Written by Ned Harrison, Carbon Negative Nature Positive Programme Manager

In 2019, in common with many councils around the country, Suffolk County Council (SCC) declared a climate emergency. Nationwide, nearly 90% of councils have now set a target date for being net zero carbon. For SCC, this date is 2030, meaning that we have just 7 years left to transition the council, and the whole of county, to a position where our activity does not add to global warming.

And in case that isn’t enough of a challenge, we also have a second goal – to protect and enhance nature across 30% of our land, and across the county. These are hugely ambitious targets, because they are responding to very urgent problems. Our activity is in two strands; changing our own operations, and working with partners to set a sustainable pathway for the county. I’m going to use this space to say a bit about what the first of those means. You can find more details on some of the work with communities and businesses at www.greensuffolk.org.

Challenging misconceptions

First off; just to clarify a couple of queries that come up regularly. Net Zero carbon refers to all greenhouse gases. It means that our activity does not add to human-caused global heating. That’s whether as a direct result of what we do (e.g. through burning gas to heat our offices, or petrol to get to our customers) or an indirect effect (e.g. staff driving to work, or emissions from companies providing us with a service).

Secondly, a climate emergency declaration itself changes nothing – everybody already knew we’re facing an emergency. What matters is what we do with it. But it was a hugely significant step in framing the level of action we expect to deliver. SCC has a key role to play – not just through our moral responsibility not to add further to a problem which disproportionately impacts the Global South, but because by demonstrating what is possible, our example can have much greater impacts.

Carbon footprint progress

SCC’s annual report on its carbon footprint shows our overall progress. This is the result of a lot of changes around the council – some obvious, some less so. Many of our biggest successes so far have been within our offices. We’ve improved controls, circulated heat better, reduced solar gain and installed solar panels, resulting in a 29% reduction over the last year alone across our 6 largest properties (which together represent 70% of emissions from buildings).

16 of our 42 pool cars are now fully electric, with a further ten arriving in the next few months, and the last petrol car due to be replaced by 2025. Fleet can represent more of a challenge, due to the nature of the vehicles needed, but we’re increasingly seeing shifts there too. We also provide a range of incentives for staff to travel more sustainably, and will be enhancing these soon (check out the staff webpages for details). We’ve been moving our streetlights to LED, resulting in a 55% drop in emissions since 2019.

This is a selection of key actions to reduce our own energy usage. But an estimated 91% of our footprint is in the goods and services that we buy. That doesn’t reduce the importance of tackling our own estate – one way to influence our supply chain is by demonstrating what is possible. But it does mean that we also need to be aware of our wider ability to influence. We’re doing this through our commitment to Social Value and the Climate Change Commercial Ask, as well as through supporting suppliers with training sessions and the Carbon Charter.

Delivering services differently

As a result, our new Highways contract with Milestone will look radically different in many ways – both in terms of being lower in carbon, and being more wildlife-friendly. Roadside spaces offer great potential for enhancing nature in a way that supports wildlife corridors. We’ve also planted over 250,000 trees, have removed pesticides and herbicides from most site management (and are piloting approaches to remove them entirely) and are working with current and future tenants on the county farms estate to ensure it delivers greater benefits for nature across it’s 5,000 hectares.

This is a taster of the work that’s being done as part of the Carbon Negative Nature Positive programme. But it’s by no means everything that’s changed, and much of what’s happening I don’t know about, and isn’t being delivered as part of a shiny new programme. It’s being done by people across the council changing how they work; the catering they order; the contracts they set up; the ways they communicate. The climate emergency declaration empowers everyone to think how they want to deliver their service.

Where does responsibility lie?

There’s been a long running debate about the balance of responsibility between individuals versus governments or corporates. A trend for personal footprint tools and behavioural ‘nudge’ policies was criticised by some as a way of ducking responsibility; of blaming people for a system that they did not control. More recently, behavioural scientists have tended to move away from this binary view, instead noting how people’s ability to adopt a low carbon lifestyle is constrained by the infrastructure around them; but also how that infrastructure can change in response to individuals acting together. Veganism is a great example of this – even 10 years ago, the relative scarcity of vegan options meant it required more effort to make that change. As veganism grew in popularity, companies responded by making more options more available, thereby reducing the barriers for more people to take them up.

Something similar applies within SCC. We won’t achieve our goals without real changes to our infrastructure and ways of working. But we also won’t achieve our goals without the support, inspiration and challenge of people across the organisation. We’d love people to be involved – through the Teams Channel, or the Staff Champions Network, or by taking up the offer of consultancy available from cnnp@suffolk.gov.uk. But most of all, we’d love everyone to see the 2030 target as something they can contribute to, and as a challenge to us all to rethink how we live and work.