the council’s electricity from a 100% renewable energy green tariff, installing electric vehicle charge points in several council owned car parks, increasing the number of trees planted across Colchester, reducing contamination and improving quality of recycling collected, supporting the delivery of Colchester’s first ‘eco festival’ and ensuring S106 funding was allocated to support sustainable travel amongst other actions

You can read the full Climate Emergency Action Plan here.

You can read more about what we can all do to live more environmentally friendly lifestyles in the accompanying ‘What can you do?’ document here.
 

Page last reviewed: 20 January 2023

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