Bristol will always have a soft spot in my heart. A beautiful city and home to the fantastic university that my brother was fortunate enough to graduate from last year. Despite now living in Brussels, he aims to move back there one day, to once again enjoy the fantastic quality of life that this unique and dynamic city provides. And I completely understand his justification.
This is a city that was awarded the European Green Capital award in 2015 because of its high environmental standards and innovative low-carbon energy projects. This award demonstrates that Bristol is a role model, not only in the UK, but also in Europe.
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| Bristol: European Green Capital, 2015 Source: Sustainable Cities Collective |
Although the following list is not exhaustive, it demonstrates some of the exciting initiatives in the city over recent years:
- In November 2015, the city announced plans to become a low-carbon city with the aim to cut 50% of carbon emissions by 2025 and 80% of emissions by 2050.
- Transport: Many of you will already have seen the 2014 articles on the running of the first bus to be powered by human and food waste. The biomethane gas produced by this waste is used to fuel the bus, which transports passengers from Bristol to Bath. It can travelling 186 miles on a single tank of gas, with the yearly waste of a single passengers able to fuel the bus for 37 miles.
- The city is working in partnership with the Carbon Trust and investing in an ambitious decarbonised heating network in order to encourage local installation projects of new low-carbon heating systems. By late 2015, the city had 20MW of renewable heating installed. Plans for a large-scale district heating system promises to supply low-carbon heat to a large proportion of the city - £5m has already been approved for the first phase of this project.
- Local low-carbon heating projects have also taken off, with the DECC providing £700,000 for a low-carbon heating system at Bristol's Easton Community Centre. This uses solar-powered heat pumps to trap summer air for use in winter.
These projects are already taking off and huge funding is going into this leading environmentally sustainable city. Its approach to low-carbon heat is particularly innovative and exciting. For many of these projects, Bristol has led the way in testing these technologies. Many UK cities (particularly London), are fortunate enough to have an exemplary city demonstrating where green policies and innovation have worked, which presents a pioneering model that can help inform future developments.
