Annual Report 2023
Barriers to action
In the Climate Change Strategy, we outlined in detail the scale of the challenges for the borough to become carbon neutral. For all of the progress made in the past twelve months, these challenges remain significant, and their impacts become more profound with each year that passes. This section illustrates how these challenges around funding, resource and behaviour change have continued to affect our ability to match action to the scale of our ambition.
Funding
There continues to be an immense funding gap, which needs to be closed if the council is going to realise our net zero ambition. In 2021, we estimated the capital cost of the Climate Change Strategy to be £3.92 billion. Given the significant increase in inflation since 2021, this funding gap is getting larger, rather than smaller, as costs across the board increase.
We have a significant challenge around funding the upgrades required with our social housing stock. Recently, this was highlighted by challenges over the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. After successfully bidding for central government funding to retrofit a group of on-street properties, the level of ‘match-funding’ required from the council’s housing budgets were more than two to one. Ultimately, matching this funding was not viable, when budget allocations are being stretched by other crucial demands for our housing particularly relating to fire safety, addressing damp and mould and ensuring properties are maintained to a liveable standard.
What we’re doing
The council is pulling every lever we can to raise more funding for projects to tackle the climate emergency, such as:
- identifying funding opportunities and working across the council to apply when that money can be well spent to deliver change
- we have allocated £25 million of capital funding to the climate programme
- launching the Green Buildings Fund to distribute funding to internal council retrofit projects. Projects awarded funding include 18 buildings on the Tustin Estate which are set to benefit from energy efficiency and renewable energy upgrades
- increasing focus on green finance. Launching Southwark Green Finance is a Council Delivery Plan objective, and the Leader has appointed a Deputy Cabinet Member for Green Finance to lead this work
Resources
Whilst capital funding remains a significant challenge in progressing projects, there are also challenges around resources and the expertise needed across the borough to reduce carbon and achieve net zero. The council’s wide-ranging actions need to be delivered at pace but also have to be done alongside other demands. Similarly, if we are to reduce emissions many more people need to be trained in new green jobs to carry out this carbon reduction work.
What we’re doing
The climate action plan highlights resource gaps across the programme, as well as highlighting where additional capacity is required for work to start. We are now addressing some of these gaps, through new roles that cover areas where the largest gaps were identified. We already have new project officers in place and are recruiting for further roles in the next few months including roles to maximise external funding opportunities.
At a borough level, we are also working hard to address the skills gap that exists in delivering a green future, through the establishment of the LSBU Green Skills Hub to equip residents with in-demand skills.
Changing behaviours and the cost of living crisis
To deliver our action plan for the whole borough, extensive behaviour change will be needed by stakeholders, businesses and residents across the borough. The last year was marked by a profound crisis in the cost of living for residents and businesses here in Southwark and across the UK. For many residents, this created a challenge which meant that behaviours or decisions influenced by ‘moral’ drivers, such as climate change, were lower in priority. Equally, financial decisions, like green upgrades to properties for homeowners, became more difficult as inflationary pressures and interest rate rises hit many residents.
What we’re doing
The Climate Change Strategy identifies the need to work in partnership with residents, to ensure buy-in and understanding of challenging decisions. To help do this, a new stakeholder plan is being developed, which will be rolled out in the next year.
The council has delivered a programme of work to support residents with the cost of living crisis. The council has also supported residents further by promoting services that tackle fuel poverty such as the Green Doctors and the GLA’s Warmer Homes, as well as launching our Greensavers campaign.
- Return to overview
- Go to section 1: Where we are
- Go to section 2: Borough wide picture
- Go to section 3: The council’s emissions
- Download and view the pdf
Page last updated: 03 November 2023
