Plymouth City Council has set out its latest strategy to achieve carbon neutrality.
The new Net Zero Action Plan (NZAP) was presented to and voted through by Full Council on Monday and is focussed on the actions that the Council and other organisations across the city can do to slow the effects of climate change.
The NZAP replaces the previously annually published Corporate Carbon Reduction Plan, which focussed on the Council's own interests and the Climate Emergency Action Plan, which was city-wide, to provide a single, integrated action-based strategy.
Actions are split across categories including buildings, transport, waste and behaviour change to ensure an in-the-round approach.
With the Council responsible for just one per cent of the city's overall carbon emissions, the new NZAP is far more outwardly focussed and has specific actions for engagement and city-wide behaviour.
Nonetheless, actions like accelerating the collection of food waste and continuing to modernise buildings and fleet remain tangible actions.
Councillor Tom Briars-Delve, Cabinet Member for the Environment and Climate Change, said: "We have worked long and hard on this plan to ensure that it sets out a clear pathway towards significantly reducing the city's carbon output.
"But we can't do it alone - we have to have the backing of not just residents but the other large organisations that contribute to our city life.
"That's why this plan is far more outwardly facing. We've ramped up how we'll engage with partners and with residents through our Climate Connections project so that together we can ensure that Plymouth is environmentally friendly as it can possibly be."
Amongst the new commitments in the NZAP are:
- Introduce a weekly kerbside food waste collection service for Plymouth households
- Collaborate on a Local Area Energy Plan
- Establish a new electric vehicle car club
- Pilot neighbourhood-level climate action plans
- Pursue funding to introduce zero emission buses in Plymouth
- Establish a Net Zero Business Support programme
- Inspire the next generation by encouraging all schools in Plymouth to seek eco-school accreditation or participate in the Let's Go Zero campaign
- Deliver a marine innovation centre at Oceansgate to provide usable space for businesses to innovate in net zero and marine sectors
- Stimulate the demand for jobs within the green economy through allocation of Levelling Up funding to low carbon initiatives
- Create a cross-party Sustainability Advisory Group
You can read the full plan at plymouth.gov.uk/net-zero-action-plan