Adur District Council

Local climate information from CAPE

Climate change is a global challenge, but reaching the UK's carbon emissions goals requires local action.

Local councils, either through their services, or through their influence on residents and local businesses, have influence over one-third of UK emissions.

mySociety and Climate Emergency UK have created CAPE - to make councils' commitments, plans, and progress on climate action transparent and accessible to all.

We are working to improve the quality of information that is available about local climate action, and about the levels of public support for climate action.

By promoting information sharing and constructive scrutiny, we aim to drive more effective and coordinated action to reduce emissions.

For Adur District Council we have collected the following information: powers & responsibilities, your representatives, declarations & pledges, climate documents, council actions scorecard, emissions data, climate assembly, local polling and related councils.

Powers & Responsibilities

Adur District Council is a Non-Metropolitan District.

This means it overlaps with a county council, with the county and district layers having different responsibilites.

This kind of council has powers and responsibilities for:

Council buildings and staff

Climate actions might include:

making council offices more energy efficient
incentivising ‘Active Travel’ or public transport use among employees
providing carbon literacy training for employees

Environmental health

Climate actions might include:

reducing industrial emissions through air quality enforcement
bringing up insulation and energy efficiency standards through enforcement of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) and Decent Homes Standard 2000, for cold and damp conditions in private rental and social housing

See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

Planning and building control

Climate actions might include:

imposing reasonable requirements that new developments comply with energy efficiency standards and get a proportion of their energy from local, renewable sources (Planning and Energy Act, 2008)
incorporating additional energy performance standards into their Local Plan, for new works that require planning permission
using Area Action Plans to guide development proposals towards lower carbon emissions or more cycling and walking routes, for example
enforcing legislation that requires private rental properties to be of Energy Efficiency Rating E or above (Energy Efficiency Regulations, 2015)
funding energy efficiency improvements on existing homes, through initiatives such as Green Homes Grants

See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

Housing

Climate actions might include:

setting energy standards above building regulations (Planning and Energy Act, 2008)
enabling housing associations to improve the energy efficiency of their housing stock through loans
where councils operate their own social housing, prioritising energy efficiency – for example, by requiring Passivhaus standard for newly built schemes

See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

Spending, procuring, and investing

Climate actions might include:

embedding carbon impact assessment as part of the council’s budgeting and financial accountability process
utilising Public Works Loan Board loans or the Business Rates Retention Scheme to invest in emissions-reducing capital projects that otherwise wouldn’t get funded
specifying low carbon equipment and practices when procuring for relevant services from suppliers
prioritising positive environmental impacts during procurement, through the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012

Waste collection

Climate actions might include:

establishing ‘Joint Waste Solutions’ with neighbouring councils, to get more value out of waste, recycling, and street cleaning contracts
running marketing campaigns to encourage residential recycling, reuse, and waste minimisation

See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

Read more about English local authority powers in the UK100 Power Shift report.

Your representatives

We also run WriteToThem.com, which you can use to find out all your representatives from different layers of local, devolved, and national democracy.

You can also use it to send a message to your councillors, MP, or other representatives.

Declarations & pledges

Climate emergency declaration

Adur District Council declared a climate emergency on July 18, 2019.

Council only pledge for 2030

“Adur & Worthing Councils declared a climate emergency in July 2019. As part of this declaration we made a commitment to work towards being a carbon neutral council by 2030.”
Reducing carbon emissions - Adur & Worthing Councils

Whole area pledge for 2050

“Adur & Worthing Councils have committed to working towards carbon neutrality by 2030 for the councils own direct emissions, and 2050 for area-wide emissions, supporting the UK’s Net Zero by 2050 commitments and the Paris Agreement.”
SCATTER Study for Adur & Worthing

A council declaring a climate emergency is an official recognition of the urgent need to address and mitigate the impacts of climate change at a local level. See a list of councils which have declared a climate emergency.

A whole area pledge is a commitment to reduce emissions across the geographic area, including emissions by homes and businesses. See a list of councils which have made a whole area pledge.

A council only pledge is a commitment to reduce emissions that the council is directly responsible for through its buildings, operations, and services. See a list of councils which have made a council-only pledge.

Climate documents

Last update: Nov. 28, 2023

The following climate documents have been published by Adur District Council.

You can read, search, and see topics we've identified that are present in each document.

You can also search across all plans stored in our database.

Show more citizens' assembly documents