Green and clean. How can local government deliver services and engage citizens for a more sustainable future and a cooler climate?
James Bonner has written previous LGIU briefings on sustainable mobility and active travel, including on Scottish Government’s ‘Spaces for People’ programme rolled out during the Covid-19 pandemic. He reflects on his experiences in Glasgow during the pandemic and how they align with previous active travel writing.
LGIU Scotland’s Kim Fellows speaks to Cllr Gavin Corbett, Green councillor for Fountainbridge/Craiglockhart in Edinburgh, about Covid-19, tourism, canals, and how we might be heading from the ‘Covid-19 frying pan’ to the ‘climate change fire’.
The UK is committed to reducing net carbon emissions to zero by 2050. This will require significant changes to the way we live, and present difficult decisions for central and local government. The Climate Assembly UK brought together ordinary citizens to debate the issues and suggestion of policy solutions.
This briefing includes information on individual state and territory renewable energy policies and initiatives, and identifies their implications (and potential opportunities) for local governments. It also includes information on projects at the local and regional level.
While the world’s attention remains focused on the pandemic, this year’s Climate Week comes as a timely reminder that Covid-19 is not the only crisis the planet faces. LGIU’s Alice Creasy writes on how climate change is already affecting the UK, and the role of local authorities in working to incorporate climate strategies into recovery.
As the most recent form of environmental activism looks to be curbed by new legal restrictions, we must question if now is really the time to ignore the voices calling for a more sustainable future, writes LGIU’s Alice Buszard.
The World Economic Forum’s ‘Future of Nature and Business’ report highlights the materiality of nature loss for businesses and details what transitions are needed to move towards a nature-positive economy. In this briefing, Alice Creasy explores the blueprint set out by these transitions and examine the lessons and opportunities for local government.
On September 1 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced Scottish Government’s new Programme for Government (PfG) 2020-2021. This briefing will summarise the key points of this announcement and highlight the parts most relevant to local government and public services.
This briefing looks at the recently launched Australian Disaster Resilience Index, funded by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC with research by the University of New England, and will be of interest to land use planners, asset managers, community planners, councillors, CEOs.
LGIU’s Kim Fellows recently attended a New Economics Foundation seminar on how to win green recovery. In this blog, she outlines the sentiments of the speakers, which suggest a bolder reshaping of our current political and economic system may be necessary for real change.