What we are doing
How Lancaster City Council is helping to tackle climate change
Our climate emergency declaration commits the council to net zero carbon by 2030 while supporting individuals, business and organisations across the district to reach the same carbon zero goal.
Lancaster City Council publishes its Biodiversity Duty Report 2026
All public authorities have a duty to conserve and enhance biodiversity in carrying out their responsibilities (Environment Act, 2021). Lancaster City Council published its First Considerations report on the how it will meet the biodiversity duty in 2024, including a Biodiversity Action Plan.
The Council has now published a Biodiversity Duty Report for 2024 to January 2026 (April 2026), to show what we’ve done and how we are making progress with the Biodiversity Action Plan. It includes details on planning applications and the Biodiversity Net Gain requirement that became a requirement in February 2024. The new report also outlines the Councils future plans and actions to help protect and improve biodiversity across the district.
- Biodiversity Duty Report for 2024 to January 2026
- Appendix A - Quantified Biodiversity Net Gain (DEFRA reporting)
Read more on how we are helping to reduce our carbon footprint on the Climate Change Hub >>>>>
Read more about the following:
- Decarbonisation - Council Housing, Buildings & Heating: How the Council is retrofitting its civic buildings and housing stock across the district.
- Transport: How the Council is reducing its transport emissions, information on the Council's shared transport scheme, and the take up of electric vehicles.
- Planning & Land Use: How the Council is going to be using planning powers - primarily through the Local Plans - to ensure new homes and buildings have low emissions, as well as ensuring new developments are built to minimise their environmental impact.
- Biodiversity: How the Council is fulfilling its Biodiversity Duty, implementing its Green & Blue Infrastructure Strategy, the Council’s declared ecological emergency, and details on our Grassland Management Strategy. In addition, how we are supporting the Local Nature Recovery Strategy for the district.
- Waste Reduction & Food: How the Council is supporting initiatives to reduce single use plastic, reduce waste, and redistribute surplus food.
- Collaboration & Engagement: How the Council works with partners to tackle climate change.
- Governance & Finance: How the Council's plan aims to tackle the climate emergency, monitors and reports risks around the climate, ensures that the climate emergency is at the heart of every council decision made, and how the Council provides funding for community climate action.
- Air Quality: How we monitor, assess and coordinate control of air quality
Specific projects:
- People's Jury: Who have their say on how we tackle climate change across the district and to make recommendations to local leaders about how the Council should act in response.
- Coastal Protection: We have a dedicated team who continue to deal with coast protection, watercourse, flood risk, and environmental management.
- Local Area Energy Plan: We have a plan which sets out a long-term vision for decarbonising the district by 2040 and looks beyond the Council’s own 2030 target for its direct activities
- Burrow Beck Solar Farm: A solar farm which aims to provide cleaner, less expensive energy has been approved by Lancaster City Council.
Dashboards
- Lancaster City Council tCO2e emissions
- Domestic energy usage by postcode
- Savings due to the installation of Salt Ayre Leisure Centre Heat Pumps & 1.3MWp Solar Array
Climate and Nature Strategy: Basics and Background>>>>>>
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We're committed to supporting the district to achieve net zero CO2 emissions, and as part of that we are creating a unique Climate and Nature Strategy. We have been working with residents and partners to put together a vision for a vibrant, climate resilient district, and have held a number of workshops across the district during 2024. The ‘Climate and Nature Strategy: Basics and Background' document provides an insight into why the Climate and Nature Strategy is being developed, sets the direction on themes and topics which the strategy could include, and outlines how stakeholders and communities can help shape the final report into something we can all use. Contact us for more details: climate-emergency@lancaster.gov.uk.
Annual Report 2025
You can view our Journey to Net Zero: Delivering Energy Self Sufficiency 1st Annual Report – December 2025
Top of the Leaderboard
It’s official – Lancaster City Council has again been recognised as the best performing district council in the country for climate action.
Folloing an update, our Climate Emergency UK Scorecard has been recalculated from 64% to 69% to accurately reflect the hard work that our teams have implemented across the council to mitigate the effects of climate change – including our future commitments. This marks an increase on the council’s 2023 score (61%) of 8%. The scorecards are assessed on key seven areas: Buildings & Heating; Transport; Governance & Finance; Planning & Land Use; Biodiversity; Collaboration & Engagement, and Waste Reduction & Food.
You can view the results of the 2025 Climate Emergency UK scorecards (Re-Published 31 July 2025) and can compare these with the 2023 Climate Emergency UK scorecard results (Published 18 October 2023)
Get involved and keep informed
You can sign up to Voice Your Views to receive updates on what we are doing in tackling climate change or email us at climate-emergency@lancaster.gov.uk to discuss important topics and contribute to the future of your district.
