Continuing Our Journey - Barnet Zero annual report

We are committed to working in partnership to achieve our net zero ambitions by:

• Keeping the community engaged through BarNET Zero; providing support, sharing guidance and highlighting community case studies.
• Exploring innovation through academic research, and through partnerships and collaboration with others across the sector and beyond.
• Continuing to collaborate with schools, faith groups and community leaders, as we continue our long term commitment to embed sustainability and support the community.

One way we're delivering on these if with the launch of the Barnet School Strategy for Sustainability, to support educational settings in promoting sustainability and guiding climate action.

We will enable residents to have warm, healthy homes, that are comfortable, cheap to run and fit for the future by:

• Providing clear and impartial information to residents on how to reduce energy use and emissions in their home, and signpost to available grants and funding opportunities.
• Launching a neighbourhood pilot programme that makes homes and places more sustainable and resilient.
• Supporting our housing and infrastructure development schemes to be as sustainable as possible.

We've worked to implement these changes with projects such as our partnership with Green Doctors, which saw over 500 residents referred to them for free tailored home energy support.

We are preparing the borough for a green energy transition by:

• Laying the foundations for Barnet’s green future, by exploring opportunity areas for clean energy within our system, including Local Area Energy Planning and heat network feasibility.
• Working with residents, communities and businesses, to increase uptake of solar panels across the borough.

This year we launch our first Community Energy Fund, pledging £50,000 to support the growth of community energy throughout the borough.

We are transforming the borough so we can move safely and sustainably throughout it by:

• Encouraging active travel (walking / wheeling and cycling), so they are transport methods of choice.
• Ensuring Barnet’s public transport network (buses, underground / mainline rail and interchanges) meets the needs of residents and visitors travelling to and across the borough.
• Boosting the adoption and use of ultra-low emission vehicles.

As part of this work, this year we have continued to roll out over 800 public electric vehicle charge points, including 50 JOLT charge points, and have proposals to install a further 500 next year.

We are adapting to future impacts of climate change in our communities by:

• Establishing an adaptation framework with partners to guide action across the borough.
• Improving water and flood risk management, through policies and infrastructure such as Sustainable Urban Drainage Schemes (SuDS).
• Enabling and working with the community to undertake engagement and coordinate a response to Extreme Heat.

We're delivery on these through projects such as the new £1.5m wetland area in Halliwick Recreation Ground, which will reduce property and road junction flooding in the borough.

We are supporting our green infrastructure, so it can continue to support us by:

• Improving biodiversity across the borough; replacing the biodiversity which may be lost through construction and by prioritising green spaces in new developments.
• Continuing to manage our green spaces in a more carbon-conscious way; mowing less, trialling environmental cuts, and always using peat free compost.
• Planting 900 trees and expanding canopy cover across the borough.

As part of this work we've worked to reseed more locations with a mixture of over 26 species of wildflowers and meadow grasses.

We are turning Barnet into a green economy by:

• Providing sustainability support to local businesses in Barnet, that helps them baseline and improve their carbon footprint.
• Teaching green skills to residents in partnership with local employers to help put people straight into work.
• Working with charities and community initiatives to shorten supply chains and reduce waste, such as unwanted electronics and surplus food, in the borough.

In support of these objectives the sustainability programme has delivered financial savings of over £8,700 to BarNET ZERO Pledged businesses, as well as reducing carbon emissions in the borough by almost 12,000 kilograms of CO2e.

We are improving how we manage waste and promoting a circular economy by:

• Prioritising reducing food waste, by collecting separate organic waste from every household across the borough, supporting local community food growing projects and delivering community food leader training.
• Reducing the quantity of waste produced by commercial business, by encouraging and supporting businesses to recycle.
• Educating and supporting residents on good recycling practice through continued communications campaigns.

We're delivering on these ambitions through projects like the Community Skips programme, where an amazing total of 452 bikes, 592 white goods, 1801 items of furniture, 1018 children’s toys, and 582 textile items have been sent for recycling or reuse.

We are influencers of change, transforming how we operate as a Council and across our supply chain by:

• Reducing our own impact on Barnet’s changing environment by decarbonising our buildings, fleet and operations.
• Recognising our sphere of influence by working with our partners and making our supply chain more sustainable.
• Educating all council employees about the council’s wider sustainability objectives through training modules and other communication methods.
• Enabling strong governance, carbon reporting, and embedding emissions reduction and local adaptation into existing decision making and reporting.

We're delivering on this through works such as our partnership with Barnet Homes, where we are improving the energy efficiency of 238 council homes with funding from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund.