Five year environment plan
Greater Manchester is taking action on climate change with the five year environment plan, launched at in March 2019 during the second Greater Manchester Green Summit. The plan sets out our long-term environmental vision – to be carbon neutral by 2038 – and the urgent actions we all need to take in the next five years to help achieve this.
In July 2019, Salford City Council declared a climate emergency. Friends of the Earth has named Salford the most sustainable council in the north west in 2019, while the Centre for Thriving Places named the council the greenest and most sustainable in England and Wales.
We have organised the Salford's Climate Change work so that it reflects the five year environment plan.
The Salford plan is set out under the five year plan themes:
- Our energy supply
- Our homes, workplaces and public buildings
- Transport
- Our natural environment
- Our production and consumption of resources
- Our resilience and adaptation to climate change
Climate Action Board and subgroups
The climate action board was established to bring together stakeholders from across the council and external organisations to oversee projects and programmes associated with meeting the city’s carbon neutral target. The council is also currently in the process of establishing a number of subgroups of the board to do more detailed work on various subject areas, outlined below.
Salford City Council Climate Action Board
Meets bi-monthly, chaired by Councillor McCusker and including external stakeholders
Climate Action Board sub-groups
- Our homes - Reducing carbon emissions from homes by retrofitting and reducing heat demand.
- Our buildings - Reducing carbon emissions and heat demand from existing and new commercial and public buildings
- Our resources - Producing Goods and services more sustainably, and becoming more responsible consumers. Also, Managing our waste as sustainably as possible and reducing unnecessary food waste
- Our green infrastructure - Increasing biodiversity and managing green and blue infrastructure sustainably. Increasing investment and engagement in the natural environment.
- Our travel - Increasing use of public transport and active travel modes and phasing out fossil-fuelled private vehicles with zero emission vehicles
- Culture change and engagement - Encouraging positive engagement and behaviour change and raising awareness of programme and impact
We are also exploring whether to introduce an ‘Our Energy’ sub-group
Carbon management savings
Salford City Council continues to invest in energy efficiency which has already reduced it's carbon emissions. Total CO2 saving via the Carbon Management plan up to end of December 2019 was 59% - equivalent to a reduction of 21,777 Tonnes of CO2 since 2007 and now saves the council well over £100,000 a year in energy bills.
That’s equivalent to one year’s emissions from over 17,000 cars
There are a number of ways we have achieved this saving:
Solar panels on council buildings
The council has invested heavily in solar panels, fitting over 100 photo-voltaic solar at the Civic Centre in Swinton, along with panels on many other buildings such as schools, leisure centres and community hubs.
Green Wheels
Green Wheels is a council programme to encourage staff to play their part in tackling climate change and promoting sustainability, by making sustainable travel choices when travelling to, from and during work including, cycling, car share and electric vehicles.
Street lighting
In 2011 a pilot retrofit of 2,000 LED street lights were fitted across 300 streets in Salford. Following the initial pilot retrofit of 2,000 LED street lights across Salford, Salford City Council approved the fitting of a further 24,000 street lights which is now complete. All traffic light bulbs have also been replaced with LED light bulbs.
Green Spaces
Over the past ten years, the council has invested £126 million in green space, creating new country parks and walking and cycle pathways across the city, as well as planting thousands of trees and investing in huge environmental infrastructure projects like the Castle Irwell flood basin. Find out more about the council’s green spaces.