The work programme of the Sustainability Team is reviewed each year, and set to reflect the areas needing most attention and support. For April 2006 – March 2007, the Sustainability Team is working in the following five areas:

• Helping the Sunderland Partnership and Sunderland Strategy to become more sustainable
• Developing a plan to tackle climate change in Sunderland
• Monitoring and reducing the impact of the council’s own activities on the environment, through the  Carbon Management programme
• Educating the community, schools, the public and staff on how to be more sustainable
• Supporting the creation of sustainable communities, through planning policy

Climate Change in Sunderland

Becoming a Fairtrade City

What's your Eco-footprint

Managing the Council's Carbon Emissions

ACE21 Grants

Past Initiatives

Schools and Charities in Sunderland

Participatory Appraisals

Achievements and awards

Meet the team

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Past initiatives

Schools and Charities in Sunderland (SACS). SACS puts local schools in contact with charities and environmental groups by asking pupils to donate unwanted toys, clothes and books for resale in local charity shops, instead of throwing them away to create more and more landfilled waste. Pupils learn about the local and international importance of recycling and the work of charities in the UK and abroad.

Schools are now being encouraged to maintain their relationships with the charities and environmental groups, to continue annual collections under their own steam.

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Participatory Appraisals. For major regeneration schemes, the Sustainability Team was responsible for organising consultation events to identify local expectations and priorities from residents affected by the schemes. These consultations used Participatory Appraisal (PA) techniques, to maximise the involvement of often hard-to-reach groups, by conducting street surveys, holding surgeries in local pubs, clubs and schools and more. 

The lists of priorities raised by local residents helped define both positive and negative impacts of schemes on resident's quality of life, to be factored into the development proposals. In addition, residents were able to better understand what scheme would deliver and learn more about local environmental and sustainability issues in the process.

• Riverside Regeneration
• Hetton Sustainable Transport Project
• Lambton Cokeworks

Consultations on major regeneration schemes are now carried out as a matter of course, lead by the Council's Planning Implementation and Housing Renewal sections.

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Achievements and Awards

The Sustainability team has won 5 Green Apple Awards including:

• Schools and Charities in Sunderland project - Green Apple Award 2002
• ACE21 programme - Green Apple Award 2002
• National Champion for Partnership Programmes - Green Apple Award 2003,

The team also attended the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, 2002, giving a presentation on Sunderland's approach to sustainability, including "Future City - Futures Lives" Sustainable Development Strategy and the SACS project.

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Meet the Team

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