Climate Change and Air Quality Strategy

Buckinghamshire Local Enterprise Partnership (BLEP) developed Buckinghamshire’s Local Industrial Strategy. This sets out how the area will deliver the national Industrial Strategy’s aim to raise productivity levels and to create high-quality, well paid jobs. The Greater South East Energy Hub works on behalf of LEPs with councils in the greater south east area to support the development and financing of local energy projects and BLEP has produced a Local Energy Strategy for Buckinghamshire.

Local business support and advice is offered by Buckinghamshire Business First (BBF). The BBF group includes Ngage Solutions Ltd which runs the Low Carbon Workspaces grant programme for SMEs.

We will work with these and other partners, including the 16 Community Boards in Buckinghamshire, to support our private, residential, public, and third sector communities in addressing climate change and air quality as set out in the actions below. This includes providing guidance and information about funding (from the Tree Council, Woodland Trust, and other) to support community tree planting.

Schools and academies have a close relationship with the communities they serve and many also work closely with the council via a range of support services, range from property maintenance to HR and IT support. Fifteen percentage of respondents to the engagement survey were aware that some schools in Buckinghamshire have solar photovoltaic panels installed.

Many schools and academies are already working to reduce their emissions and discuss topics related to the environment and climate change. We would like to encourage this and will work with schools to understand what type of support would be most helpful to them.

In addition to the above actions that focus on school transport emissions, we will build on our success of putting solar PV on school roofs to help generate a more accessible and compelling emissions reductions service for school buildings.

We lease/rent properties to individuals and organisations either directly from the Council or via our private investment partnerships (for example Aylesbury Vale Estates and Consilio Property Ltd). The majority of our leases are full repairing and insuring (FRI) where tenants are typically wholly responsible for the fabric of the building, their use of resources (including energy) and the associated emissions. We are only able to make changes to the building envelope (external walls, roof, and floor) etc. at suitable intervals (for example when the properties are vacant) or with the agreement of the tenants as part of wider building improvements to improve the environmental performance of a property. These are typically driven by commercial and investment return strategies. There is also potential to improve performance through ‘green leases’.

In order to reduce emissions to air related to supplier activity, we must continue to assess and introduce appropriate requirements though our procurement and contract management work. There are a number of green public procurement guides available and we will prioritise engagement with high value and high emission suppliers first to determine what can be done together.

Many electricity, and some gas, suppliers now offer renewable supply contracts which are marketed as providing renewable generation. However, the carbon emissions associated with such renewable energy supplies can be more difficult to robustly determine and may not be zero carbon. This is due to the complexity in the market and different way which such claims may be justified.

We need to re-procure our electricity and gas supply contracts in the coming years and this provide an opportunity to review a renewable supply option against a conventional offer, both in terms of carbon impact and affordability.

Buckinghamshire Highways is engaged in a £45mill. a year contract to maintain and improve and roads and footways in the County and has an objective to optimise the use of energy and natural resources to protect our special environment and contribute to a carbon neutral county. The capacity of roadside verges to sequester carbon and filter/absorb air pollutants has been enhanced by the establishment of Roadside Nature Reserves. Changing the management of our roadside verges will reduce emissions and provide better quality habitats for wildlife.

We own and operate our own waste collection service in the Aylesbury Vale area but contract a supplier to provide this service elsewhere in the County.