A national focus for green finance, linking businesses and organisations across sectors, driving evidence-based engagement and making Leeds the leading city in the north for Green Great Britain Week … Leeds Climate Commission is demonstrating its ‘can do’ spirit  in its first full year.

The Commission has published its second Annual Report, which highlights progress and achievements over 2018 and shows how the Commission is working to unlock low carbon potential in Leeds.

Highlights

·         Bringing together over 100 representatives of private, public and investment companies, financial services, consultancies and organisations for a networking event, which led the development of a programme of project development workshops for medium sized enterprises

·         Leeds being invited by the Dept for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to host a national conference on Green Finance with UK100 

·         £40k funding being secured for developing the business case for a crowd-funded solar project on Council buildings

·        Collaborating with Citu on a climate/energy knowledge sharing/networking platform for the city

·        Connecting Leeds’ universities, organisations and businesses to deliver projects through student research

·         Collaborating with cultural organisations (Opera North) and production companies (ITV) to start new sustainability networks prioritising carbon reduction

·         Livestreaming two ambitious public events on climate change in city centre locations

·         Evaluating a Carbon Literacy project with ITV and a Carbon Conversations project with Citu to develop an evidence base for effective public engagement 

·         city-wide survey of climate mitigation and communication activity

·         supporting, promoting and co-ordinating local events and activities, notably for Green GB Week (15-19 October)

·         A three year ESRC funded Research Fellow on the Economics of Climate Resilient Cities and Infrastructure, with ARUP to create a unified framework for climate resilience, which could be replicated across cities.

·         Plans for a ‘roadmap’ (by March 2019) to deliver city wide carbon reduction targets and bring forward proposals for city level carbon budgets consistent with the roadmap.

·         Exploring wider potential for Leeds to tackle consumption emissions from goods and services 

·         three student placement projects including the preparation of the evidence base for position papers on the climate implications and opportunities for hydrogen, Leeds South Bank and food waste.

Read the full report in the downloads below. There is also a one-page summary document.

Image: Benjamin Elliott, Unsplash