Sustainable Warwickshire

Why is this important?

Realising the ambitions of climate change for Warwickshire will not only rely on active engagement from communities and businesses, but also create huge opportunities. Our climate change actions have the potential to make a positive contribution to the social and economic needs of the county, supporting and developing businesses to address green challenges and provide the required future skills.

Working collaboratively will help us to ensure we do so in a way that helps address inequalities and takes account of the risks and impacts to society. Bringing together residents to deliver on climate action will help to create sustainable communities with healthy and happy residents who are inclusive and equitable in their actions. This theme is based on the following:

• Health and wellbeing are paramount.
• Taking a community powered approach to increase community ownership, capacity and capability; creating conditions for communities to identify their own priorities and solutions and providing help for delivery.
• Encouraging an approach that supports sustainable consumption and production. Providing economic growth without raising resource consumption and provide sustainable, local access to goods and services.
• Working collaboratively with institutions that are accountable and resilient to amplify and maximise impact as well as providing communities with a sense of democratic empowerment.
• The development of jobs, skills and technology to contribute to Warwickshire’s decarbonisation and sustainability journey. We will support the greening of all areas of the economy with a focus on our key priority sectors of automotive, manufacturing, engineering, tourism and digital creative.
• Building capacity within the supply chain to ensure investments to support our net zero ambitions can be delivered.
• Nature is safeguarded, restored and supported by an economy which invests in protecting, growing and restoring biodiversity, soil, water, air, climate and other natural systems.
• Our farming community plays a key role in providing local, sustainable enterprise to support healthy lifestyles.

Ambition

We want to have a county that is measured by prosperity and health, where people have the skills and access to new jobs within the green economy, and where all the industries contribute to sustainable, equitable and healthy communities.

What we need to do

Our overarching objectives for this theme are to:

• 4a. Grow our economy in a sustainable way to support new low carbon businesses and ensure Warwickshire businesses can successfully transition to net zero.
• 4b. To improve prosperity, health and wellbeing for Warwickshire’s communities through our sustainable actions.

For more information on sustainable communities and green economy, see pages 26-28 of the Sustainable Futures Strategy (PDF, 1 MB).