The UK 100 Group.

Alitheia
Jan 31, 2023
15 min read

UK100 is a network of 'local leaders' who have pledged to lead a rapid transition to Net Zero with Clean Air in their communities, ahead of the government’s legal target.

Their Website states:

Air pollution is a national emergency - killing thousands every year in the UK. UK100 is calling for legislation that protects us from dirty air and enables the UK to become a world leader in clean technologies and solutions.

Air pollution is the top environmental risk to human health in the UK, killing between 28,000 and 36,000 people a year. UK100’s local leaders are committed to working together to tackle it and are implementing innovative solutions to protect their residents. But there’s so much more to do. As well as taking action locally, UK100’s network is united in calling on the UK government to do more. This is a national problem that needs a national action.

UK100’s primary purpose is to support a local-led rapid transition to Net Zero and Clean Air. We do this through collaboration.

To accelerate action, we believe in bringing together the most influential leaders across the country to learn together and agree on priorities for legislative and regulatory change while empowering them to engage with national decision-makers.

We provide our network with the knowledge, tools, and connections to make this happen.

Their Program of activities includes:

Local Climate Engagement

Applications are open for local authorities in England to join our new Local Climate Engagement (LCE) programme.

LCE will enable local authorities and partnerships to plan, commission and deliver high quality public engagement in their climate decision-making, in a way that benefits both them and their local population.

The programme is an exciting new opportunity for local authorities to work with us and our four partner organisations for the programme: Involve, Democratic Society, Shared Future and Climate Outreach. [Check them out]

All are amongst the UK’s leading organisations in the fields of local government, public participation in climate decision-making, and climate communications and advocacy.

Local authorities have a unique leadership role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping local areas adapt to the effects of climate change.

Across the country they have shown bold leadership by setting Net Zero targets that are years ahead of the national government

But they will only be able to deliver their role effectively and achieve a fair Net Zero transition by enabling public participation in their climate decision-making.

Countryside Climate Network

The UK’s rural community plays an essential role in our move towards Net Zero. The Countryside Climate Network amplifies the rural voice as part of our national policy advocacy.

Rural communities are at the frontline of climate change impacts. More extreme weather brings longer droughts and wetter winters. Our national interest is damaged when our food production is damaged, and for the two-thirds of people who live outside the largest urban areas, climate change brings distinct challenges to our villages and towns.

But rural communities can also be at the forefront of climate action too. The countryside offers far more than a place to plant millions of trees to offset carbon emissions from elsewhere. To meet the UK’s goal of becoming Net Zero by 2050, rural communities need to be heard; their challenges need to be understood. They need to be engaged in taking action and implementing solutions.

Climate Leadership Academy

The Climate Leadership Academy offers ambitious councillors a unique coaching opportunity to develop their political skills, knowledge and confidence, in order to become leading climate pioneers in local government.

Participants will leave able to overcome the challenges in designing and delivering ambitious, local climate projects, to enable remarkable progress towards their organisation's Net Zero goals.

The Climate Leadership Academy will bring together a cohort of 20 councillors to attend tailored residential workshops and coaching from experts in the private, voluntary, and public sector

Knowledge Hub

The Knowledge Hub provides valuable evidence and insight on how local authorities and businesses are advancing to Net Zero, helping local governments translate their ambitions into action.

Gloucester’s plan to cut commuting emissions

Jon Burke, Climate Change and Decarbonisation Lead - Gloucester City Council

“Gloucester City Council has set ambitious Net Zero and carbon neutrality targets for itself and the wider district. We as a council recognise that to achieve these goals, organisations and individuals will have to change their approaches to travel. They will need to make more trips by walking, wheeling, and public transport, rather than by private motor vehicles.

“To ensure that our residents trust us to take both justified and fair decisions, we must show that we are willing to go fastest and furthest. Our Green Travel Plan is part of our mission to be a ‘do as we do’ rather than a ‘do as we say’ council when it comes to addressing the climate emergency.”

Gloucester City Council declared a climate emergency in July 2019, committing to:

Net Zero across its own operations by 2030
Carbon neutrality within the broader district by 2045

Emissions in the UK from surface transport are amongst the highest of any sector. In 2019, they were 22% of total UK emissions, according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC). We are strongly guided by the ‘balanced decarbonisation pathway’ of the CCC’s Sixth Carbon Budget and to go further wherever possible.

That is why we have set the ambitious goal of Net Zero corporate emissions by 2030.

This means that by 2030, we are required, as a minimum, to achieve:

about a 17% reduction in miles that officers commute by car against pre-pandemic levels
fully electrified, or zero-tailpipe emission, motor vehicles driven by all officers who continue to commute by car

Essex’s Make Rain Happy scheme to reduce flooding

Cllr Peter Schwier, 'Climate Czar' and Deputy Cabinet Member to the Leader

Essex County Council

Learn how a pilot scheme of rain gardens, tree planting, and over 1,300 plants has helped to reduce surface water flooding on a residential street in Essex.

In 2019, a multi-agency partnership involving all flood management authorities began to consider a street-level retrofit of Park Avenue’s drainage systems using green infrastructure.

The aim of the project was to:

reduce the risk of flooding by using the street’s grass verges and public open space to absorb surface water
provide other benefits to the community like livening up the street with tree planting and an attractive planting scheme

The other option would have been to upgrade the traditional drainage in the road. But that would have added to the demand on an already struggling drainage system, and we decided against it.

The ‘Make Rain Happy’ scheme for Park Avenue, a joint project between Essex County Council and Anglian Water, was initiated in 2019. The flood-blocking scheme’s main components are:

installations of rain gardens, swale, tree planting, and over 1,300 plants
a footbridge across the swale so residents can still access the green space during wet periods
a permeable plastic grid to stabilise the ground and accommodate parking while still allowing water to infiltrate and grass to grow (‘X-grid parking’)

Haringey’s action plan for low-carbon council homes

Cllr Mike Hakata, Deputy Leader of Haringey Council and Cabinet Member for Climate Action, Environment and Transport - London Borough of Haringey

"To deliver the ambition for our social housing stock in the climate change action plan, and support our Affordable Energy Strategy 2020-2025, we needed more data. Although we have headline data, such as EPC bands and tenant types, we needed to know more about the measures we require to achieve our targets. Across over 20,000 properties, we had to understand:

how the measures would be implemented
who would install them
what would they cost to deliver

Using our energy data (drawn from existing EPCs), stock data to model current performance, and Parity Projects’ Portfolio modelling software, we developed a retrofitting plan for every home.

This process broke down our social housing into groups that were then easier to deliver, including homes that needed:

loft insulation
efficient boilers
new glazing
external wall insulation

We also overlaid homes likely to be in fuel poverty, or in conservation areas, which would then influence our approach to appropriate measures.

Our unit-by-unit approach means we can feed this into our planned maintenance programme. This ensures energy works are considered and included in all works taking place and reduces the overall cost of delivery.

These models allowed us to set out clearer targets for delivery partners, and for the council to adopt clearer principles for delivery. These include:

ensuring each house has a retrofit plan with a fabric-first approach: all works must strive for this
installing measures to improve the worst performing properties first
installing the highest levels of insulation first – in homes where decarbonised heating systems are replacing gas boilers – to ensure running costs remain low (this will mean training maintenance staff and local installers)
ensuring projects are eligible for government funding by aligning them with government standards: this will also reduce unintended consequences like damp, mould, and overheating
working more in partnership with tenants – vital before, during, and after works – to bring residents with us and ensure new technologies are used correctly
using council funding to lever in external funding streams – for example, the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) – to cover the shortfall

The result of all this work is our housing energy action plan. It has allowed us to build the business case for investment to start delivering the measures, and secure external confidence and funding”.

Warwick District Council’s Net Zero carbon development plan document

Cllr Alan Rhead, Portfolio Holder for Climate Change and Dave Barber, Programme Director for Climate Change - Warwick District Council

After Warwick District Council declared a climate emergency in 2019, we recognised a shortcoming in our local plan, adopted in 2017. It did not have sufficiently robust policies requiring low-carbon building standards for new buildings. Each year, over 1,000 homes are built in the district, along with extensive commercial developments. This means every new house and building is adding to the district’s carbon emissions.

This project is about adopting a new planning policy that can be given full weight in planning decisions to deliver Net Zero new buildings. The objectives of the policy are to:

provide a clear policy framework that makes it easy for developers to understand what’s needed to ensure new buildings are Net Zero in operation
ensure practical and viable low-carbon building standards that can be applied to new buildings
support the consideration of low-carbon energy sources as part of development proposals
provide, as a last resort, the policy framework for addressing residual carbon from new buildings through a robust carbon offsetting policy (learn more in the stakeholder section below)

The draft document’s 6 policies cover:

achieving Net Zero carbon development
making buildings energy efficient
zero or low-carbon energy sources and zero-carbon-ready technology
carbon offsetting
embodied carbon
existing buildings

Importantly, all six policies have been subject to a viability assessment. This ensures they won’t significantly undermine the viability of development in the district.

Local carbon market: how it will work

Through the offsetting policy, we will calculate buildings’ residual carbon over 30 years and apply a cost per tonne. This calculation will be based on the Treasury’s Green Book calculations for carbon offsetting. The cost per tonne will then be subject to a section 106 agreement when developments get planning permission.

Once we receive the section 106 payments, we will pass them on to Warwickshire County Council to implement natural capital projects, offsetting residual carbon. These projects are most likely to be tree-planting initiatives but could include restoring meadows and grasslands too.

To ensure high-quality offsets, the local carbon market will be fully accredited through the Woodland Carbon Code. Warwickshire County Council describes it as ‘gold standard’ offsetting. The market is expected to launch in April 2023.

Water source heat pumps for council estates in Southwark

Tom Vosper, Strategic Project Manager – Heat Networks - London Borough of Southwark

In a first for London, heat pumps that use water from the aquifer deep underground are keeping 2,000 Southwark homes warm. The heat pumps – which replaced gas boilers in a council retrofit project – extract naturally warm water from London’s aquifer. The low-carbon tech then uses the water’s heat energy to warm the homes and provide them with hot water, while helping the borough meet Net Zero.

Cllr James McAsh, Cabinet Member for the Climate Emergency and Sustainable Development, says:

“Climate Change is a top priority for Southwark, and greening our homes and buildings is a crucial part of tackling that, as residential buildings make up nearly 30% of our borough’s emissions.

“It is great to celebrate some of the successes we’ve had on carbon-saving projects, and share what we’ve learnt on this innovative project that was the first of its kind in London. These new estate-wide heat pumps will deliver a win-win for residents, keeping their homes warm whilst generating renewable energy and preventing thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide from being emitted.”

Cllr Darren Merrill, Cabinet Member for Council Homes and Homelessness, adds:

“Right across the council we are working to tackle the climate emergency. These works have helped to improve the quality of housing for our residents whilst also helping us meet our ambitions for a healthier environment.”

The new estate-wide heat pumps will deliver a win-win for residents. They will keep homes warm while generating renewable energy and saving thousands of tonnes of CO2.

The project is estimated to achieve 3,848 tonnes CO2 savings per year, which equates to around 1.77 tonnes of CO2 saved per home. This accounts for a significant portion of our overall target. The carbon savings from the initiative equate to:

3,848 people flying from Gatwick to Chicago every year
an average car travelling 13,468,000 miles every year

From a technological point of view, this project can be replicated in Southwark, London, or elsewhere in the UK. But as the Non-Domestic RHI has closed to new applicants, and that funding was crucial to ensuring the project worked financially, we are now investigating different business models to allow further heat pump installations.

Co-benefits

Some of the project’s co-benefits include:

improving air quality: the heat networks use mostly renewables and far less gas
keeping residents warm: the heat networks have kept running throughout the project
keeping costs the same: RHI income keeps the cost to the same level as before the pumps were running

Implementing planning guidance to control ammonia pollution in Shropshire

Council Leader's Statement

“Shropshire Council has seen an increase in the number of intensive poultry applications submitted to the authority when compared with the rest of England. We already have high background levels of airborne ammonia and nitrogen deposition, and a large number of international wildlife sites that are sensitive to ammonia and nitrogen. In response to this Shropshire Council has produced planning guidance on assessing the impacts of ammonia and nitrogen deposition on wildlife sites. This ambitious guidance strives to improve the quality of planning applications, facilitating solutions in an ecologically-rich environment in line with new case law and existing legislation and should help us to get the balance right.”

Ammonia Pollution

Ammonia emissions in the UK have been rising since 2013, with significant implications for biodiversity and human health. The agricultural sector produces about 90% of all UK ammonia emissions. In particular, intensive livestock units can release large amounts of ammonia into the atmosphere. Ammonia pollution poses a potential threat to sensitive wildlife habitats through:

direct impacts such as toxic damage to plants.
disruption and damage of naturally nutrient-poor ecosystems through nitrogen deposition causing over-fertilisation.

Therefore, if there are sensitive and important ecological sites close to ammonia emitting developments, there is cause for concern.

98% of the administrative area of Shropshire Council is classified as rural. Around 23% of Shropshire forms part of the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and non-statutory wildlife sites together cover approximately 6% of the land area. Woodland covers approximately 7%. Livestock farming is a significant part of the Shropshire economy, and in particular over the past decade, there has been significant growth in the intensive poultry farming sector (meat and eggs). New and expanding intensive poultry require planning permission from the council and sometimes an environmental permit from the Environment Agency. In the past, Shropshire Council used the 2012 Environment Agency guidance to assess the implications of ammonia emitting planning applications on the natural environment. However, with the increase in units being approved and the cumulative impacts that this could have on the environment, the council decided that there was a need for bespoke county level guidance.

The Solution

To ensure that the environmental effects of ammonia emissions are appropriately considered in planning decisions, the Ecology Team at Shropshire Council developed county-specific guidance that ensures that intensive livestock unit developments are appropriately assessed with regard to their impact on sensitive wildlife sites. In accordance with local and national policy, developments are only permitted if ammonia impacts can be avoided or reduced to levels where significant impacts are considered unlikely to occur. The guidance details the process that must be followed by applicants and their agents when submitting intensive livestock applications.

Reading's award-winning municipal bus company

Cllr Tony Page, Peter Moore, Chris Maddocks - Reading Borough Council

How a proactive approach and municipal ownership can combine to deliver attractive public transport alternatives to the car, cleaner air and lower carbon emissions.

A multi-phase South Reading Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) project has therefore seen c£30m million invested or planned in the corridor since 2014 with the following aims:

To reduce public transport journey times and improve reliability
To enhance urban connectivity, improving access to key employment sites
To provide a key north-south spine to the proposed wider Thames Valley Berkshire Mass Rapid Transit network
To enhance access to/from South Reading to central Reading and Reading Station
To reduce transport related emissions and improve air quality

Phases of the Mass Rapid Transit Programme

Delivery of the various MRT phases was led by Reading Borough Council, utilising national funding secured via the Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership’s Local Growth Fund and developer contributions. Delivery of the scheme on-site commenced in 2014 which was preceded by over 2 years of planning, procurement, design and business case development.

Phase 1: M4 Junction 11 to A33 Green Park junction – £3.7m, completed 2016

Phase 2: A33 Green Park junction to Island Road - £1.9m, completed 2017

Phases 3 & 4: Rose Kiln Lane to Bennet Road - £12.7m, completed 2021

Phases 5 & 6: £12m – funding bid pending, completion by spring 2025 (earliest)

A single-phase scheme was considered but discounted due to the higher costs of implementation and disruption, pointing towards a phased approach to delivery. The alternative – ‘do nothing’ – would have led to increased congestion on the network, limiting the sustainable economic development of the area, and possible business relocations to the detriment of the local economic and employment prospects.

Rolling stock improvements

At the same time as investing in improved infrastructure, Reading Buses also invested in 58 bio-gas powered buses, resulting in a quieter, cleaner and greener fleet. The bio-gas buses are estimated to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 84% compared to an equivalent diesel double deck bus. They also produce significantly less Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) than the buses they replaced with the gas being produced from food waste and animal manure. The gas is purchased through the Gas Bus Alliance which sells “virtual” bio-methane produced from renewable resources. The Gas Bus Alliance remotely injects an energy equivalent volume of bio natural gas (BNG) into the National Grid network to balance the gas taken direct from the mains and compressed by Reading Buses. Reading Buses continues to be a pioneer of the ‘green fleet’ and is now looking at electrification options for its rolling stock.

West Berkshire: Climate Change Bond

The West Berkshire Council Climate Change Bond is the first Community Municipal Investment (CMI) in the UK.

West Berkshire has already used its CMI to fully or partially finance a number of green projects in the district. These include:

Solar panels were installed in six West Berkshire locations at a total cost of £520k
Traffic lights at 17 locations were retro-fitted with LED lights. The bond provided the £80k project cost which will offer energy efficiency benefits of 38,207kWh per year, which equates to 21 tonnes of CO2. Some subway lighting has also been upgraded to LED.
217 steel lighting columns have been replaced with aluminium, costing £200k. The new columns have twice the life span of steel columns, which will save around £20k per year in maintenance costs.
Developing the council's local walking and cycling infrastructure plan. As part of this the council delivered a £100k upgrade to the Thatcham to Brimpton towpath in October 2020.
£100k of habitat restoration and capital investment in our country parks through the council's partnership with Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust.
Tree planting and habitat creation as part of the Dunstan Park and South East Thatcham Flood Alleviation Scheme costing £100k will be completed this year.

The process for calculating emission savings from these projects is currently underway, but we are confident these CMI funded projects have signalled the beginning of a much bigger effort towards delivering climate action and cutting emissions in West Berkshire.

APPG on Sustainable Finance

The APPG supports parliamentarians to understand more about sustainable finance. It brings together a wide range of professions to build political consensus for what’s needed in the finance sector to reach Net Zero.

It brings together policy makers, industry players, academics and practitioners to build political consensus for the changes required in the finance sector to help reach Net Zero.

The right financial policies can help develop markets, build a resilient economy and ensure finance can flow away from polluting fossil fuels, such as those invested in our pension funds, towards the job-creating, zero carbon sectors of the future.

Resilient Recovery Taskforce

The Resilient Recovery Taskforce is a group of 24 mayors and local leaders calling on the government for a resilient recovery enabling ambitious local action towards Net Zero.

The need for an economic recovery package that creates resilience in our communities and reduces carbon emissions has never been more needed. The Covid-19 crisis has revealed the structural weaknesses of our economy to external shocks, and we are all aware of the rising damage that climate change will bring. Action now to revive our economy must be built on building in resilience to climate change, both by adapting and mitigating its effects.

A group of 24 mayors and local leaders, representing 24 million people across the country, have established a new Resilient Recovery Taskforce. They are calling on the chancellor to commit to a ‘New Deal for Green Skills and Growth’, alongside a major push on infrastructure investment, public transport and retrofitting homes.

New research from UK100 indicates that a “retrofit army” of nearly half a million builders, electricians and plumbers will be needed to help meet the government’s objective of becoming Net Zero by 2050. Our research to launch the Taskforce in July showed that more than 3.1 million job posts affected by the shift to green jobs will need access to skills and training from government and industry.

The Taskforce submitted a proposal to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, in September 2020 to unlock £100bn as part of his Spending Review, along with a 5-point Resilient Recovery Declaration. The finance should be predominantly met from the private sector with the Treasury pump-priming £5bn via a Net Zero Development Bank.