Since the Welsh Government set up the footprint grant scheme many businesses, organisations and projects across Wales have benefitted from funding to help them implement sustainable development practices and to help promote green living.
One project who is working towards reducing Wales’ ecological footprint is the Climate Change project (the Project) which is linked to the Powys Local Service Board’s climate change programme. Its aim is to reduce the overall carbon footprint for Powys through achieving an absolute reduction of 25% in CO² emission from non-domestic property, and 20% from transport by 2014-15.
Some organisations in Powys have taken great strides in contributing to these targets; over the past three years, the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority has reduced the consumption of electricity at their offices in Brecon by nearly 40% and they have cut the organisation’s carbon footprint by a third in the same period.
Coleg Powys in Newtown has seen the switching to LED lighting in many areas of the campus buildings has dramatically cut their usage of electricity and length of time between replacing the lights themselves.
There has also been great interest in the project from the voluntary sector in Powys. Desire has been shown in combating climate change by cutting their energy bills and to make their buildings more energy efficient. However, the main problem for many voluntary organisations is that they do not own the buildings they use and so do not have a say over the type of lighting and heating used. Through working with the Project though, those who do own their building, are hopeful to find a way forward to install their own capacity to generate renewable energy, such as solar panels or solar thermal to heat their water.
The Project hopes that recent discussions with WCVA and others to establish a body to be called Community Energy Wales will proof fruitful and ideas for a Climate Change Bond are actively being considered in order to cater for the urgent need for a Powys, or mid Wales wide grant scheme to fund investment in renewable energy.