Energy scheme aims to help city reach net zero

Knowle West Spring celebrated the £100,000 by hosting a gathering for the local community

Residents living in three Bristol suburbs can join a new scheme aimed at tackling the climate emergency.

Knowle West Media Centre, Southmead Development Trust and Easton's Eastside Community Trust have each been given £100,000 to work with residents to develop clean energy plans.

As part of the scheme, support to cut residents' energy emissions will be offered.

CEO at Southmead Development Trust Amy Kinnear said: "Priorities include to look at practical ways of getting local homes warm and dry."

She added: "We’re looking forward to working with a partnership who understands the importance of hearing community voices."

The three selected community organisations have already developed climate action plans, with the groups working with Bristol Climate and Nature Partnership.

This has been set up to help local communities cut their carbon emissions and "improve people’s quality of life".

Bristol has a target to become net zero by 2030, and cutting people's energy emissions will play a key role in achieving this.

CEO of Eastside Community Trust Stacy Yelland said they were "proud" to be one of the three organisations chosen.

"Our organisation has a long history of both working with communities and innovation in clean energy and we look forward to using those skills and experiences on this new project."

'Beyond one-off pilots'

Creative director at Knowle West Media Centre Martha King said they were "thrilled" to be selected.

"The programme puts communities front and centre of generating creative and investable ideas to address the climate emergency.

"It opens the opportunity to go beyond one-off pilots, towards scalable, system-level change and make real progress towards a just transition for people and planet.”

If you live in one of the three neighbourhoods, you can get involved by signing up as an energy champion with Bristol Energy Network.

The Transforming Energy Together programme is part of the Innovate UK funded Mission Net Zero project, led by Bristol City Council.

What is climate change?

Climate change is the long-term shift in the Earth's average temperatures and weather conditions.

Over the last decade, the world was on average around 1.2C warmer than during the late 19th Century.

It has now been confirmed that global warming exceeded 1.5C across the 12 month period between February 2023 and January 2024. That followed 2023 being declared the warmest year on record.

The temperature increase was driven by human-caused climate change and boosted by the natural El Niño weather phenomenon.