Partner Article

Sunderland set to get greener

Sunderland is set to become even more environmentally friendly after the city council committed itself to reducing carbon emissions by 29%.

Sunderland City Council has pledged to adopt a new sustainability policy and expand on its existing environmental projects, which have seen the city cut its emissions by 5% in the last two years.

The city council has already set itself a carbon reduction target of 10% by 2012 and has further pledged to slash its output by 30% by 2020.

It also hopes to be able to reduce Sunderland’s output by 29% by 2020, a strategy which has been outlined in the council’s Climate Change Action Plan for Sunderland.

In order to achieve the eco-targets the council will reduce its waste, consider economic, environmental and social aspects when spending or making decisions and will support Fairtrade as an accredited city.

Councillor Harry Trueman, Cabinet Member with Portfolio for Sustainable Communities, said: “Adopting this sustainability policy signals this city’s commitment to taking strong, concerted environmental action with our partners and residents to significantly reduce business and domestic carbon emissions.

“Working together we can achieve our vision of Sunderland as a sustainable, low carbon city with a strategy which hopefully can set an example which our regional, national and European partners can learn from.”

In a further bid to cut emissions, the council has approved plans costing £650,000 to develop wind turbines at three schools in Sunderland - Venerable Bede, Washington and St Robert of Newminster schools.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .