Environmental Services

Sponsored by


Aberdeen City Council

Meadow-in-a-box

Meadow-in-a-Box is a project that sees the educational and nature value of creating a wildflower meadow in a small and easily managed space. A planter box! With a small planter and the right seed mix, it is possible to grow a small meadow anywhere. To date, 100+ meadows-in-a box have been distributed across Aberdeen. The planters have been a huge success providing colourful, wildflowers and a great source of nectar for pollinators such as bumblebees and butterflies. This very simple project has boosted local biodiversity and educated hundreds of people on the importance of pollinators, and our partnership with them.

Cheshire West & Chester Council

Fly tipping

The Council has developed an innovative, intelligence-led approach to tackle fly-tipping across the borough, involving a highly visible presence in communities, close collaboration with partners, and additional CCTV. This has seen excellent results, including; a 73% reduction in fly-tips across Cheshire West and Chester, from 5,725 in 2021 to 1,530 in 2023; a 72% reduction in costs to the Council to remove fly-tips, from £347,323 to £97,023; and officers have learned a range of new investigative skills to support them to better protect communities and the environment moving forward - and neighbourhoods even better places for people to call home.

Gloucester City Council

ERDF ‘urban greening’ project

Gloucester City Council has recently led the completion of a bold three-year environmental partnership project which has delivered a fantastic range of habitat improvements. These have helped to support enriched biodiversity, better climate change resilience, cleaner air and water, and enhanced wellbeing for people through healthier connection to nature. Using multi-partner collaborative working, three local government organisations and one private partner delivered the project, with funding from those bodies, the ERDF, and the Environment Agency. A total of 65 hectares of improved habitat has been delivered with interventions including wildflower meadows, woodlands, wetlands and river re-naturalisation

Hackney LBC

Hackney's flash food waste trial

Hackney Council's novel FLASH (flats above Shops) food waste trial, launched in February 2023, used new on-street communal bins to collect food waste from FLASH residents, overcoming the challenge of limited bin storage space. This innovative approach resulted in over 2,000kg of food waste diverted from residual to recycling in just three months, a saving of 170 (tCO2e) in carbon emissions. Garnering a positive response from 60% of residents, the trial's success has led to an extension and exploration of expansion proposals. Hackney's solution is setting a precedent, paving the way for other councils to follow suit.

Herefordshire Council

Luston wetland pilot project

The Luston Wetland is a nature based system, its primary purpose is to reduce point source phosphate pollution from waste water treatment works. The project has also resulted in a significant increase in biodiversity; planted with a mix of native species, adaptable to climate change, it acts as a carbon sink. The wetland project provides both river betterment and mitigation for a phosphate credit trading scheme, enabling developers to purchase credits to address the nutrient impact of their proposal. Research, data and knowledge gained from the project is being shared to inform the creation of wetlands across the country.

Oxford City Council

Electric vehicle dynamic purchasing system

Oxford City Council have created the Electric Vehicle Dynamic Purchasing System (EVDPS) to provide a reliable, efficient and quick procurement solution to address the key complexities of procuring in this market for all UK Public Sector Organisations to use for free. The EVDPS gives Local Authorities and other UK Public Sector Organisations a nimble route to procure the EV Infrastructure needed to accommodate the sharp rise of EV take up in their regions and in doing so positioning them as enablers in the transition to EVs ultimately reducing CO2 emissions and ensuring the UK climate aims are achieved.

Rossendale BC

Check before you chuck

Rossendale Borough Council has one of the lowest rates of recycling in the county of Lancashire and England as a whole. We want to turn these rubbish statistics around and set ourselves an ambitious recycling target of 45% by 2025. To help us understand how we could improve recycling rates across the borough (approx. 70,000 residents), we felt it was essential to develop a campaign based on a pilot area, findings from which could then be rolled out across Rossendale. Check Before You Chuck did just that!

Staffordshire CC

Warmer homes scheme

Staffordshire Warmer Homes is heating up homes, cooling down emissions, and fuelling a greener future for all! The scheme assists some of the county’s most vulnerable residents to stay warm and secure at home by retrofitting older homes with eco-friendly technologies like solar panels, heat pumps, and insulation, cutting their fuel expenses. To date, it has supported 1022 of our most vulnerable residents’ homes, installed 1331 energy-efficient measures. The scheme notably decreases household carbon emissions by increasing 92% of homes Energy Performance Certificates and preventing 1,540 tons of carbon emissions being created in Staffordshire.

Back to shortlist