How Bristol can become the first net-zero city

In 2018, Bristol became the first UK authority to declare a climate emergency and the One City Plan was developed to respond to the rapid and accelerating decline of our natural environment both locally and globally.

As a city, we are prioritising the fight against climate change and have made ambitious plans to become net-zero and carbon-neutral by 2030.

In the third event of the Bristol24/7 Presents series, we invited four expert panellists for their insight, knowledge and guidance around the sustainability debate.

One thing was clear: whilst there may be a long way to go, there are many reasons to be optimistic about the net-zero target.

“We’re going to get there. We’re absolutely going to get there by 2030 – because we have to,” said Maria from TLT.

The event, which took place online for an hour and a half, was hosted by Safiya Bashir and included an expert panel, featuring Jenny Foster from the Global Goals Centre, Katherine Piper from Future Leap, Olivia Sweeney from the Black and Green Ambassadors and Maria Connolly from TLT.

You can watch the full event here:

Starting off the conversation, it was great to look at where Bristol was on its journey towards becoming net-zero. For Katherine, there are many positive projects happening in the city.

“I think there’s a lot to be positive about. We were the first city to declare a climate emergency. We’ve made a commitment as a city to be carbon-neutral by 2030. Out of that was established the Environment Board, which I sit on. We’ve worked towards creating an environment strategy and now working towards how that gets put into action.”

Future Leap is is a community of change-makers that discover, innovate and collaborate on sustainability. Located in the carbon-neutral hub on Gloucester Road.

“There’s a huge amount of energy and commitment around getting to this target of carbon-neutrality by 2030. We have a lot of Green councillors who are on board, we’re a Gold Sustainable Food city, there’s a lot of activity going on.”

A lot of progress has been made. Since 2005, Bristol (and the rest of the country) has cut emissions by 33%, which is a great start. However, to reduce our emissions further, Bristol will need to look at much more innovative strategies.

And according to our panellists, there is a lot of innovation happening across Bristol and it must continue.

“There is no doubt that there’s a lot of innovation and a lot of progress being made but there’s no question that we’ve got to speed up hugely. We’re only going to do that if we get so many more people taking action, taking it seriously and understanding, what the issues are and how personally they can act,” said Jenny.

Today Bristol launched it’s first ever One City Plan describing how we will create a fair, healthy and sustainable city from now until 2050 https://t.co/xtSO59VZzP pic.twitter.com/BZDzR8NVwM

— Bristol City Council (@BristolCouncil) January 11, 2019

A keyword from the event was collaboration. It immediately became clear from all four of our panellists that this was the most important step in achieving net-zero – collaboration at all levels.

Olivia explained how this must include the centring of all humanity and include all ethnicities.

“We need to use this opportunity to change in a way that works well for everyone. The impacts of climate change are already being felt disproportionately by communities of colour and other marginalised groups around the world, yet these are the voices that are being shut out of the conversation.”

With the Black and Green ambassadors, Olivia’s focus is on clean air, which is an issue of environmental justice in Bristol. Those who contribute the least are suffering the most, and areas with higher Black and Ethnic minorities population are being exposed to the highest levels of dirty air resulting in the highest rates of asthma.

Olivia is focusing on clean aid. Credit: Mark Dolman

The conversation between our panellists was insightful, engaging, realistic and hopeful. For those who were watching and wanted clear tips on how they are able to increase climate action and momentum, Maria gave advice to organisations and businesses.

“Have sustainability and social impact as a key part of your strategy.”

“It’s so important to get employees engaged, they’ve always got great initiatives, great ideas and building on that will lead to meaningful action. It’s also vital to look at your supply chain because that it is a big contributor to your organisation’s emissions.”

“And most importantly, collaboration. We need to all work together and then I think it will lead to some really significant change.”

This event was sponsored by TLT.

Look out for the next events in the Bristol24/7 Presents series coming up this year.

Main photo: Bristol24/7

Read more: Is Bristol a leader in sustainability?