Climate Emergency Action Plan

Climate Emergency Action Plan (CEAP)

In July 2019, Wokingham Borough Council declared a climate emergency and committed to do as much as possible to become carbon neutral by 2030. Following this declaration, we developed a Climate Emergency Action Plan (the CEAP). The CEAP is a strategic document that outlines a collection of measures and policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and actively address climate challenges in our Borough. It defines reduction goals based on local priorities and develops a framework with tactical actions to help achieve these, progress against these actions are reported and published every year. As we work towards achieving carbon neutrality, these plans are crucial to tackling climate change in our Borough.

Our latest CEAP was approved at Council on 21st September 2023 and demonstrates the planned steps on our journey towards achieving this goal, along with the current progress on each action.

Our key priorities to tackle climate change 

The Climate Emergency Action Plan (CEAP) is our collective plan as a Borough which lays out the actions, we have committed to deliver to reach our carbon neutrality 2030 goal. The CEAP establishes 10 key priority areas and over 100 actions to mitigate CO2 emissions to work towards our 2030 goal.

Our key priorities are to:

1. Reduce carbon dioxide emissions from transport.
2. Generate more renewable energy in the borough.
3. Reduce carbon dioxide emissions from domestic and business property.
4. Increase the levels of carbon sequestration in the borough through greening the environment.
5. Engage with young people and support sustainable schools.
6. Reduce waste sent to landfill.
7. Utilise planning policies to minimise emissions from new developments
8. Achieve sustainable procurement practices throughout the Council
9. Encourage behaviour change. 
10. WBC to lead the way on carbon neutrality, by improving its own operations.

You can take a look at our Climate Emergency Action Plan Progress Summary (PDF Document) for a visual overview of the key achievements for each of the ten actions in our last CEAP progress report.

Have your say

To scrutinise the Climate Emergency Action Plan, a Climate Emergency Overview and Scrutiny Committee is in place, which meets every other month. This panel includes representatives from all major council parties and gives residents and members of the community the opportunity to submit questions and scrutinise the climate-related work of the Council. If you would like to submit a question to the committee you can find out how to take part in our meetings.