How we're monitoring our work, sharing data, attracting funding, and taking part in national action to respond to the climate emergency.
What we've done so far
Data we're sharing
Since 2020, we've reported the city's emissions against internationally recognised standards, through the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).
We continue to account for and publish our own emissions data in our annual corporate pdf Enviornmental Performance Summary(1.27 MB) .
We developed and published the Keep Bristol Cool Mapping Tool to better understand future temperature increases in Bristol. This helps policy makers, architects, emergency planners and other professionals to plan better.
We worked with the Met Office to develop the Bristol Climate Pack, which describes how different climate change scenarios would affect Bristol. This will help better planning.
Funding we're getting and investing
Bristol City Leap
We've created City Leap Energy Partnership, to attract £1 billion of investment in the city's energy system.
By 2029, this will:
- attract £771 million of investment
- create around 1,000 jobs
- avoid around 150,000 tonnes of carbon emissions across the city
Through working with 3Ci, involving the Core Cities, we want to get investment in city decarbonisation, by showing the huge opportunity for investment in a low carbon economy across the UK.
This will:
- help reduce emissions
- stimulate the entire market and supply chain
- lead to innovation and cost reductions
Encouraging this investment towards Bristol will help us reach our climate goals.
Youth Climate Action Fund
We also received £35,000 from the Bloomberg Philanthropies' Youth Climate Action Fund.
Working with the Centre for Sustainable Energy, we have distributed micro-grants of between £800 to £3,500 to projects for young people aged 15 to 24 years old.
The funding is for projects which will help meet the key aims of our One City Climate Strategy, which are to be carbon neutral and climate resilient by 2030.
We recognise that young people are taking some of the most creative and bold climate action in the city. This fund is aimed at enabling more young people to start projects and to do more.
Bristol is one of 100 cities who have been picked to take part in this programme, with only one other city being from the UK.
We invited applications for different Climate Action Projects in the below areas, and publicly advertised a simple application process on the Centre for Sustainability's website:
- Young people taking action to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change
- Young people taking action to make their community more resilient to the impacts of climate change
- Raise awareness of climate change among young people
- Help young people communicate to others about climate change in their communities or more widely
- Offer young people access to training, education and skills that will equip them to take practical action on climate change and contribute to fairer climate action
- Build the resilience and capacity of young people to deal with the challenges of facing a changing climate and connect to nature
The successful projects
We were delighted with the quality and range of different projects who applied.
The successful projects were decided by a diverse panel including a young person alongside youth, community and climate experts using fair and robust evaluation criteria.
The 11 selected projects consulting or collaborated with young people aged 15 to 24 to develop their projects. They're taking place in a diverse range of communities across the city.
Funded activities include:
- practical green skills activities for young people, including bike maintenance, soil improvement and gardening skills
- creation of pollinator habitats at a community garden with photos to tell the story,
- young people learning the skills to create their own climate films, which they will show at their own film festival.
- creating short videos to tell the stories of Global Majority / marginalised communities to inspire action for nature,
- reaching a broad range of young people from across the city to find out their views around climate change
- projects to learn more about and to share the science of climate change.
National action we're involved in
We continue to chair the Core Cities Low Carbon Energy and Resilience Hub, which:
- gives us a direct route to government
- helps us combine our voice with those of the other 10 major cities (outside of London) in the UK
We continue to represent the Core Cities at the government's newly established Local Authority Net Zero Forum. We're talking to government departments about how to achieve net zero carbon emissions.
What we're doing in the future
We'll continue to improve the way we monitor our carbon emissions in line with global best practice. This will include accounting for our indirect scope 3 emissions. These include emissions from:
- the goods and services we buy
- our business travel
- the buildings we own that are used by somebody else, for example academy schools
We successfully applied for the European Union's Climate Neutral and Smart Cities Mission. This will support 112 cities to reach carbon neutrality by 2030, through:
- tackling barriers
- securing investment in decarbonisation
Cities across Europe share the challenges we face in Bristol. The main principles of the One City Climate Strategy include collaboration and learning.
We'll do this by sharing learning across the Mission Cities network and giving access to expert advice.
A group of city-wide organisations have worked together to create 3 documents:
A Statement of Commitment which sets out the main actions that the council and city partners have already committed to take: for Bristol these are actions are linked to the One City Climate Strategy.
A City Climate Action Plan which sets out the actions needed to deliver the goals of the One City Climate Strategy: these include the actions city partners have committed to take but also describes the additional actions required for decarbonisation.
A City Climate Investment Plan which sets out the investment/funding needed to deliver the Action Plan.