Norwich City Council has been named as the top local authority in Norfolk and one of the best in the country on a number of issues related to climate change.
In a wide-ranging survey by environmental organisation Friends of the Earth, the city council was ranked joint-15th nationally (out of 350 local authorities surveyed) and first in Norfolk, with a performance score of 80 per cent.
The survey assessed councils in different categories including renewable energy, public transport, lift-sharing, energy efficiency at home, waste recycling, and tree cover to determine which local authorities were performing highest in this vital area.
The city has made maintaining a ‘liveable city’ one of the key themes of its 2040 City Vision, and this ambition is reflected in the vast progress being made in Norwich.
Perhaps most famously, the 100 per cent social housing and Passivhaus development at Goldsmith Street has won several prestigious architectural awards and has become the first social housing project to be nominated for the RIBA Stirling Prize.
The city itself has achieved substantial decreases in carbon emissions, cutting its operational usage by 59.6 per cent and the general city’s usage by 45 per cent since 2008.
This progress has been stimulated by our championing of alternative forms of travel – the number of our citizens cycling is up 40 per cent from 2013, while the amount of Norwich residents who walk to work is well over twice the national average.
The city has also partnered with global energy and services company ENGIE to launch Roar Power, a renewable energy provider with people and the planet at its core. The provider is one of just a few in the UK able to offer a fully renewable tariff, with 100 per cent renewable electricity and gas.
Councillor Kevin Maguire, cabinet member for safe and sustainable city environment at Norwich City Council, said: “We’re very proud to have been recognised as a high-performing council in this regard as it’s a real priority for us.
“However well we are currently performing, we always want to do more – which is why we’ve set up a climate emergency and environment executive panel to keep widening our focus and improving our performance on climate change.
“We hope to being topping lists of this nature in the near future.”
Visit the Friends of the Earth survey.
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