What we are doing to tackle climate change in South Cambs

In South Cambridgeshire, we're taking big steps to help our environment. Here's what we've done so far to address the climate crisis, and our current plans to reduce our carbon footprint. 

Key strategies

Green to our Core 

Since 2018 being Green to our Core has been a top Business Plan priority. This means reducing our carbon emissions. We have done this through: 

• creating our Climate and Environment team, which now is made up of 5 members of staff  
• having our leaders playing an active role: our Climate and Advisory Committee is chaired by Cllr Pippa Heylings, who is also a Board Member on the Local Nature Partnership, as well as the Lead on the LGA’s national cross-party Climate Change Task Group. This group puts climate change at the top of the national agenda for all councils in England and Wales. Leader, Cllr Bridget Smith, is our Climate Lead and holds the role of Environment and Climate Lead at the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, which set up an Independent Commission on Climate. 
• being active partners in carrying out the recommendations of the Commission along with Cambridgeshire County Council and Cambridge City Council.    

Declaring a climate emergency 

As a council, we declared a climate emergency in November 2019 and an ecological emergency in July 2019. We know things need to change fast. That’s why we’re changing how our services are delivered to benefit residents, businesses, and parish councils, and reduce our carbon footprint. 

Zero Carbon Strategy 

We adopted our first Zero Carbon Strategy which sets out the need to halve net carbon emissions by at least 2030 if not before, and our plans to support this.  

Doubling Nature Strategy

In February 2021 we created our 'Doubling Nature' strategy [PDF, 3MB], sister

document to our Zero Carbon Strategy, setting out our approach to increasing wildlife-rich habitats, tree canopies, and access to green spaces in South Cambridgeshire.  

Our integrated Action Plan covers both strategies and guides our actions to help mitigate, adapt to, and provide natural solutions in response to climate change. 

Local Plan 

Our strategies so far recognise our influence is greatest in terms of planning.  

We're creating a new local plan currently focusing on climate and biodiversity. It’s currently in its draft stages. 

Our Local Plan includes:  

• commissioning a new tool to look at the likely impact of carbon emission from different spatial strategies. The tool has informed our development strategy set out in the Greater Cambridge Local Plan First Proposals  which will require all new homes and non-residential buildings to be Net Zero for the energy used, location and design to promote sustainable travel. 
• looking at the role of carbon offsetting, which has been integrated with the Green Infrastructure evidence base.  

Our approach can also be seen in our new Biodiversity Supplementary Planning Document. This will be updated in line with changes to national guidance on biodiversity. This document gives up to date and clear guidance to developers on what they must do to better protect and enhance any local biodiversity affected by development.  

Our estates

Housing  

We have a rolling plan to upgrade our existing council houses to Net Zero standard. This plan to make homes more energy efficient recognises the importance of tackling fuel poverty and bringing down energy bills for tenants. Our partnership with the Net Zero Collective involves a project to monitor the effectiveness of energy efficiency improvements against property archetypes. 

So far we’ve installed: 

• around 2,200 solar panel systems  
• around 270 air source heat pumps 
• external wall insulation to improve 850 homes  

Streetlights 

Our project to upgrade our 1,800 streetlights across South Cambridgeshire is now complete. We replaced all existing bulbs with low energy ones to reduce light pollution, improve lighting and cut energy bills. 

Fleet 

Nearly 2 thirds of our carbon emissions come from our fleet, so our longer-term plan involves changing all our diesel vehicles to electric and alternative fuel. 

We now have 4 electric bin lorries and several electric vans for staff to use when out working in the district. A further 18 of our bin lorries are now powered with hydrogenated vegetable oil. 

£2.7 million will be made available from the Combined Authority to develop a solar farm to power electric bin lorries used by Greater Cambridge Shared Waste. Our shared waste depot in Waterbeach is already partly powered by solar panels.  

Our office  

In February 2020 we decided to retrofit our main Cambourne Office, to reduce energy bills and carbon emissions for the building. This is vital to achieve our aim of being a Net Zero district by 2050. The project is nearly completed. 

Our office features: 

• a solar carport (a car park with EV chargers for staff and visitors, shaded by solar panels) 
• energy-saving LED lights in all areas of the building 
• a ground source heat pump, this is expected to cut the building’s use of gas by at least 79% 

This projected was funded using our ‘renewables reserve’, a fund that comes from business rates collected from renewable energy sites (for example, solar farms) in the district. The retrofit project will pay for itself in under 20 years of operation.  

The project will achieve the following goals: 

• the changes will almost halve the building's carbon emissions during the first year after completion  
• by 2030 the building's emissions should drop to a quarter of current levels, and by 2050 to 10% of 2019 levels 

Procurement (buying) process  

We have changed our procurement process to incorporate the value of ‘lifecycle stewardship’ into our practices. When we buy goods or services, we must carry out a sustainable procurement assessment, and businesses must show that they have a plan to reduce their emissions.  

For our 2024/25 budget process we’ve included a climate and biodiversity impact assessment for bids and savings over £20,000. Where a proposal is not supported by a returned assessment, it will not be accepted. 

Training 

We’re creating resources for staff to make sure everyone is confident to carry out their roles in a way that helps to fight climate change. This includes giving training to Refuse drivers, and a handbook for staff about the climate emergency.  

We’ve been certified as a Bronze Carbon Literate Organisation by the national charity, The Carbon Literacy Trust. This shows that as a council we’re better placed to look at the climate impact of delivering services and supporting residents. 

We achieved this by delivering Carbon Literacy training to staff at all levels. The training helps staff to act on climate change within their roles and empowers them to design and deliver projects which could cut down on our carbon footprint within the council and the district. 

Our influence

Free Trees Scheme 

After the success of our 3 Free Trees Scheme in 2020, in 2021 we offered 6 free trees to every parish council that signed up.  

• in 2020, 54 parishes accepted 3 trees; that's 162 trees planted  
• in 2021, a further 227 trees were planted around the district   
• in 2022, parishes were given the choice between 6 smaller trees (whips) or 1 larger, tree. 144 trees were planted. 
• In 2023, parishes also had the choice between 6 smaller trees and 1 larger tree. 146 trees were planted. 

Zero Carbon Communities Grant 

Since being set up in 2019, over £500,000 has been allocated to 71 different community groups through our Zero Carbon Communities Grant. We supported projects in the community promoting: 

• cycling  
• tree planting  
• energy efficient lighting 
• food production 
• distribution 
• waste reduction 

Cambridge Carbon Footprint got funding from this grant to set up training programme ‘Net Zero Now’, which has been empowering community leaders to take climate action. This has led to one parish council declaring a climate emergency.   

Reducing emissions for homes 

We’ve helped reduce the carbon footprint of homes through our schemes for:  

• eco-friendly homes: through the ECOFlex scheme, we helped 204 homes improve their energy efficiency. We're also working with nearby councils to deliver Action on Energy Cambridgeshire, a service that helps people make their homes more energy-efficient. This service includes free insulation and other energy improvements for low-income households. It is funded through government schemes and provides a trusted route for retrofitting. 
• solar power: we partnered with Cambridgeshire County Council for Solar Together Cambridgeshire, which installed 1.93 megawatts (MW) of home solar photovoltaic (PV) panels across the district. In 2021, 2,144 people signed up for the scheme, about 42% of all registrations in Cambridgeshire that year. In 2022, 535 households installed solar panels, adding another 2.3 MW of solar power. Once again, South Cambridgeshire's share of installations was the highest of all districts.  
• Electric Vehicle (EV) Charge Point Grants: this grant helps to install electric vehicle chargers in village halls and community buildings. So far it has helped fund chargers at 4 rural locations in the district.

Engagement and events 

We send a quarterly newsletter with tips on reducing emissions and sharing environmental news. This is shared with around 600 people. 

Our website’s Climate emergency toolkit also gives people ideas on what they can do to reduce their emissions.  

We host events and quarterly sessions to inspire and educate on climate action. So far 150 members of the public have engaged through 5 sessions.   

A list of what we’ve done so far includes:   

• Climate and Environment events: we’ve run a fortnight of events to celebrate district-wide climate action. In 2021, these events attracted 707 people, and a further 1,872 people watched the videos from the event online.  
• COP26: at this conference we encouraged the community to send us climate change questions which were answered by our local climate change experts. You can see the session and the answers given in this video.  
• Local Action Climate Conference: in 2023, we hosted a conference for parish councils and community groups to share knowledge and celebrate progress in taking action on climate change at a local level. Cllr Brian Milnes (Lead Cabinet Member for Climate and Environment) led the event. There were also guest speakers who discussed topics such as community energy projects, recovering local nature, and public electric vehicle charging.  

Awards and recognition 

Since August 2021, the Local Government Association has featured us in 3 case studies for our Zero Carbon Strategy, Zero Carbon Communities Grant Scheme, and Greening of South Cambridgeshire Hall projects.   

In 2021, the iESE Public Transformation Awards awarded our "Green to our Core" work a certificate of excellence.    

We continue to take action on climate change and help nature recover in South Cambridgeshire.