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Southampton City Council

Declarations & pledges

Climate emergency declaration

This council declared a climate emergency on Sept. 18, 2019.

Council only pledge for 2030

“We want to lead the way, our Green City Delivery Plan will seek to make our operations achieve net-zero carbon by 2030.”

Climate documents

Last update: June 21, 2022

Climate Plan Scorecard

This council’s climate plans as of 20th September 2021 were assessed and scored by trained Climate Emergency UK volunteers, as part of the Council Climate Plan Scorecards project.

Show the full Scorecard Read more about the scoring process

SectionSouthampton City CouncilAverage single tier council
Total score39%50%
Section 1 Governance, development and funding
7/21
10.3/21
Section 2 Mitigation and adaptation
6/18
9.0/18
Section 3 Commitment and integration
4/7
4.1/7
Section 4 Community, engagement and communications
7/9
5.1/9
Section 5 Measuring and setting emissions targets
2/5
2.9/5
Section 6 Co-benefits
2/4
2.2/4
Section 7 Diversity and inclusion
0/5
0.9/5
Section 8 Education, skills and training
0/5
2.3/5
Section 9 Ecological emergency
2/4
2.1/4

Emissions data

648.8 ktCO2

Total 2020 emissions

2.6 tCO2

per person

11.5 ktCO2

per km2

38%

Domestic

31%

Transport

11%

Industry

10%

Commercial

10%

Public Sector

0%

Agriculture

Data from the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy “subset dataset”, representing carbon dioxide emissions within the scope of influence of local authorities.

These councils are the most similar to Southampton City Council in terms of emissions profile, deprivation, rural/urban population density, and geographical nearness. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
Portsmouth City Council89%No2030March 19, 2019
Bristol City Council87%Yes2025Nov. 13, 2018
Coventry City Council87%NoNo targetJune 18, 2019
Greater London Authority86%YesDec. 1, 2019
Luton Borough Council85%Yes2040Jan. 13, 2020
Leicester City Council84%Yes2030Feb. 1, 2019
Reading Borough Council82%Yes2030Feb. 26, 2019
London Borough of Enfield82%No2030July 8, 2019
Gosport Borough Council81%Yes2050No
Royal Borough of Greenwich81%Yes2030June 26, 2019

These councils are the most similar to Southampton City Council in terms of their emissions profile, based on the latest data from the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
Coventry City Council91%NoNo targetJune 18, 2019
Bristol City Council91%Yes2025Nov. 13, 2018
Greater London Authority89%YesDec. 1, 2019
London Borough of Brent89%No2030July 8, 2019
London Borough of Islington88%Yes2030June 27, 2019
Portsmouth City Council87%No2030March 19, 2019
London Borough of Wandsworth86%Yes2050July 17, 2019
Manchester City Council86%Yes2038July 10, 2019
Norwich City Council86%Yes2030Jan. 29, 2019
London Borough of Lambeth86%Yes2030Jan. 23, 2019
Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
Eastleigh Borough Council99%Yes2025July 18, 2019
Fareham Borough Council97%Yes2030Oct. 24, 2019
Winchester City Council97%Yes2024June 5, 2019
New Forest District Council97%NoNo targetNov. 6, 2021
Test Valley Borough Council96%Yes2050Sept. 4, 2019
Isle of Wight Council96%No2030July 24, 2019
Gosport Borough Council96%Yes2050No
Hampshire County Council95%No2050June 17, 2019
Portsmouth City Council95%No2030March 19, 2019
Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council94%Yes2025July 18, 2019

These councils are the most similar to Southampton City Council in terms of the proportion of their population living in high deprivation, medium deprivation, and low deprivation neighbourhoods. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
Luton Borough Council95%Yes2040Jan. 13, 2020
London Borough of Enfield89%No2030July 8, 2019
Coventry City Council88%NoNo targetJune 18, 2019
Leicester City Council88%Yes2030Feb. 1, 2019
Bristol City Council86%Yes2025Nov. 13, 2018
Portsmouth City Council85%No2030March 19, 2019
London Borough of Croydon85%YesNo targetJuly 15, 2019
Greater London Authority81%YesDec. 1, 2019
Plymouth City Council79%Yes2030March 18, 2019
Ipswich Borough Council79%Yes2030July 9, 2019

These councils are the most similar to Southampton City Council in terms of the proportion of their population living in urban, rural, and highly rural neighbourhoods. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
London Borough of Harrow100%Yes2030July 18, 2019
Luton Borough Council99%Yes2040Jan. 13, 2020
London Borough of Hounslow99%Yes2030No
Leicester City Council99%Yes2030Feb. 1, 2019
Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames98%Yes2038June 25, 2019
Manchester City Council98%Yes2038July 10, 2019
Portsmouth City Council98%No2030March 19, 2019
London Borough of Sutton98%No2045July 22, 2019
London Borough of Merton97%No2030July 10, 2019
London Borough of Redbridge97%Yes2050June 20, 2019

Features

This council’s climate plan has been tagged with the following features:

Powers & Responsibilities

Southampton City Council is a Unitary Authority, with powers over:

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.

    Passenger transport

    Climate actions might include:

    • encouraging bus and private hire operators to use low-emission vehicles, through licensing requirements or Clean Air Zones
    • incentivising bus use by improving routes, timetables, and ticket prices through ‘Enhanced Partnerships’ with operators
    • proposing to central government the development of light rail / tram networks that integrate, rather than compete, with other modes of transport in the area

    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.

    Schools and libraries

    Climate actions might include:

    • reducing the carbon footprint of civic buildings through better insulation and renewable energy use
    • incentivising ‘Active Travel’ or public transport use among employees
    • providing carbon literacy training for employees
    • encouraging eco-clubs at schools
    • using school land to plant trees and hedgerows, or to grow food

    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
    Transport planning

    Climate actions might include:

    • incentivising ‘Active Travel’ like walking and cycling by creating or widening footways and cycleways
    • incentivising Electric Vehicle use by assigning street space to EV charging
    • disincentivising the use of fossil fuel cars through congestion charging,low-traffic neighbourhoods, or the reduction of parking space

    See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

    Waste collection and disposal

    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.

    More about this council

    southampton.gov.uk
    Southampton City Council’s official homepage.
    Tyndall Centre Carbon Budget report
    Check Southampton City Council’s ‘carbon budget’ – their share towards meeting the UK’s Paris agreement targets.
    Friends of the Earth ‘Near You’ tool
    Discover climate groups in this area, data about Southampton City Council’s climate performance, and actions you can take.

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    Cite this page

    mySociety, Climate Emergency UK (2023). CAPE: Southampton City Council. Available at: http://cape.mysociety.org/councils/southampton-city-council/ [Accessed 26 Mar 2023].

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