Reducing carbon emissions

Thriving environment

Adur & Worthing Councils declared a climate emergency in July 2019. As part of this declaration we made a commitment to work towards being a carbon neutral council by 2030 and to be Net Zero carbon by 2045.

What does carbon neutral mean?

To become carbon neutral we must either reduce our carbon emissions or offset those that remain.

Key targets for tackling climate change:

Global target: to limit global heating by 1.5°C, which in turn will limit the most damaging impacts of climate change according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC website)
UK target: the UK is aiming to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to Net Zero by 2050 with a further target to cut carbon emissions by 78% before 2035
Adur & Worthing Councils' target: Adur & Worthing Councils have pledged to be carbon neutral for the emissions it controls by 2030
Area-wide target (Adur and Worthing): we've signed up to the UK 100 pledge for the area of Adur and Worthing to reach Net Zero carbon by 2045 - find out more on the UK100 website

Our actions

Achieving this goal means working closely with partners across the community to make positive changes to how we all live, work and travel, as well as lobbying the government for additional powers.

As a council, we have done the following to support our commitment to becoming carbon neutral:

installed solar panels at Shadwells Court, Marsh House, Commerce Way, Eastbrook Manor Community Centre, Goring Recreation Ground, Assembly Hall and Cecil Norris House
installed triple glazing, secondary glazing and other energy efficiency measures at council-owned buildings
replaced two large gas boilers with ground source heat pumps at Shadwells Court and Tollbridge House
installed air source heat pumps at the Shoreham Centre
played a leading role in the development of the Worthing Heat Network, which will deliver low carbon heating to the town centre
secured over £5m of Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme and £4m of Heat Network Investment Project funding
supported Adur and Worthing through the affordable warmth funding
started to convert our fleet to fully electric vehicles

In February 2024 we adopted our most recent Carbon Management Plan, showing how we are going to achieve our carbon neutral target:

Carbon Management Plan 2024 (8,285KB)

Want to know what we're doing? Our latest carbon emissions report can be found here:

report annually on progress against the carbon neutral target:
- Adur & Worthing Councils - Carbon Emissions 2021-22 (Adur Joint Strategic Sub-Committee report, 10-11-2022 PDF)

For our 2045 target to be a Net Zero district and borough, we have:

continued our work with the West Sussex Affordable Warmth Partnership on home energy efficiency measures, such as grant schemes for vulnerable households. For more information see:
- West Sussex Affordable Energy website
supported Adur and Worthing through the affordable warmth support
participated in three rounds of the Solar Together Sussex group-buying of solar panels initiative. For more information see:
- Solar Together (West Sussex) website
joined UK100 Cities: a national network of local authorities committed to switching to clean energy, and taken a pledge to act on carbon emissions across Adur and Worthing. For more information see:
- UK100 website
commissioned a SCATTER report to further understand greenhouse gas emissions in Adur and Worthing and what needs to be done to become carbon neutral:
- SCATTER Study for Adur and Worthing - Exploring pathways to achieve the carbon neutral target (2,731KB)