Housing  

We have a rolling plan to upgrade our existing council houses to Net Zero standard. This plan to make homes more energy efficient and recognises the importance of tackling fuel poverty and reducing energy bills for our tenants. Our partnership with the Net Zero Collective involves a project to monitor energy improvements against our properties. 

So far we’ve installed: 

• around 2,200 solar panel systems  
• around 270 air source heat pumps 
• external wall insulation to improve 850 homes.  

Streetlights 

Our project to upgrade 1,800 streetlights across South Cambridgeshire is now complete. We replaced all existing bulbs with low energy ones to reduce light pollution, improve lighting and cut energy bills. 

Fleet 

Nearly 2 thirds of our carbon emissions come from our fleet, so our longer-term plan involves changing all our diesel vehicles to electric and alternative fuel. 

We now have 4 electric bin lorries and several electric vans for staff to use when out working in the district. A further 18 of our bin lorries are now powered with hydrogenated vegetable oil. 

£2.7 million will be made available from the Combined Authority to develop a solar farm to power electric bin lorries used by Greater Cambridge Shared Waste. Our shared waste depot in Waterbeach is already partly powered by solar panels.