Following my article on the Work Place Parking Levy, I was very pleased to see that the Green Party motion (though amended) on climate action was passed by Full Council last week. This means the Transport, Regeneration and Climate Committee will consider a workplace parking levy. It could leverage funding for active and public transport at comparable levels to Nottingham Council, which raised around £680 million over 10 years.
The Strategy and Resources Committee will investigate the idea of issuing Green Bonds. Through Local Climate Bonds, councils can raise funding that can be used to reduce emissions from the energy, transport and buildings in their area. Anyone can invest and the minimum investment is £5.
Warrington and West Berkshire Councils were the first in the UK to pilot this approach, each raising £1m in 2020. Since then six more councils have issued bonds and have raised £6.4m to invest in energy efficiency improvements for buildings, nature restoration, renewable energy and electric vehicle chargers.
The Green Finance Initiative estimate that local authorities could unlock £3bn in green investment for their communities by developing and launching Local Climate Bonds. I hope they will be used in Sheffield to retrofit Council houses, making them much more energy-efficient, saving fuel bills, easing poverty, saving emissions and creating good local jobs. Many investors would rather their savings be used for this than investing in arms or oil companies as they are if you put your savings in the big banks.
You can see the full ammended motion here.
The Green motion also commits the Strategy and Resources Committee to consider the development of an advertising policy which does not support high-carbon industries and products harmful to people and nature, such as those promoted by Adfree Cities. Zak Viney from Green New Deal Rising asked about this in the meeting, pointing out that one small digital advertising board consumes as much electricity as 3 average households. A large one consumes as much electricity as 11 homes. Zak said, “This advertising is often concentrated in areas of deprivation, advertising things that people living there won’t be able to afford, or products that are damaging to health such as SUVs, gambling and alcoholic products.”
It is encouraging to see the Council moving, be it slowly, in the right direction.
Tell the Truth Sheffield 