Lancaster City Council is top nationwide for tackling climate change

Lancaster City Council has been ranked as the top district for actions being taken to achieve net zero by Climate Emergency UK.

It was assessed along with all UK councils on the actions taken towards reaching net zero, achieving an average score of 61 per cent, Lancaster Guardian reports.

Boasting multiple sustainability schemes and awards, Lancaster City Council celebrates this incredible achievement as the only district council to score over 60 per cent.

Lancaster University is also following the Council’s lead with their climate action plan, already being one of the highest producers of renewable energy out of all UK universities and having reduced their electricity and heating emissions by 50 per cent since 2005. The university is committed to being carbon neutral by 2035, a huge yet attainable goal that students and staff alike would love to see happen.

Climate Emergency UK (CE UK) was set up in response to the climate emergency declarations made by councils in 2018. CE UK collected these declarations, comparing and assessing councils’ sustainability in seven areas: buildings and heating, transport, governance and finance, planning, biodiversity, collaboration and engagement, and waste reduction and food.

Nationwide, the district average score for those seven areas is 29 per cent, whilst Lancaster City Council attained a score of 61 per cent, just ahead of Exeter City Council’s 56 per cent. Across the board Lancaster succeeded with solid scores, with a low of 30 per cent for biodiversity and a high of 85 per cent for planning and land use. Additionally, out of the 164 district councils in the UK only four district councils scored over 50 per cent with Lancaster the only district to achieve over 60 per cent.

Lancaster City Council’s Action Plan provides information as to what they are doing to tackle the climate emergency with the goal to be net zero for 2030, which includes creating coastal protection schemes and building solar farms.

Their website also showcases their successes, not only being top of the leaderboard in terms of CE UK’s scorecards, but also having achieved Council of the Year North West Energy Efficiency Award and winning the Leadership in responding to the climate emergency category at the 2021 MJ Awards.

Lancaster City Councillor Gina Dowding, cabinet member with responsibility for climate action, has said that the achievement has helped the council to “identify areas where we can make improvements for the future and how we can go even further in our efforts to tackle climate change.”

Featured images via Lancaster City Council website.

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