Even as the global economy deals with multiple major, foundation-shaking shocks, the climate crisis remains the most pressing existential threat facing us all. The UK government has set ambitious targets for decarbonisation, and their commitment is mirrored across the private sector. However, there is a pressing need for coordinated, well thought-out action on multiple spatial scales to make these goals a reality.
Building on our foundational 2019 report The Route To Clean Growth, our clean growth workstream will examine how local actors in our regions are readying their places for the transition to net zero, and attempt to formulate policy solutions to obstacles on this path.
Over the last thirty years landfill policy has been among the most successful and singularly effective of government environmental policies. Since its introduction on 1st October 1996, the UK landfill tax has succeeded since the start of the millennium in drastically cutting local authority waste sent to landfill by 90%, encouraging waste reduction, reuse, recycling […]
Approaches to regeneration necessarily vary across the country and within regions to respect the genius and distinctions of place across our cities, towns and villages. This is as it should be. However, as we enter the end of one political cycle and await the start of a new one, what lessons, both broad and particular, […]
As climate shifts worldwide, councils across England are being hit by increasingly extreme weather patterns including violent storm surges, unbearable temperatures, and widespread flooding. Even under the most minimal of warming scenarios, infrastructure, public health, and GDP will all worsen due to the weighty pressure of extreme weather events. If action is not taken, the […]
Like ‘Building Back Better’ or ‘Levelling Up’, the ambitious cross-government Net Zero Strategy risks a fate as a vapid if effective slogan if the overriding domestic political issues, the long-term failures in economic, energy and social policy are not addressed at the level of place. According to the UK Government’s Net Zero Strategy, central and […]
This short report is part of our ongoing series on the construction of a Local Resilience Act. As climate shifts worldwide, councils across England are being hit by increasingly extreme weather patterns including violent storm surges, unbearable temperatures, and widespread flooding. At the level of place, our local authorities are best situated to understand and […]
This short report is part of our ongoing series on the construction of a Local Resilience Act. As climate shifts worldwide, councils across England are being hit by increasingly extreme weather patterns including violent storm surges, unbearable temperatures, and widespread flooding. At the level of place, our local authorities are best situated to understand and […]
Council finances are in a precarious position. Wound tightly from the time of the astringencies of the 2010 spending review, to the limited protections that saw the sector through the Covid years, the principal cogs of local government finance – property taxes, commercial revenue, fees and charges, capital expenditure and grant funding, are clearly out […]
As the impacts of climate change become clearer every year, the UK must be better prepared for the manifold impacts of extreme weather events, including floods. In England alone, some 5.4 million homes – one-in-six – are at risk of flooding, with many of them susceptible to surface water flooding. Flood resilience is a public […]
The UK is committed to reaching net zero by 2050, with numerous pieces of legislation enshrining the target and backing this politically. Understanding what needs to be done to drive decarbonisation, and what accompanying opportunities there are for increasing prosperity in the long-term, is crucial to realising this goal. Across the public sector landscape, this […]
The UK’s housing stock represents one of the most significant challenges to overcome in achieving net zero emissions by 2050. While measures around new buildings will be important, decarbonising nation’s existing housing stock is a priority for net zero policy, given that 80% of the houses people will be living in by 2050 have already […]