Stroud District Council (SDC) is a small rural district within Gloucestershire. As a sustainability pioneer, we were assessed as carbon neutral in 2015 in respect of our own operations where we have direct control. In 2019 we made an ambitious commitment to become a carbon neutral district by 2030. A comprehensive strategy and masterplan has been developed with community, business and statutory partners and unanimously adopted (March 2021).
The Strategy takes a ‘sustainable development’ approach to the growth of our economy and natural capital addressing both the climate and ecological emergencies.
The Council is a relatively small contributor to district carbon emissions, both direct and indirect therefore, the Master Plan sets out how we will act as:
- an exemplar – a pathfinder in our own estates and practice
- an enabler – through partnerships and services
- an encourager – and supporter of community led action.
The framework comprises 23 Stretch Goals that provide the direction of travel across 14 themes and a total of 75 commitments. Addressing a range of issues from affordable, healthy homes and nature recovery to low carbon economy and mobility planning; the themes include those relating to social justice, inclusion and community to help us keep a balanced approach that leaves no one in our district behind.
In development, the strategy was consulted with all staff and focus groups held within the Leadership and Management Team meetings to initiate the ownership over goals and commitments that will be needed by operational leaders. Cross party, councillor engagement and ownership across all council services has been enabled by embedding the Strategy into each of the four main committees through consultation exercises in the run up to its adoption by full council.
Prior to adoption of the 2030 Strategy, the 2030 commitment was embedded as a priority for development within our Corporate Plan, Purchasing Policy and service planning, hard wiring our commitment as a top priority through all of our work. Our existing and emerging Local Plans provide national exemplar policies to address climate change and promote renewable and green technology.
Our 2030 Mission Statement reflects our philosophy and has a focus on social inclusion and justice in conjunction with carbon neutrality and ecological resilience and enhancement. The council is focused on outreach and keenly aware of the multi-faceted social benefits we can achieve by improving on practice and embedding sustainable culture in the district. Our focus is on engaging with those not yet involved by putting their needs, environmental or otherwise, first and finding 2030 focused solutions to these.
The strategy recognises the importance of community voice and that success is reliant upon community action. A formal alliance with some of our most proactive citizens was formed through a collaboration with Transition Stroud to establish a growing movement of ‘Climate Action Neighbourhoods’ across the District (17 action groups to date). These are realising fabulous local projects, sharing best practice and ideas. The forum provides links to external experts and a route for the Council to have face-face interaction with our climate active communities, and has valuably informed the Strategy’s development.
We are now also underway on the development of a formal community governance structure for steering and monitoring 2030 progress and aim to build this as a socially representative group rather than solely around sustainability expertise and to use this to support emergent leadership in the District for our 2030 challenge. We already have our Youth Council represented by the commitment they placed into our Masterplan and we are working with them to support them in delivering engagement as proactive ambassadors for the 2030 mission.