In June 2019, Hounslow Council declared a climate emergency, committing to become carbon neutral by 2030.

We were commissioned to help produce a draft Climate Emergency Action Plan, which was unanimously approved by councillors in January 2020. The plan sets out a pathway for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, both for the Council’s own estate and across the Borough as a whole.

We provided technical expertise on:

  • Identifying the sources of carbon emissions and associated data, both from council operations and the borough at large;
  • The economic cost of key actions which could be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the associated benefits (using a Marginal Abatement Cost Curve); and
  • Co-benefits and dis-benefits of actions to inform selection of top five actions taking into account their wider impacts, alongside costs and greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

Alongside this, we also:

  • Reviewed good practice examples from across the UK and Europe and suggested those relevant to Hounslow under the following themes: renewable energy, community, housing, transport and behaviour change schemes;
  • Worked with experienced council officers to develop a list of top five priority actions for the council to take in the short and medium-term to move their own estate towards net-zero emissions; and
  • Supported council officers to determine interventions to influence the reduction of emissions in the borough from a number of key sources.

As part of the project, we worked with the Hounslow team to design and deliver two workshops. The first workshop brought together council officers from across all relevant departments to discuss how Hounslow could address the climate emergency. We enabled staff members to learn from each other by sharing ideas with the group, gathering thoughts on what should be included in the Action Plan, as well as capturing personal pledges. We provided our case studies of good practice to stimulate discussion in break-out groups.

The second workshop was open to the public. Over 100 people from the local community and further afield, including local councillors, attended. They contributed their ideas for what the council, the community and businesses could do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The workshop also provided a space to imagine how Hounslow would look in the future and for people to discuss their existing spheres of influence and actions which they could take individually to help the borough reach net-zero emissions.

To help communicate messages in an accessible way we designed a series of infographics illustrating the ideas generated from both workshops, as well as co-benefits of actions and the spheres of influence people can use to reduce emissions.

We supported the council to take the findings from the workshops, and to analyse greenhouse gas emissions data for the borough, in order to develop a top 5 list of initial actions for both the Council and the wider Borough. The top 5 actions recommended for the council were:

  • Decarbonising the heating of space by efficiently heating the housing stock, retrofitting housing and moving towards electric heating;
  • Development of a new solar energy array;
  • Electrification of the Council’s vehicle fleet;
  • Reducing employee travel; and
  • Alteration of approaches to waste management.

The top 5 actions recommended for the wider Borough were:

  • Promotion of active travel;
  • Increasing uptake of electric vehicles, both personal and commercial;
  • Promotion of energy efficiency retrofits, plus low carbon heating;
  • Promoting behaviour change towards sustainable behaviours; and
  • Waste management.

We also provided further high-level insight on carbon offsetting, carbon budgets, the role of national government and funding opportunities for delivering the Action Plan.