County council plan to reduce emissions and increase climate resilience in West Sussex

A Climate Action and Adaptation Plan for 2024–2027 has been published which identifies 20 priority actions to be taken across the council and in partnership with key stakeholders in the county.

The actions are broken down into six pathways focusing on issues such as buildings and energy, transport, and nature and environment. Key actions include:

• Continuing to decarbonise county council buildings, following the recently completed works on seven libraries, six fire stations, and a day centre
• Installing electric vehicle chargepoints at key depots to enable county council vehicles to switch to electric models
• Working closely with schools to help them address their most pressing sustainability challenges
• Working with partners to produce the West Sussex Local Nature Recovery Strategy
• Supporting the clean energy transition for the community through Local Area Energy Planning and solar PV group purchasing schemes

Cllr Deborah Urquhart, Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change, said: “Protecting the environment underpins everything we do and all the priorities in Our Council Plan. Through this plan and our Climate Change Strategy we have made a commitment to be carbon neutral and climate resilient in the county council’s own operations by 2030.

“We have already made significant progress, we’ve helped to install 2,500 solar systems in people’s homes, and generated almost 17 million kWh of renewable energy last year from our solar farms and solar panels installed on our buildings.

“Climate change is one of the biggest challenges we will ever face so it’s important we do all we can to protect our environment. The significant changes we are now seeing in our climate are not only presenting difficulties for our communities, but also the work we do as a council to support them. It’s vital that we take steps now to address our carbon emissions and ensure we are ready to cope with the impacts of our changing climate.”

Read the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, find out more about how the county council is tackling climate change, and what you can do to help by visiting www.westsussex.gov.uk/ClimateAction

You can also sign up to receive a monthly environment and climate change eNewsletter.