Lewes District Council taking positive steps to reduce C02 emissions

Cabinet Councillors at Lewes District Council have welcomed the steps being taken by the authority to become carbon net zero by 2030.

Analysis has shown that the council’s emissions have reduced by 15% on the 2018/19 baseline, while the district’s carbon footprint has reduced by 5.2% for the two years from 2019 to 2021. An 11.4% reduction in carbon emissions has also been recorded from the council’s vehicles.

Councillor Matthew Bird, Cabinet Member for Sustainability, said: "“Ensuring that we do as much as possible to engage with the community and collaborate with key partners is the most important thing to me.

"When we declared the climate emergency in 2019 the first thing we did was meet with key local sustainability experts and take their advice on the actions we were proposing and what else we should be doing.

"Climate change considerations are implicit in all our decision making, whether that is about reducing emissions or progressing climate resilience."

The Climate Change and Sustainability Strategy and action plan was approved by Cabinet in February 2021, as a result of the Climate Emergency Declaration made at Full Council in July 2019.

Key actions have included; sustainable modular housing, work to decarbonise the council’s housing stock, expanding wildflower areas and tree planting, to name a few.

Cllr Bird added: “There is clearly much to do but in Lewes district I’m very proud that we have established a clear, achievable and ambitious roadmap to carbon net zero.”