Natural Environment

Baroness Janke Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke (LD)]

My Lords, coming from Bristol, I would not dream of speaking for colleagues in Bath, but we have always had a great aspiration for this improvement and I certainly add my support to it.

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate as a former leader of Bristol, which is the 2015 European Green Capital. The Green Capital bid was based on all-party support. Bristol’s success in winning has led to greater developments on the green agenda—which is of course, as my noble friend Lady Bakewell said, a key Liberal Democrat priority, whether nationally or locally. One of the success criteria in the Green Capital award is the need to demonstrate ways that achievements have been made to help other cities and communities reach key European targets in carbon reduction, energy conservation and increasing the use of renewable energy. Bristol has the lowest carbon emissions of any of the core cities and has achieved a reduction of 20% per person over the period from 2005 to 2012.

Strategic leadership has been important, and the council leadership has been acknowledged for establishing some key strategic projects such as a comprehensive programme of energy efficiency, a successful bid for the cycling city and, of course, the local energy supply company. The energy efficiency project has insulated 30,000 homes. As a result of the cycling city project, we have three times the number of cyclists as the core city average. The city council has taken a strong lead in exploiting its own energy through solar panels and the wind turbines at Avonmouth, enabling the establishment of the energy supply company.

However, it is important that people from all sections of our communities can contribute to these targets and to achieving a greater quality of environment. We have to change hearts and minds as well as providing strategic leadership. There have been some innovative and energetic projects in the city, some of which I would like to tell your Lordships about. In some of the poorest areas of the city, we have a project called smart metering, which enables people to measure energy usage using the wi-fi hotspots that we have created there and by using recycled computers. This has made a valuable contribution to awareness of energy use and to future energy use within those communities, and has motivated much more learning about how people, within their communities, can make real changes. The council also started a green volunteer scheme, which links organisations with would-be volunteers. In conjunction with that, we set up an annual award scheme to recognise volunteering across the city, so that individuals and community groups that use volunteers and companies which support volunteering from their staff can be accredited, acknowledged and thanked.

Local sustainable food, and educating people about local food, has moved quickly up the agenda in recent years, with the Green Capital year being a catalyst for many local food projects being instigated in Bristol—I hope that many of your Lordships have heard about the food programme that comes from Bristol and some of the very innovative projects that we have there. One example is the Severn Project, which works with socially excluded individuals to reduce anti-social behaviour by using the production of food as a vehicle to provide education, training and employment. The organisation has a temporary lease on a derelict area of land near the station that is earmarked for development. Despite the site being severely contaminated, the project has installed polytunnels and put down membranes to bring in compost to grow salad crops, which are then sold on to local restaurants and businesses in the city.

Another unique feature is the Bristol pound, which I think is the UK’s first citywide local currency, the first to have electronic accounts managed by a regulated financial institution and the first that can be used to pay some local taxes. It was set up by a community group and supported initially by a small grant from Bristol City Council. It has now grown thanks to EU funding and other sources, and nearly 1,000 traders in the city accept the currency. For people who do not quite understand how this contributes, it is a way of boosting independent producers and creating local sustainability within the local economy.

There is still a great deal to be done in relation to our international competitors. However, to make real progress it is important to change hearts and minds and to involve all the people and communities, groups and enthusiasts, wherever they are. With strong local and national leaderships, we can harness the energy of individuals and groups and achieve immense benefits in terms of the quality of the environment, as well as reduction of emissions, generation of green energy and conservation of energy—all of which bring huge benefits in terms not only of the quality of life but of the health and well-being of people and communities.