Brentwood Climate Action

Category: Lobbying

  • Join us on Shenfield Common for July 21 meeting

    Join us on Shenfield Common for July 21 meeting

    Our next Brentwood Climate Action meeting on Thursday July 21 has been switched to Shenfield Common – to allow for a more social and engaging gathering, with a focus on the new draft Environment Strategy published by Brentwood Borough Council.

    Our latest Steering Group meeting last week agreed that an outdoor meeting on the Common (from 7pm onwards) would allow our growing Membership to get to know each other better.

    And we will use the launch of the Council’s consultation on their Environment Strategy this past week as a focal point to discuss future BCA actions, that we all agree should be taken over the coming months.

    Ahead of the meeting please go to the Council website at https://www.brentwood.gov.uk/w/environment-strategy-consultation where you can download the Environment Strategy to read in full. And you can also take part in their consultation surveys from there: for the general public, young people, and businesses.

    Steering Group members will be on the Common setting up from 6pm, ready to welcome members from 7pm. And Members are invited to bring drinks and snacks, and blankets/chairs for outdoors seating as required!

    We’ll bring along clip boards and pens and the necessary materials to allow us to run feedback sessions, and gather everyone’s comments for a potential overall Brentwood Climate Action response to the Strategy.

    So please turn up in your numbers, and with lots of thoughts and ideas on how we should respond to the Strategy, and tackle the critical climate emergency and environmental issues facing Brentwood over the coming years.

    We will also be looking at our various Action Groups and how we can improve their running and output. And we’ll be looking ahead to the Great Big Green Week at the end of September, and what sort of events we could run then to engage the wider Brentwood community in climate action.

    So if you fancy getting more involved on any front, please come along on July 21 ready to put your hand up and volunteer, at whatever level of commitment suits you.

    Other updates from the Steering Group meeting included the decision to postpone the second planned Schools Climate Change Conference, scheduled for last month, until October 28 at St Martin’s School. And we reflected on the success of our stall at the Strawberry Fair – run jointly with Brentwood Fair Trade; although we agreed it would have been nice to see more BCA Members there on the day, to say hello and help out.

    Without BCA Members getting involved we will find it harder to follow through on the Climate Action plans you want to see for Brentwood.

    So please do take this opportunity to come along and take part in the discussions on July 21. We look forward to seeing everyone then!

  • March 24 set for first 2022 meeting

    March 24 set for first 2022 meeting

    Here’s a date to mark in your diary straight away – to make sure you don’t miss the first monthly Brentwood Climate Action meeting of 2022…. March 24, from 7.30pm.

    Join us for our first get together of the new year – being held at Chicken & Frog bookshop in Crown Street, Brentwood… and hybrid online via Zoom (the meeting link will be emailed to members beforehand).

    It will give you the chance to catch up on the latest Brentwood Climate Action news, and updates from the Steering Group meetings held to date in 2022.

    And to hear what’s been going on in our various Action Groups – as well as get the chance to meet and chat with likeminded people concerned about the climate emergency and environment in Brentwood, and join in with our future Action plans!

    If you are not on our emailing list then please do sign up as a Member today to make sure you receive details of this and all our other important updates!

    And if you are active on Facebook you might want to show your interest in attending on our Page on there too – and sharing the details with your own networks.

    We’ll be finalising the agenda over the coming weeks, but items likely to feature include:

    • Our plans for a second Brentwood Schools Conference this spring
    • How best Brentwood Climate Action can take part in the Great British Spring Clean organised by Keep Britain Tidy through March and April
    • Engaging with Brentwood Borough Council on their climate action plan drafting, and their newly published Environment Strategy 2022-25, which is due to go out for public consultation
  • Top ten Brentwood Climate Action achievements of 2021

    Top ten Brentwood Climate Action achievements of 2021

    As we head into what we hope will be a landmark year for Climate Action in Brentwood, let’s take a minute to look back on the major achievements of Brentwood Climate Action since our group was formed in late summer of 2021.

    In no particular order, here’s our Top Ten of Actions taken so far:

    1. We held our first Schools Conference at Anglo European School in Ingatestone in November, as part of our Action around the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow – with more than 50 sixth formers from four schools across the Borough attending and taking part in educational activities related to COP26 and the Climate Emergency generally.
    1. We had a successful presence on both Brentwood and Ingatestone high streets to mark the COP26 Global Day of Action. Brentwood Climate Action members spent the day talking to members of the public to raise awareness of COP26 and the Climate Emergency, and promote the ongoing work of our group and how it can make a difference locally.
    1. We’ve been making contact with Brentwood Borough Council officials and administration Councillors – who have indicated a willingness to engage with us around climate and environmental issues on an ongoing basis – and also asked questions at Brentwood Borough Council meetings; as part of our lobbying process moving forward in 2022.
    1. We held our kickstart meeting back in the summer, as more than 40 people took part in the first meeting held at Chicken and Frog bookshop in Crown Street, and online via Zoom, on Thursday August 12. The meeting elected a Steering Group, agreed a constitution, as well as a vision and aims for Brentwood Climate Action.
    1. The number of activists / members of Brentwood Climate Action has climbed well over 100 in just four months. You can sign up here.
    1. Despite the ongoing issues with the Covid pandemic, we’ve managed to hold four monthly members meetings, at a variety of venues across the Borough and hybrid online via Zoom. The guest speaker at our November meeting was Ottilie West, the new Climate and Sustainability Officer at Brentwood Borough Council.
    1. As part of the ongoing administration carried out by your volunteer Steering Group, we’ve set up a bank account and started to look at potential funding sources to enable us to operate effectively in 2022 and beyond.
    1. We set up this website and social media channels on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram from scratch – which have seen us gather hundreds of followers in quick time. And we’ve also set up a Membership database and been sending out regular emailings to our signed up activists.
    1. We launched a Petition calling on Brentwood Council to declare a Climate Emergency, and publish an ambitious Climate Action Plan – which has had more than 100 signatures online, and more than double that offline at our COP26 Global Day of Action stalls.
    1. We conducted a members skills audit, which allowed us to set up seven diverse Action Groups – such as Lobbying, Environmental, Funding, Wellbeing, and Education – which we hope will provide the focus for a lot of what will do during this year.
  • Council pledges Sustainability Strategy publication in 2022

    Council pledges Sustainability Strategy publication in 2022

    Brentwood Climate Action was pleased to hear recent pledges from Brentwood Borough Council Leader, Cllr Chris Hossack, that the planned Sustainability Strategy will be published in 2022 and include carbon reduction targets and objectives for the authority.

    Cllr Hossack was responding to questions from BCA chair Susan Kortlandt at last week’s Ordinary Meeting of the Council, where she asked:

    1. What is the total carbon footprint of Brentwood Council from all its current operations, including housing, offices and works?

    2. I note that the Council is preparing an Environmental Strategy aimed at taking the ‘Council and the Borough’ towards Zero Carbon 2040. How will you ensure that progress is being made? Will there be intermediate targets, scrutiny and control measures? By when do you intend the Council’s own operations to be carbon neutral?

    In reply to the first question, Cllr Hossack said: “It’s not an insignificant task to baseline the carbon footprint of all of our operations – probably as an organisation, as an employer in Brentwood, the largest task of any organisation in Brentwood actually.

    “Our newly appointed Climate and Sustainability Officer is undertaking this baselining exercise. We’re bringing together the information on the carbon footprint, and it will form part of the baseline that our performance will be measured against moving forward.”

    Liberal Democrat opposition Leader, Cllr Barry Aspinell, added: “I welcome the question and I hope whatever detail we get back includes our Council housing, which is considerable, and every other detail; and I look forward to it when it comes to us.”

    And Labour Leader, Cllr Gareth Barrett, pointed to previous work done by other local authorities: “I think Cllr Hossack is right, it is a big piece of work, but there are several London Boroughs and Councils in the east of England that have already done this equation, with summaries we’ll be able to work from. There is a carbon workbook for local authorities that again we can work from.

    “It’s also not necessarily our emissions day to day, but how much carbon when we’re building new things – the laying of concrete is one of the most carbon intensive things you can do. As a Council we have to think how we can net off or produce alternatives to reduce those emissions as we develop.”

    Cllr Hossack confirmed that Brentwood residents could look forward to the Sustainability Strategy in 2022 in his answer to the second question, explaining: “The strategy that’s being created will be published next year and will identify where we want to be as an authority, and by when. The strategy will lead to clear targets and objectives identifying appropriate areas of work the Council should concentrate on that will create most reward in this sector.

    “In doing so, measures will be put into place with the mechanism to record and publish achievements against the targets. The Strategy will also seek to identify when the Council will become carbon neutral and the measures and steps the Council will need to take to achieve that objective.

    “The Council has set an overall aim to be carbon neutral by 2040. Once a baseline has been established a more specific target can be set.”

    Cllr Aspinell pointed to the need to consider ongoing housing development, saying: “We should also be looking at our Local Development Plan and, where it is possible, adding in to that that no building should be built unless they are carbon neutral on any of the sites that this Council has identified for building.”

    Cllr Barrett suggested that any such climate action plan would require highly visible monitoring: “Scrutiny-wise, this needs to become a key scheme of work for the Audit and Scrutiny Committee. If progress is to be made it needs to be made sure that it isn’t a greenwashing exercise.

    “In terms of intermediate targets, when we look at other large-scale organisations when they start their carbon programme, we have a net zero target the Council has set of 2040 – I still think it can be more ambitious and a 2030 target is more than viable – but to the same extent what most large organisations find is that the first 50 per cent is the low hanging fruit that can be achieved rather rapidly. The first five-year ambition is the important one; and then it gets progressively harder unfortunately, but if we set a big ambition to hit early on then I think that’s a viable and sensible plan to have.

    “And that level of ambition also sets a mark in the sand that we can be marked against rather than a long-term 2040 target which we’re reliant on new technologies to appear. Actually what we can do now can probably get us half way – let’s set that ambition, and let’s make it.”

    Brentwood Climate Action members will be bringing forward suggestions for inclusion in the Council’s climate action plan, and actively engaging in all available avenues for consultation – as well as continuing to press for the Council to recognise the seriousness of the situation and declare a climate emergency.

    You can watch the full recording of the Council meeting – with this relevant Q&A section starting from 30:00.

  • Questions asked of Brentwood Council

    Questions asked of Brentwood Council

    Brentwood Climate Action chair, Susan Kortlandt, is asking two questions of Brentwood Borough Council at their full Council Meeting tomorrow evening

    1. What is the total carbon footprint of Brentwood Council from all its current operations, including housing, offices and works?

    2. I note that the Council is preparing an Environmental Strategy aimed at taking the “Council and the Borough” towards Zero Carbon 2040”. How will you ensure that progress is being made? Will there be intermediate targets, scrutiny and control measures? By when do you intend the Council’s own operations to be carbon neutral?

    You can see the questions on the Council’s website at:

    https://brentwood.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s21511/Public%20Questions%20report%20-%208.12.2021.pdf

    And you can see the full Agenda for the meeting, and also follow the Live Broadcast, at:

    https://brentwood.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=128&MID=2249#AI9189

    We’ll update with how the Council responded after the meeting.

  • Global Day of Action success

    Global Day of Action success

    Brentwood Climate Action members were out in force on Brentwood and Ingatestone high streets on Saturday – as part of the Global Day of Action.

    Brentwood Climate Action members spent the day talking to members of the public on Brentwood High Street and on Ingatestone High Street, to raise awareness of COP26 and the Climate Emergency, and promote the ongoing work of Brentwood Climate Action and how it can make a difference locally.

    If you missed the chance to join the dozens signing our petition in person at the weekend, then please do so online. We’re calling on Brentwood Borough Council to Declare a Climate Emergency and publish an ambitious Climate Action Plan as soon as possible.

    Taking place on the middle Saturday of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the Global Day of Action featured a series of grassroots-organised events right across the country. The purpose of the Global Day of Action was to unite all climate activists and climate groups nationwide around a common goal: to demand governments and corporations limit global temperatures to 1.5°C and deliver real and just solutions to the climate crisis.

    If you signed our petition, joined up as a member or talked to us and would like to get more involved – then come along to our next full meeting of Brentwood Climate Action members on Tuesday November 23 (7.30pm)

    The venue will be confirmed soon – but it will also be hybrid online via Zoom for those unable to attend in person – and we’ll publish full details as soon as we have them.

  • Join us in Ingatestone or online

    Join us in Ingatestone or online

    A reminder that our monthly Members’ meeting for October takes place on Tuesday 19th – in-person in Ingatestone as well as hybrid via Zoom.

    The venue this month is the Seymour Pavilion at Seymour Field in Ingatestone, starting at 7.30pm – and will be a joint meeting with Ingatestone & Fryerning Parish Council Climate Emergency Working Group.

    Anyone who wants to attend online, and hasn’t already received the Zoom link (which was sent out to Members today) please email us at info@brentwoodclimateaction.org.uk

    The full address details for the venue are: Seymour Pavilion, New Road, Ingatestone CM4 0HH.

    In the meantime, you can have a look at our October newsletter that was sent out to Members this week, on our Resources page

  • Action Group progress at September meeting

    Action Group progress at September meeting

    It was great to see so many Members in-person at Shenfield High School for our September 16 meeting  – with as many others joining in via Zoom as well.

    The technical challenges of running a hybrid meeting may have proved testing at times, but we persevered and covered lots of ground.

    That included looking ahead to potential activities on the Global Day of Action during COP26 in November, which is something we will return to, to formalise plans.

    And we also had some thought-provoking break-out sessions across the newly set up Action Groups to start those moving forward.

    For those that are unaware, we have to date set up seven of these, on the following Action areas:

    • Addressing wellbeing
    • Developing community energy and providing for electric vehicles
    • Engaging with public and partnering with business
    • Fundraising
    • Lobbying
    • Working with schools and monitoring climate change
    • Nature & environmental action and recycling

    There was lots of progress, in groups run in the room and mirrored via WhatsApp and Zoom. The groups will now continue to discuss potential Actions, and bring back their updates to the next Members meeting.

    If all of this sounds interesting to you, please do get in touch – and get involved!

    We’ll be holding our next full meeting of Brentwood Climate Action members on Tuesday October 19.

    That is set to take place at the Seymour Pavilion at Seymour Field in Ingatestone – also hybrid online via Zoom – and be a joint meeting with Ingatestone & Fryerning Parish Council Climate Emergency Working Group.

    Full details and sign-up information will be published soon.

  • September 16 meeting at Shenfield High School

    September 16 meeting at Shenfield High School

    Please join us tomorrow night for our Members launch meeting – in-person at Shenfield High School from 7pm, or online via Zoom if you prefer. If everyone could complete our attendance form to let us know how you wish to take part that will help us prepare, and will make sure you get the Zoom link emailed to you in advance of the start, if that’s your chosen method:  https://actionnetwork.org/events/brentwood-climate-action-launch We have a lot of Action ideas to discuss, and a lot to update you all on since our kickstart meeting last month. We will also discuss Great Big Green Week and COP26 as Action opportunities. Everyone is welcome! Please share the date/time/venue far and wide to those that you know will be interested. Shenfield High School is at: Alexander Lane, Shenfield, Brentwood CM15 8RY.

  • Brentwood Climate Action launches

    Brentwood Climate Action launches

    A new non-political campaign group promising community-wide action to tackle the climate emergency was launched last week, at a well-attended kickstart meeting of Brentwood Climate Action.

    More than 40 people took part in the first meeting held at Chicken and Frog bookshop in Crown Street, in-person and online via Zoom, on Thursday August 12.

    Susan Kortlandt, who was elected as Chair of Brentwood Climate Action, said:

    “We had presentations, discussions on future plans, adopted a constitution and elected some initial officers to manage the group moving forward. It was an amazing turnout for a first meeting.

    “The group will be a focus for climate action across the Borough of Brentwood, and will look to work with Brentwood Borough Council, Essex County Council, our local parish councils, and our Brentwood & Ongar MP, Alex Burghart on climate action plans – with a mission to achieve a carbon neutral, climate, nature and environmentally friendly Brentwood by 2030.”

    The aims of the group include:

    • Engaging with a wide range of people, especially young people, across all environmental, cultural, faith, community and political organisations wishing to take action to tackle the climate emergency
    • Informing local stakeholders, citizens and young people about the climate emergency and the potential for action
    • And challenging national and local government, business, civil society and other community groups and organisations on the actions they must take to deal with the climate emergency

    Other members of the steering group elected on the night were:

    Secretary – Jane Winter
    Membership Secretary – Richard Millwood
    Treasurer – Frances Howard, Katherine Anderson
    Events Co-ordinators – Annie Sid, Laura Carey
    Communications – Julian Goode
    Youth Coordinator – Roy Hendley