Climate Change

North East Derbyshire District Council (NEDDC) is committed to the challenge of tackling climate change and reducing our carbon emissions.

Our commitment

Our commitment web banner

North East Derbyshire District Council (NEDDC) is committed to the challenge of tackling climate change and reducing our carbon emissions.

As an organisation we are striving to reduce our carbon footprint through:

Making better use of our resources
Finding more efficient and cost effective ways of delivering our services and carrying out our activities
Leading by example
Educating ourselves and others so that collectively we can make a difference across the District by developing a lower carbon lifestyle

By working together with partners and our local communities we can play our part in achieving the UK’s 2050 net zero greenhouse gas emissions target.

Below you will find information and links to some of the activities and initiatives we are involved with as well as other resources to help you identify ways to make simple changes to lower your carbon footprint and save money.

What is the North East Derbyshire District Council doing?

North East Derbyshire District council are committed to being net zero by 2050, with changes made in the ways we operate and deliver our services. This has been done through understanding our emissions and embedding climate change at the core of our decision making.

What is the UK Government doing?

The Climate Change Act 2008 sets out that carbon emissions are set to be reduced by 80% in 2050 compared to 1990. But in June 2019, the UK government changed the target to be net zero on carbon emissions by 2050, ending the UK’s contribution to climate change.

Road to Net Zero

The Net Zero Strategy means the UK is committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050, meaning that carbon emissions are to be reduced and where this is not possible offset. The government unlocking £90b by 2030 to help this transition to a green and sustainable future. As part of this all districts and boroughs are set to be carbon net zero by 2050 across all public buildings.

Why it is important to act now

In order to stop potentially irreversible climate change, we need to act now. Global warming needs to be limited to 2 or 1.5 degrees if possible. Without this there will be loss of wildlife, habitats, extinction, increased frequency of superstorms, droughts, heat waves, and global food/water shortages.

Climate Strategies and Packs:

Climate Strategies and packs web banner

NEDDC Climate Change Strategy 2024-2030 (.pdf | 12mb) this was approved on 28th April 2024 and sets out how the council plans to reduce carbon emissions, the main themes are:

Operational Practices and Procurement
Sustainable Buildings and Workplaces
Low Carbon Transport
Renewable Energy
Planning
Biodiversity
Waste, Recycling and Pollution
Housing
Local Economy
Community Collaboration

Vision Derbyshire Climate Change Strategy: this is a plan for a shared commitment across Derbyshire’s county, district and borough councils to improve outcomes for people and places, and its main themes are:

Local Authority Estate, Operations and Services; Strengthening the Low Carbon Economy; Decarbonising Derbyshire’s Housing; Sustainable Transport, Travel and Infrastructure; Waste and Resources.

Derbyshire County Council’s Climate Change Strategy: Achieving Net Zero: This plan sets out the Council’s aim to be a net zero organisation by 2032 or sooner, with some of the main themes being:

Council estate and operations, low carbon economy, decarbonising the domestic sector, transport, travel and infrastructure and waste.

Parish Climate Pack (.pdf | 2.42mb): this contains advice and action worksheets to help reduce your carbon emissions. The main focuses of this are:

Building efficiency, Utilities, Waste, Outdoor Things, Biodiversity, Consumables, Procurement.

Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener: this sets out the Government’s plan to end the United Kingdom’s contribution to global warming. The main sections are:

Why Net Zero, The Journey to Net Zero, Reducing Emissions across the Economy, Supporting the Transition across the Economy.

UK Export Finance Climate Change Strategy 2021-2024: This highlights the strategic pillars for achieving net zero and how these will be implemented. The contents include:

Increasing our support to clean growth and climate adaptation, reducing our portfolio greenhouse gas emissions, understanding and mitigating our climate-related financial risks, transparency and disclosure, international climate leadership.

NEDDC Carbon Reduction Projects

Eckington Leisure Centre carbon emissions cut

Through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) North East Derbyshire District council was awarded £1m in government funding to reduce emissions at Eckington Leisure Centre.

Updates include:

Replacing gas power sources with air source heat pumps
Solar PV panels installed to power heat pumps
New air handling system to improve air quality, temperature and overall customer journey.

Estimated annual savings:

£16,000
277 tCO2e.

You can find out more about the Eckington Leisure Centre project on our website.

External wall insulation in council properties

Working with our housing partner Rykneld Homes, the Council secured £1.6m of Green Home Grants Local Authority Delivery (LAD GHG), and with a further £8.5m investment from the Council we plan to install external wall insulation into more than 400 properties:

Reducing people’s energy bills.
Saving 1.2 tonnes of carbon per property per year (equivalent to planting 192 hectares of woodland).
Total annual carbon savings of 335 tonnes.

You can find out more about the External wall insulation project on our website.

Dronfield Sports Centre decarbonisation

Work on Decarbonising Dronfield Sports Centre will take place up until 2023, supported by £1.33m in funding from the PSDS scheme:

Replacing old gas boilers with air source heat pumps
Installing solar panels
Installing cavity wall insulation
LED lighting
Offsetting 25% of the centres energy and £12,000 annual saving.
340 tonnes of carbon saved, equivalent to 126 homes.

More information on the DSC decarbonisation project can be found on our website.

Clay Cross Investment Plan

Clay Cross has been selected as one of over 100 towns in England to receive funding to help regenerate the area. These plans include introducing provisions for reducing carbon emissions:

Low carbon workspaces
Low carbon housing
Low carbon energy network strategy

You can find out more about this project on the Clay Cross Town Deal website.

Completed climate change actions at the Council

Switched to 100% renewable electricity at Council offices.
LED lighting introduced throughout all council buildings and workplaces.
Improved offices/workplace recycling methods, colour coded bins to make is easier.
Single use plastic reduced at NEDDC offices Mill Lane.
Developed a wild planting policy for parks and public open space areas under NEDDC care.
Tree planting initiative, working with One Planet Matters to do more community orchards.

New council homes are all built to latest energy standards

News

News web banner

Here is a list of press releases and media mentions related to our climate work:

Hundreds of council tenants benefitting from easier to heat homes, read more:
Decarbonisation project at Dronfield Sports Centre
Eckington Leisure centre set to be the ‘greenest’ in the area
‘Elevating Eckington’, Sharing Prosperity bids submitted to the Government which includes some low carbon consideration

Biodiversity

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This is the variety of life on Earth, and all the complex interactions wildlife on our planet, this is important as healthy ecosystems underpin the air we breathe and the food we eat. Due to climate change the extinction rate of species is now 1,000 times higher than before humans dominated the planet, because of:

Population rises
Wild areas turned into farmland
Housing and industrial sites
Temperature increases which affects what can live in certain habitats

This is important as climate change can be reversed, but the loss of whole species cannot, this will upset the delicate balance that supports life on Earth.

But you can help improve biodiversity through:

Helping birds
Wilding areas of your garden
Put up bat and hedgehog homes
Ditch chemicals (pesticides or herbicides)
Create a water hole
Pile up some logs
Keep native plant species

The Council is set to encourage biodiversity in our green spaces but you can also help by choosing sustainable products with no palm oil and ones which minimise impact on biodiversity.

Biodiversity Report

North East Derbyshire District Council produced its first Biodiversity Duty Report in January 2024. The report covers the period 1 January 2023 to 1 January 2024 and sets out the work undertaken by the Council to plan for enhancing biodiversity in the District.

The report is split into four parts:

Part 1 sets out the policies, objectives and actions that have already been adopted by the Council that assist with the duty to conserve and enhance biodiversity;
Part 2 sets out the results of the ‘first consideration’ work undertaken by officers;
Part 3 sets out the actions that the Council will take over the next five years; and
Part 4 summarises the work the Council is undertaking as Local Planning Authority in relation to Biodiversity Net Gain.

A link to the report (approved by Cabinet in January 2024) is below:

See our Biodiversity report 2023-2024 (2.0mb | .pdf)

For more in depth reads see:

Heartwood Community Forest

Derbyshire County Council successfully bid to government for funds to create Heartwood Community Forest, which is being created along the eastern and southern fringes of Derbyshire county.

Community forests not only promote local biodiversity and help to mitigate climate change effects by sequestrating carbon emissions, but also provide communities with vital green spaces for recreation, relaxation and connection with nature.

The Heartwood Community Forest will stretch over a geographic area of approximately 289 square miles, including Coal Aston, Clay Cross, Dronfield, Eckington and Killamarsh, Sutton, Wingerworth, Shirland in North East Derbyshire District, as well as the following areas county-wide:

Amber Valley - Alfreton, Somercotes, Heanor, Ripley, Codnor
Bolsover - Barlborough, Clowne, Bolsover, Shirebrook, Pleasley, South Normanton, Pinxton, Tibshelf, Glapwell
Chesterfield - Birdholme, Boythorpe, Brampton, Brimington, Chesterfield, Loundsley Green and Newbold, Staveley, Whittington
Erewash - Breadsall, West Hallam, Breaston, Horsley, Ilkeston, Long Eaton, Sandiacre
South Derbyshire - Etwall and Repton, Hilton, Melbourne, Sawley
Derby

To create the Heartwood Community Forest, Derbyshire County Council aims to plant 300 000 trees on publicly accessible land by March 2025 and 1 000 000 trees by 2030.

Although many of the sites for forest creation are on public land, the support of private land owners would help to increase the tree cover across the community forest area.

Grants to support the landowners are also available, through the Trees for Climate fund. Funding is available for a range of different woodland options, from small-scale tree planting and low-density tree planting to large multi-use woodlands extending more than 5 hectare.

To support the creation of Heartwood Community Forest and Derbyshire County Council’s 1 000 000 tree ambition, we have opened Community Action Grants to include applications for tree planting. Although the Forest covers only part of the District, Community Groups, Schools and Parish Councils can now apply for a grant in ANY area of North East Derbyshire District to support these schemes.

To find out more about Heartwood Community Forest visit:

To learn more about community forests visit:

Home - England's Community Forests (englandscommunityforests.org.uk)

For more funding opportunities visit:

To record the location and species of the trees planted, please visit:

Million Trees

Recycling advice

Recycling Advice

How you can help with small changes:

How you can help with small changes

Food and waste

The good life. Compost your family’s wasted food and garden waste to reduce emissions and improve your soil, with a carbon saving of 535 kg.
Think about your diet and food choices. Sourcing food locally reduces transportation, eating less meat and dairy and more plant based foods reduces land use and processes at the farm stage.
Waste not, want not with food. When we waste food we waste the energy it’s taken to produce it. Consider freezing, shopping smarter and composting food before wasting, you'll also be saving of 241 kg of carbon.

Recycling

Taking control of your recycling. Recycling helps reduce carbon emissions. Using recycled materials to make new products reduces the need for virgin materials. Carbon saving of 100 kg.

Travel

Ease off the gas. Drive less, a bit slower, or ease off using the brakes last minute and just go easy on the gears. Driving smart is also safer and cheaper. You'll save approximately 690 kg of carbon just driving better!
Go electric car and go green. Swap your car for an electric model and swap your electricity tariff to a green one, which offers a huge carbon saving of 4.6 tonnes

Water

Stop singing in the shower! By spending one less minute in the shower can save you £8 a year and have a Carbon saving of 37 kg.
Do one less wash a week. Load the drum as full as possible without cramming laundry to save around £8 a year on electricity bills and save 16 kg of carbon.
Stop draughts. By filling gaps around your windows and doors, you could save £25 a year on your heating bill and have a carbon saving of 115 kg.
Use a washing up bowl. By washing dishes in a bowl and not wasting water by rinsing will save water and could save you £25 on your gas bill and save 115 kg of carbon.
If your shower runs off your boiler, fit a water efficient shower head. By restricting the flow of water through the shower head you could save up to £38 a year by not heating as much water and save 174 kg of carbon.

Energy

Stop leaving electrical equipment on standby. To save around £35 a year turn most devices off at the plug socket or unplug them altogether, you'll also have a carbon saving of 161 kg.
Replace traditional incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs. You could save around £40 a year on your energy bills and have a carbon saving of 78 kg.
Just turn off your lights. By not leaving lights on in the house you can save around £15 on electricity bills and 29 kg of carbon.
Turn your thermostat down by 1 °C. This simple action can save you £60 a year and it costs nothing to install, with a carbon saving of 275 kg.
Make sure your boiler is working for you and not the other way round. Fitting modern heating controls is a very quick and cost effective way of managing your bills and could save you £75 and have a carbon saving of 350 kg.

Funding opportunities

funding opportunities

Here you can find funding opportunities for climate related projects:

Boiler Upgrade Scheme: you may be eligible for money off low carbon heating technologies (such as a heat pump), the government is providing grants to help cover the initial cost of these until 2025.
Warm Home Discount: this is opening again in November 2022, this is a one off discount on your electricity bill of £140, eligible if you’re on a low income or you get Guarantee Credit Element of Pension Credit (known as ‘core group’).
Cold Weather Payment: opens in November 2022, if you are on certain benefits or Support for Mortgage interest you could get £25 for every 7 consecutive days when it is recorded or forecast to be 0 degrees Celsius or below between 1^st November and 31^st.
Winter Fuel Payment: if you were born on or before 25^th September 1956 you could get between £250 and £600 to help with your heating bills.

Business funding opportunities

business funding opportunities

The government has a list of funding opportunities for businesses investing in green technologies to increase energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. There is also a more general list of all funding options available to businesses on the GOV.UK website.

Climate Change

Our commitment