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.
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.
Key strategies
Green to our Core
Being Green to our Core is one of our a top Business Plan priorities. This means reducing our carbon emissions. We have done this through:
- creating our Climate and Environment team
- having our leaders playing an active role
- being active partners in carrying out the recommendations of the Commission along with Cambridgeshire County Council and Cambridge City Council.
Climate and Nature Strategy (2026 to 2030)
The Climate and Nature Strategy sets out the current phase of our work in our response to the climate and ecological emergencies. This combined strategy recognises the link between climate and nature and the actions to tackle these two emergencies.
Local Plan
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 [PDF, 4MB] [PDF, 4MB]. 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 previous strategies: Zero Carbon and Doubling Nature
See our previous ‘Zero Carbon’ and ‘Doubling Nature’ strategies for the strategic vision that guided our work from 2021 to 2025.
Read our Zero Carbon and Doubling Nature Action Plan for more information, and see a summary of our progress against our action plan [PDF, 0.1MB] below:
Tracking our progress
We track our progress to net zero through annual greenhouse gas emissions reports. Our Climate and Environment Advisory Committee and internal audit team review these reports. Below are our reports from previous years.