Our Climate Emergency achievements so far

Leading by example 

• Declared a Climate Emergency – one of the first London boroughs to do so.
• Climate Emergency Action Plan published
• Switched to 100% renewable electricity for corporate buildings and schools.
• Lewisham Council corporate carbon emissions 9,463 tCO2e/year in 2020/21 (decrease of 12%)
• £3.5m retrofit works to decarbonise 7 corporate buildings and 3 schools completed
• Ranked 12th in the Climate Emergency UK assessment of local authority climate plans
• Climate Emergency UK scored 77% in a 2022 assessment  
• Council’s Pension Fund sets new divestment policy
• Food waste recycling rolled out in schools

Sustainable housing 

• 1,152 vulnerable Lewisham households supported to cut the cost of heating their home (annual) in 2022/23, (increase of 99%)South London fuel poverty
• partnership launched with nearby councils to extend support to those living in fuel poverty
• Secured £2.9m funding from Government to retrofit 159 council homes
• Set up Community Energy Fund to support 11 local community projects funding solar panels, lighting improvements and community engagement work.

Decarbonised transport 

• New Sustainable Streets programme launched
• 48 Schools Streets covering 39 schools
• 250 electric vehicle charging points in 2022/23, (increase of 63%)

Greener adaptive Lewisham 

• Winner of the 2020 Community Tree Awards with our partners Street Trees for Living
• 141 diffusion tubes, 5 Automatic air quality monitoring stations installed across the borough (increase of 39%)
• 500 trees planted in the 2022/23 planting season

Inspiring Learning and Lobbying

• Climate Action Investment launched
• London Borough of Culture climate events hosted throughout 2022
• 45 schools participating in 14 events as part of the Schools’ Climate Network started in Spring 2022.

What we are going to do

Progress on the Climate Emergency Action Plan will be reviewed annually by our Executive Management Team and through our scrutiny committee process including reporting annually to the Mayor and Cabinet on progress. We will publish a public update once a year setting out what has been done in that year and updating our set of actions going forward. 

You can see progress on our actions in the below updates:

Action Plan progress 2020/21
Action Plan progress 2021/22
Action Plan progress 2022/23

Find out more about the Climate Emergency
Find out about the impacts of climate change in Lewisham
Find out about our carbon emissions reporting