Council commits to being carbon neutral by 2030

21 February 2022

North Northamptonshire Council has announced today that it is committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

Since the authority came into being in April 2021, work has started in earnest to tackle climate change and look after our beautiful environment. Over the next 12 months, the authority will continue to develop its wider approach to doing so, building on the hard work already underway.

The council - subject to approval at the Full Council meeting on the 24th February - has proposed a significant and specific budget of £1million funding over the next three years to tackle climate change. It is expected that elements of this funding will be used to develop a carbon management action plan and establish a Climate Change and Environment strategy.

In the immediate term, the funding will also be used to roll out environmental awareness training for all elected members and staff in a phased approach, starting in March.

At a meeting of the council in July 2021, we declared a Climate and Environment Emergency which was a very important commitment for us to make as a new council.

At the time, we said that we would set a date for reaching carbon neutrality once we better understood our current carbon emissions by consolidating the position of our predecessor authorities – the most prudent approach to take.

We are now in a place to give a realistic, whilst ambitious, timeframe by which we can reach this important goal.

And while we have set a goal for 2030, addressing climate change is a much longer-term commitment that will require innovation and widespread change.Cllr Harriet Pentland, the council’s Executive member for Climate and Green Environment

I’m proud of the work we have done so far and look forward to seeing further measures put in place to move towards this goal.

I would like to personally thank Cllr Pentland and her Executive Advisory Panel for moving forward with pace and getting NNC to this point so early on in this new council’s journey.Cllr Jason Smithers, Leader of the Council

Since its inception as a new council, a great deal of activity has been undertaken. For example, the council has instigated a tree-planting initiative which has seen more than 2,000 trees planted in the past three months as well as continuing a campaign to ‘feed the bees’ by allowing wildflowers to flourish in some roadside verges, where appropriate.

The authority also hosted its own conference – NN Climate 21 – in November, to showcase pioneering measures already in place and in development to reduce carbon emissions in the North Northamptonshire area.

Included in this were details of the rollout of on-street electric vehicle charging points with the company Liberty Charge at seven locations in the North Northants area. 

This has been further progressed and residential, on-street locations have been chosen to address the charging needs of those who do not have access to a driveway, or any other means of privately charging their vehicles.