Our activities

See the different sections to view our environmental improvement activities across the council: 

Communities and wellbeing

  • Partnership work has been completed to reduce transport emissions and improve air quality through empowering residents to take up more active travel. Please see Making Our Move for more information.
  • We have been identified as a sustainable food place. Our charter identifies the need to sustainably grow healthy food in the region to limit the impacts of emissions involved in growing and transporting food. Please see Nottinghamshire as a Sustainable Food Place for more information. 
  • We always seek to support groups wanting to make a difference in their area, whilst making their areas more sustainable. Our community directory provides a list of support, advice sources, and funding that becomes available regularly. This includes information on community energy, improving green spaces, and building improvements for community buildings. Please get in touch about the support you can offer community groups in Nottinghamshire. Our communities team continue to support groups in becoming increasingly sustainable
  • Through our role in the Local Area Energy Partnership (LAEP), we have worked to secure funding for a Home Energy Advice Team (HEAT). This provides tailored, step-by-step Home Energy Plans to help improve the energy efficiency of ‘hard-to-treat’ homes. 
  • We have secured funding from Innovate UK to collaborate with district and county councils to encourage sustainable behaviour change in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
  • Through the LAEP we will continue to highlight the work of community groups across Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire who are taking steps to tackle climate change. Please see our Community Climate Action Network page for more information.
  • We have collaborated with regional partners and national initiatives to provide access to grant-funded installations and retrofit solutions to help tackle fuel poverty in the region with our home energy support.

Conservation and nature

Several of the actions within the Environment Strategy Action Plan refer to the protection and enhancement of our natural environment. 

  • Local nature reserves: we directly manage six nature reserves and are continuing to designate more. These nature reserves are a valuable habitat for biodiversity and can also be a fantastic way to improve air quality in the region.
  • Trees for Climate: a five-year Defra-funded programme aiming to create over 6000ha of new woodland across England’s 11 Community Forests.
    • Within the Midlands Engine area, Greenwood Community Forest (hosted by Nottinghamshire County Council) and the Forest of Mercia CIC will collectively establish 325ha of new woodland across their areas.
    • Working with a broad range of partners, the project will create new accessible green space for local communities, new habitat for wildlife, and will capture around 300 tonnes of CO2 per hectare of woodland after 30 years.
    • Over 616,000 trees have been planted under the Trees for Climate programme in 2020/21.
    • Nottinghamshire County Council and Greenwood Community Forest plan to plant around 250,000 extra trees across the county in the next five years as part of the programme covering 250 hectares of land.
    • What have we achieved so far?
      • In Year 1 (20/21) we planted 4,480 trees and shrubs across 4.9hectares of Bentinck South.
      • In Year 2 (21/22) we aim to plant Bestwood Country Park (30.3ha), Rufford No.3 pit tip (16.6ha) and Daneshill (7.9ha), Vicar Water Country Park (NSDC land) led by Sherwood Forest Trust (4.1ha).
      • Completed designs on another 40 hectares of planting across 4 other sites and are now seeking the necessary regulatory approvals for the creation of new native woodlands.
      • Recruited two new members of staff to help deliver our plans for tree planting across the county. 
  • Greenwood Community Forest: one of the best Carbon sinks we have on offer within Nottinghamshire is trees. Greenwood Community Forest is part of a nationwide scheme and seeks to enable Nottinghamshire communities to create, improve and enjoy woodlands and other high-quality accessible green spaces. More information is available on the Greenwood Community Forest website.
  • Flood Management: climate change is already causing more extreme weather events like flooding. Across the county, work is being completed to install natural flood defences for our communities. These defences also improve biodiversity in areas. This can be seen in Burton Joyce, funded by the council’s Green Investment Fund. More information about flood alleviation is available on our schemes to help reduce flooding page.

Infrastructure and energy

  • LED Street Lighting Conversion Project
    Our award-winning LED Street Lighting Conversion Project was managed and implemented by Via, in partnership with Nottinghamshire County Council’s Energy Team and Salix Finance.
    • We secured a total of £16.6 million investment for the project with £14.5m from Salix Finance Limited, the non-departmental public body which provides government funding to the public sector, and with £2.1m from Nottinghamshire County Council. 
    • The nine-year project involved replacing almost 95,000 conventional sodium streetlights with environmentally friendly LED lighting across the county’s seven district and borough council areas.
    • Over 98% of Nottinghamshire’s streetlights are now LED, with mainly specialist and decorative lighting remaining as sodium lanterns.
    • Since the project was first launched in 2014, the county has reduced its annual energy consumption by over 135 million kwh and cut its carbon emissions by over 107,000 tonnes. This has generated over £20 million in savings.
    • Nottinghamshire County Council-owned Via East Midlands won the 2020 Association of Public Sector Excellence Street Lighting Innovation Award for its work on the LED street lighting renewals project in Nottinghamshire.
  • Our buildings
    Our Greenhouse Gas Baseline Report shows that a high proportion of our emissions comes from the buildings we occupy. We are increasing our renewable energy generation through the installation of solar panels across our estate, and are committed to reducing our energy and water consumption across our estate by:
    • making changes to site operation and management
    • raising staff awareness and engagement in energy-saving behaviours
    • investment in energy-saving measures and equipment, such as systems, appliances, and controls.
  • Our plans for more carbon-neutral and sustainable buildings include: 
    • Oak House, which will set a new benchmark for the Council, with a high level of environmental sustainability. This site is being designed to achieve an excellent BREAAM status.
    • A planned energy-efficient contact centre and office building in Worksop.
    • Improvements at our Gedling View building, including replacing an old gas boiler with a more energy-efficient air heat source pump, new solar panels, and LED lighting, saving an estimated 232 tonnes of CO2 over the next 20 years.
    • We currently have solar photovoltaic panels (PVs) on over 40 Council buildings, generating approximately 1 million kWh of electricity per year.
    • Improvements to The Mill Adventure Base through the Council’s Green Investment Fund, including an increase in solar panels to produce 100% of the centre’s electricity and electric vehicle charging points.
    • Installation of solar panels and a switch to LED lighting at Mansfield Bus Station through the Green Investment Fund.  

Transport networks and mobility

Transport is the biggest contributor of Greenhouse Gas emissions in Nottinghamshire, so we worked to continuously improve sustainable transport options for all residents.  So far, we have carried out the following:

  • Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Expansion
    • Improved publicly accessible EV charging points through joining the D2N2 EV charging Network.
    • The Council has also received £5.5 million to deliver the Local Electric Vehicle scheme. The scheme will work to provide charging infrastructure for residents without off-street parking.
    • The county has been successful in bidding for a range of different funding to improve access to public transport and work to decarbonise existing services.
    • We have continuously worked to support behaviour change in the region. We have funded Travel Choice, who have focused on promoting ‘more sustainable ways of travelling to reduce single occupancy car use’. This has included 47 business action plans, travel packs for 6000 employees, sustainable transport infrastructure funding and public transport tickets. The Council will continue to work to encourage and enable all residents to be able to use active and public transport as the best mode of transport.
    • New, greener bus services.The council is working to deliver the Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) [PDF] which aims to improve bus services and infrastructure to improve bus journey times, bus services' reliability and punctuality, increase passenger numbers and increase passenger satisfaction. One of the key ambitions of this plan is to contribute to decarbonisation. Some achievements so far include:
      • Investment of £24m in the fleet means that 49% of the fleet is Euro 6 or EV compared to 37% in 2021.
      • Successfully bid for £2.8m to introduce 23 electric buses into Mansfield, with an additional £9.15m pledged by the bus operator. 
      • The council requires all contracted services to operate Euro IV buses as a minimum. 

Internal investments

Green Investment Fund

The Council has set up a Green Investment Fund, a pot of money that is earmarked for projects across the organisation that support delivery of the Corporate Environment Strategy Actions and/or help reduce the carbon emissions released through Council activities.

All teams are open to apply if they can meet the criteria, which has encouraged innovative projects. 24 projects have been committed since 2019 totalling over £1.2m of investment.  Approval and funding were given to several projects, including:

  • Improvements to Mansfield Bus Station, including LED lighting and solar panels.
  • A pilot of photovoltaic glass to power bus shelter lighting and digital display on a mobility hub in Ollerton.
  • Green spaces habitat management, including removal of non-native invasive species
  • Woodland creation consisting of over 75,000 trees being planted
  • Improvements to one of our outdoor and environmental education centres, The Mill Adventure Base, including expansion of solar panels to allow production of 100% of the centre’s electricity. 

Cultural change in the council

We recognise the positive impact that our workforce can have on increasing environmental sustainability, both through their practices at work and their personal lives and aim to create opportunities for colleagues to contribute and share ideas. We have tried to achieve this cultural change by:  

  • Delivering Carbon Literacy Certified Training.
    More than 250 employees at the council have taken part in Caron Literacy training and have received a Carbon Literate accreditation from the Manchester-based Carbon Literacy Project. This training equips our employees with the knowledge and skills to reduce carbon emissions. As part of the training, employees pledge to take action within their job role to improve the council’s sustainability.
  • Established an Employee Green Initiatives Group 
    Colleagues can come together monthly to discuss environmental initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint both at work and at home.