Environment and Climate Change Strategy

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The Council declared an Environment and Climate emergency in 2019 and adopted its Environment and Climate Strategy in 2020. It committed to taking action across four main themes, circular economy, energy, natural environment and transport.

Significant progress has been made against the actions set out in the strategy. The recently published Impact Report provides detail on what has been achieved.

The current strategy runs until the end of March 2026 and the Climate Partnership work has started to deliver a refreshed strategy that recognises the challenges we face and brings together the whole borough to take action.

Initial Engagement

The Climate Partnership with the support of the Council has undertaken a best practice review of other local authority areas to understand what excellent looks like. We have used the Council Climate Scorecards as one way to identify high performing areas along with places that have delivered large carbon reductions or have had notable achievements in delivering environmental improvements. One thing that has been clear in that process is that all areas that have performed well have engaged their communities with the development and delivery of their work.

The Climate Partnership has already started talking with key stakeholders across our communities running open sessions where residents, community groups and businesses can tell us what is important to them. There have also been sessions internally within the Council involving officers from across the organisation to understand the positive impacts they can have. The RBWM Youth Council has also recently held a workshop involving over 60 young people from the Borough on what they want in the new strategy. We've had some really good ideas come from those and we are deeply appreciative of the time people have taken to feed into the process.

From this initial engagement, we understand that there is need for the strategy to have three elements; an overarching strategy, a deliverable action plan and a communications plan. We also recognise that we must focus on priorities that will have the greatest positive impact on the climate and environment.

More engagement sessions have occurred this summer across the Borough and we'd encourage you to share any ideas you have with us via email. We'd also welcome good ideas on how to deliver environment and climate improvements. Whilst we can't promise they will be included, we do want to benefit from the knowledge and experience of our communities to deliver the strongest strategy possible.

Next Steps

A draft strategy will be developed following the initial engagement sessions. The draft will be taken to Place Overview and Scrutiny in September 2025 for some initial feedback on where they think we are on track and where they think needs more work. We'd welcome feedback from residents and community groups through the O&S process.

Using the feedback from the committee and the community, we'll go away and further develop and improve the strategy. At the same time, we'll also organise further workshops with the community to develop the action plan that will sit under the strategy along with the communications plan.

The Council will then hold a full public consultation in the winter to ensure we get feedback on the strategy, action plan and communications plan before a final version is signed off by Cabinet in the Spring.

The Climate Partnership and the Council are both committed to making this an inclusive process, welcoming as many views and ideas into the process as possible including from groups that may be under-represented. Without this broad coalition, evidence suggests we won't be able to generate the scale of change required to tackle the climate and environment crisis.

The Climate Partnership is funded by the council and governed by local businesses and community groups. To find out more about it click below.

Home | The Climate Partnership

The Council declared an Environment and Climate emergency in 2019 and adopted its Environment and Climate Strategy in 2020. It committed to taking action across four main themes, circular economy, energy, natural environment and transport.

Significant progress has been made against the actions set out in the strategy. The recently published Impact Report provides detail on what has been achieved.

The current strategy runs until the end of March 2026 and the Climate Partnership work has started to deliver a refreshed strategy that recognises the challenges we face and brings together the whole borough to take action.

Initial Engagement

The Climate Partnership with the support of the Council has undertaken a best practice review of other local authority areas to understand what excellent looks like. We have used the Council Climate Scorecards as one way to identify high performing areas along with places that have delivered large carbon reductions or have had notable achievements in delivering environmental improvements. One thing that has been clear in that process is that all areas that have performed well have engaged their communities with the development and delivery of their work.

The Climate Partnership has already started talking with key stakeholders across our communities running open sessions where residents, community groups and businesses can tell us what is important to them. There have also been sessions internally within the Council involving officers from across the organisation to understand the positive impacts they can have. The RBWM Youth Council has also recently held a workshop involving over 60 young people from the Borough on what they want in the new strategy. We've had some really good ideas come from those and we are deeply appreciative of the time people have taken to feed into the process.

From this initial engagement, we understand that there is need for the strategy to have three elements; an overarching strategy, a deliverable action plan and a communications plan. We also recognise that we must focus on priorities that will have the greatest positive impact on the climate and environment.

More engagement sessions have occurred this summer across the Borough and we'd encourage you to share any ideas you have with us via email. We'd also welcome good ideas on how to deliver environment and climate improvements. Whilst we can't promise they will be included, we do want to benefit from the knowledge and experience of our communities to deliver the strongest strategy possible.

Next Steps

A draft strategy will be developed following the initial engagement sessions. The draft will be taken to Place Overview and Scrutiny in September 2025 for some initial feedback on where they think we are on track and where they think needs more work. We'd welcome feedback from residents and community groups through the O&S process.

Using the feedback from the committee and the community, we'll go away and further develop and improve the strategy. At the same time, we'll also organise further workshops with the community to develop the action plan that will sit under the strategy along with the communications plan.

The Council will then hold a full public consultation in the winter to ensure we get feedback on the strategy, action plan and communications plan before a final version is signed off by Cabinet in the Spring.

The Climate Partnership and the Council are both committed to making this an inclusive process, welcoming as many views and ideas into the process as possible including from groups that may be under-represented. Without this broad coalition, evidence suggests we won't be able to generate the scale of change required to tackle the climate and environment crisis.

The Climate Partnership is funded by the council and governed by local businesses and community groups. To find out more about it click below.

Home | The Climate Partnership

Page last updated: 20 Aug 2025, 03:16 PM