Reducing the borough's carbon footprint is a key challenge for the council and businesses have a large role to play in this. Carbon dioxide is the main contributor to climate change and it is important that businesses contribute towards reducing the amount that is produced.
Find out what the council is doing about climate change
Free advice on decarbonising your business
The Enterprise M3 Local Economic Partnership provides a net zero support service designed to help businesses find practical advice on decarbonising. This includes a free 30 minute one-to-one advice session with a net zero specialist.
Business climate change toolkit
For information on how your business could become more sustainable, take a look at the business climate change toolkit which provides useful information and advice on the actions and steps your business could take.
Community energy
- What is community energy?
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Community energy is a broad term referring to the development of locally owned measures to generate renewable energy or projects to increase buildings’ energy efficiencies and reduce their energy demand.
These projects can be wholly owned and managed by communities or developed in partnership with others including public sector and commercial organisations.
- How could community energy support my organisation to tackle climate change?
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A community energy company could offer your organisation funding for projects to generate renewable energy on your site.
For example, in the case of solar photovoltaic panels, provided your building’s roof is considered to be suitable, one of these not-for-profit organisations could raise money from communities to cover the initial installation and ongoing maintenance costs.
The company would then sell you the electricity at an agreed price per kilowatt hour (kWh) and reinvest its profits in local schemes to benefit the community. You would need a legal agreement and to allow access to the panels following installation.
- What are the wider benefits of community energy?
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Alongside covering the costs of installing and maintaining measures to develop renewable energy and providing cheaper and greener energy to organisations, community energy projects can offer wider benefits to local communities as well.
This includes:
- placing communities at the heart of the transition towards low carbon sources of energy
- developing local skills and creating jobs
- reducing emissions across the borough
- revenue for initiatives among local communities
- What support is available to community energy groups?
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Hampshire County Council is working with Community Energy South on the Pathways Project to promote and support community energy in the county.
Further information is available on the Community Energy South website.
- What community energy companies are there locally?
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We are aware of three local community energy companies:
If you know of a community energy company that is not included in the list above, please get in touch with our Climate Change team to let us know about them.