News & Blog

Governance: Underpinning all our action, we need to have sound governance. We have strong input from green groups in the city, and connect well with a few environmentally-minded businesses. We continue to have a strong relationship with Southampton Collective CIC, which holds our funding for us, until the time we are ready to become our own separate organisation.

Looking forward to 2026: Thank you to everyone who has helped us to achieve all the above, including the many thousands of hours of voluntary hours committed by people who care about the climate, nature and community. We look forward to building of the momentum of 2025 into 2026 and beyond. A key highlight has been stronger partnerships with local organisations and involvement of more residents, and we look forward to continuing this path of collaborative working. If you would like to get involved, please get in touch.

Southampton Climate Commission: Position statement on Southampton's Renaissance Board Prospectus

Southampton Climate Commission is an independent voice in the city, providing information on steps towards a zero carbon, climate-resilient future to inform stakeholders and decision-makers. 

After reviewing the Southampton Renaissance Vision, which was published earlier in 2025, the Climate Commission makes the following recommendations:

The Climate Commission recognises the need for investment in Southampton, and  that progress towards decarbonisation cannot happen without private finance.  However, the right choices must be made for a liveable city that works for everyone, therefore the Climate Commission recommends that: 
 

➢ The Renaissance Board assesses the full range of investment opportunities available to the city, and ensures that health, wellbeing and the environment  are factored into decision making at all stages.  

➢ The Board should involve a wide group of stakeholders from the start, including environmental representation, the climate commission and  community groups, to assess investment options.  

➢ The Board should embed a community wealth building approach and apply the principles of doughnut economics to keep investment in the city to benefit its people and the environment.  

➢ The role of investment in securing the future of the city needs to be appropriate and not hamper other opportunities for reducing emissions and improving health and wellbeing.  

The Climate Commission would welcome the opportunity to meet to discuss the Renaissance Board’s plans further.
You can see a full copy of the Climate Commission's response here. 

Meeting with Southampton's Satvir Kaur MP July 25

What are Southampton politicians doing to address climate and nature? This was the question we have been keen to ask our local MPs. Satvir Kaur MP met a group of constituents from Southampton Test in July 25. A couple of Southampton Itchen constituents met Darren Paffey MP in March 2025, where they discussed a number of issues which have also been raised with Satvir.

Southampton Test constituents meet Satvir Kaur July 25

On 4 July 2025, Southampton Greenpeace organised a meeting to bring constituents of Southampton Test together with Satvir Kaur MP, to discuss climate, nature and sustainability. Southampton Climate Action Network was part of this meeting, represented by Rebecca Kinge and Lyn Brayshaw, among others. You can read Satvir's Linked in article about this here. 

National and international issues

We followed up on some the issues raised when we met Satvir previously in November 2024, as well as more recent legislative issues:
•    New housing - This was an area that we were keen to discuss, knowing that housing has been a key area of interest to Satvir. New housing which is designed without climate and nature in mind, could stop the UK meeting its climate and nature commitments, and there has been considerable concern amongst environmental groups recently about the new Planning and Infrastructure Bill and some of the rhetoric from the Labour Government about nature interests being a "blocker" to new housing. Satvir mentioned the vital need for more houses, but also expressed the need to balance this with climate and nature concerns. In term of new home design, Satvir says she is working with the Ministry of Housing, Community and Local Government towards new homes having solar panels and better insulation. She also talked about promoting swift bricks in new houses.
•    River issues - Satvir reported that she is working with local groups and is raising importance of chalk streams and this will be followed up too with local politicians. Since the meeting with Satvir, Southampton City Council has supported a motion to recognise the Rights of the River.
•    New oil licences - This remains a concern with environmental groups. Satvir reported that she has raised concerns about new oil licenses in parliament.
•    Climate and Nature Bill - Satvir is not aware when this will go back to Parliament and has committed to supporting it when it does.
•    Plastics and Ocean Treaty – Satvir committed to pushing for this to be ratified.
•    Right to Protest - As constituents, many of us in environmental groups have expressed our deep concern about the Government cracking down on the right to protest, and the approach taking to proscribe Palestine Action. Environmental activists are worried that this sets the precedent of them being classed as terrorists too.
•    Environmental impacts of AI and datacentres is causing constituents concerns. Satvir agreed to find out more about and on 22 July she asked about this: Artificial Intelligence: Data Centres: 22 Jul 2025: Hansard Written Answers - TheyWorkForYou
•    Greenpeace and Climate Action Networks (including Hampshire CAN and Southampton’s SoCAN) have been asking for a statutory duty of Climate and Nature to be included in Mayoral authorities responsibilities. Satvir mentioned the need for local people to choose the issues that mattered to them. (Since this meeting with Satvir, we note that Local Government Association members have polled overwhelmingly in favour of a statutory local authority duty and funding to lead on climate and nature.)

May 2025 Recap

Generations of Regeneration
Our project Generations of Regeneration is exploring the connections between Southampton universities and local communities, with a focus on climate, nature and sustainability. This includes an exhibition of past and present projects at October Books. Not seen the exhibition yet? We are hosting dropins on Wed 14 May 6.30-8pm (which is also the Southampton 

Climate Action Network's Spring Climate Gathering - all welcome) and Mon 2 June 4-5pm.

Our last event will be on Thurs 5 June, starting at 4pm. This event is important to us because it's a chance to chat together about what we are learning and together identify some key recommendations to inform future university/community collaboration. 

Urban Wild 2025
Urban Wild is a week-long festival celebrating Southampton's green and blue spaces, nature, and the communities that make our city unique. Congratulations to Southampton National Park City, and their many partners and friends for such an exciting programme. 
 

St Denys Carnival is Southampton's new walking and wheeling event on Bank Holiday Mon 28 May. Includes floats from SoCAN members including Greenpeace Southampton.
 

Food walk on Tues 27 May over lunchtime
Join Southampton Food Partnership, SoCAN and friends for a food walk on 27 May 12-2.30pm, starting and finishing at Aldermoor Community Farm. Details and booking here.

Rewilding talks on Tues 27 May and Thurs 29 May 
As part of Urban Wild 2025, Transition Southampton is offering two evening talks about rewilding. Talk 1 on Tuesday  will give an overview and principles of rewilding, and Talk 2 on Thursday is about you and your patch. Free events, donations appreciated. Arrive at Highfield Church Centre at 6.30pm for a 7pm start. 

Into the Blue on Wed 28 May 
An evening of free talks about Southampton and its connections with its water. Details here.
 

Urban Wild on the Common Sun 1 June
Full Day Festival on Southampton Common with stallholders, activities and workshops! This is the culmination and crowning event of Urban Wild week. SoCAN and all local green groups will be there! Details here.
 

Other SOCAN projects and opportunities
Planning, devolution and local government. We want to see mayors and local authorities given strengthened climate and nature duties in upcoming legislation. There is huge concern about the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which is currently in Committee Stage in Parliament, where existing protections for nature would be traded for offsetting payments, and the lack of climate and nature duties in the devolution proposals. Thanks to everyone who submitted consultation responses on devolution in Hampshire and Solent.

Using dialogue and storytelling to help progress a sustainable future. We are excited by the opportunity to join in with some new workshops, where people with varying views come together to explore issues through dialogue and storytelling. Fabien Littel is seeking out community groups to get involved with this. More details are here. Contact: F.S.Littel@soton.ac.uk

The UK's Climate Change Committee has recently published its report on how well the UK is doing in adapting to climate change. The news is not good. The Government's approach is inadequate. Read more here.

Heatwaves, health and a greener city. In response to slow progress on adaption, we are looking to co-design a project to explore issues to do with heatwaves, health and a greener city in the Southampton area. If you are interested in getting involved in this, please complete this short form.
 

Sharing the news
A big thank you to our new volunteer Melissa who is helping us to build our social media presence. Please help by sharing our Instagram or Facebook posts.

Southampton residents meet Satvir Kaur MP about climate issues

The hour-long meeting was a whistle-stop tour of issues that residents care about including: the wish for MPs to support the Climate and Nature Bill; concerns about slow action on reducing climate emissions; worries about sea level rise and that Southampton could suffer from catastrophic flooding like Valencia; limited progress on building insulation, community energy and renewable generation at a domestic/neighbourhood level; worries about bus fares going up when we need to encourage people to chose sustainable transport; the impact of pollution from Southampton’s port; and the need to improve water quality in Southampton’s treasured rivers and coast.
 

SoCAN referred Kaur to our community responses to local issues, that we draw together through collaborative action and covered a series of wishes:
 

A planning system that enables green choices and renewable energy generation
 

Kaur is interested in planning reform, having led on housing issues when she was a Councillor with Southampton City Council. As SoCAN, we pointed to the key issues we raised as part of the recent National Planning Policy Framework consultation. In summary, planning reform must address carbon emissions so new builds are fully insulated and have adequate energy generation infrastructure such as solar panels that can help meet long-term energy demands. We need to ensure that development includes the appropriate environmental infrastructure to guard against inequalities and fuel poverty, enabling people to make green choices in their day-to-day lives. More details on our NPPF response can be found here.
 

Making sure communities and climate change are represented in decision-making forums
 

Kaur talked about Southampton’s “Renaissance Board” which brings people together around big strategic issues. SoCAN questioned how the local community’s voice is represented on this board and how climate issues are being prioritised? Our observations are that many boards like these are dominated by big businesses and anchor institutions, whilst community voices aren’t adequately represented. This means the positive action and knowledge embedded in communities can easily be overlooked, and residents’ real-life issues can be ignored. Kaur committed to finding out more for us about the role of Southampton’s Renaissance Board and the connections with climate action.
 

The need for an economy that is green and clean, not business as usual
 

SoCAN pointed to the work that we have been doing around Doughnut Economics and encouraged Kaur and anyone else who wants to get behind an economy that is good for people and planet to watch our Local is the New Global film. This was a collaboration between SoCAN, Hampshire City Council and Southampton City Councillor Sarah Bogle. It demonstrates how cross-sector work, including the voice and expertise of communities, can help us move faster to a sustainable economy.
 

Building consensus and making sure residents feel part of the solutions
 

We talked about the role of Climate Assemblies, which can help delve into issues in an evidence-based way, rather than feed on division and culture wars that can so often dominate climate discussions. SoCAN is advocating for the Southampton Citizens’ Climate Assembly 2023/2024 recommendations on transport to be kept alive. We would like to know how organisations are taking the findings forward. Kaur agreed to get an update on this and report back.
 

Similarly, the recommendations from large public engagement activities such as the River Itchen Scrutiny Inquiry, need to be embedded in the city’s future actions and the work of MPs such as Satvir Kaur. SoCAN looks forward to seeing these recommendations championed in parliament, including ensuring that water quality initiatives are progressed with water companies so that high ecological status can be achieved for the river, and working with others to ensure that all the Inquiry's recommendations are embedded in Southampton’s local policies.

Stopping the lobbying by fossil fuel companies and rethinking Carbon Capture and Storage
 

The issues of fossil fuel lobbying and greenwashing was raised. SoCAN pointed to the concerns about Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), and the work of Solent Cluster, which has been funded by Exxon Mobil. These concerns are summarised in Southampton Climate Commission’s position statement on Solent Cluster. We also refer to the more recent concerns expressed by climate scientists in their  September 2024 collaborative letter about the carbon capture.

Being proud of what Southampton is achieving

There is so much climate action that Southampton can be proud of. We can talk about recycling, which often gets a lot of focus. But reducing, reusing and repairing need to be prioritised rather than thinking we can recycle our way out of environmental degradation. Southampton has four Repair cafes, which is a great example of community action that supports people to be greener whilst also saving money. More ways to be green can be found on the Southampton Sustainability Directory. Southampton Food Partnership is growing too, which will develop initiatves around access to healthy, sustainable food.

Keeping the conversation going
 

Kaur expressed a wish to keep in touch with this group and support more community engagement around climate action. SoCAN and the groups that form part of this network, welcome a more regular meet up with our MPs, so we can keep those people who represent us in parliament in touch with residents’ concerns and ensure that community-based solutions are not overlooked.
 

For those reading this who are constituents of Southampton’s Darren Paffey MP or Caroline Nokes MP, residents had asked for similar meetings like this one with Kaur. Sadly, this was not able to happen  alongside the 8 November meeting, but it is hoped that there will be some progress for Southampton Itchen and Romsey and Southampton North constituents in the near future. Thank you to Greenpeace for all their hard work in trying to bring people together.

Please do sign up for updates from Southampton Climate Action Network through our mailing list. You can find the sign up form on the homepage of our website.

Planning for a Greener Future 

In September 2024, members of the Climate Action Network collaborated on a response to the Government's National Planning Policy Framework.

A full response is available by emailing us. We summarise some of the key points as follows:
 

We are concerned about the pressure to build in areas of Southampton and other towns where there are high levels of pollution, lack of green space, shortage of green infrastructure, lack of resilience to heatwaves, limited community facilities or poor housing mix. Much more needs to be done to bring empty homes back into use and tackle second home ownership.

We are really concerned about the pressure to build fast, which is impacting on the quality of development. Too many developers aren't sufficiently focused on sustainability and are currently building houses which aren't fit for purpose long term, e.g. installing two solar panels on roofs that could accommodate many more. This will cost more in the long run and won't support us to meet climate emission reduction commitments.

Planning should include Biodiversity Net Gain as part of its overall ethos and principles.and bio-regional approaches which address issues such as food security, water catchments, wind strength, air quality, transport infrastructure, green spaces, plus nature conservation areas and habitat protection.

Environmental impact should be considered whatever the status of any piece of land e.g. brownfield land can include rich habitats.
 

In the draft National Planning Policy Framework there is repeated use of the term ‘sustainable locations’ yet there is no definition of what constitutes a sustainable location. Consideration should include sustainable materials and the provision of amenities, as well as provision for non-car transport, ensuring there are no
additional risks of flooding or climate change exacerbation, and enabling the protection of land capital to support future food security and nature’s
recovery. Sustainabilility is a multi-faceted issue, which can often be used as shorthand for "near a public transport route".. 

We are worried about words such as  “subject to viability” which can easily provide a loophole for developers, preventing adequate numbers of affordable homes to be built, lack of adequate access to green spaces or inadequate provision of public transport services such as new bus routes that are sustained long term.

We agree with a policy that encourages a mix of tenure types. This must include ensuring there is no ‘two tier’ arrangement whereby the ‘affordable’
homes have less access to facilities, green spaces etc. This is an equalities issue.

Equality impact assessments ,as part of development proposals, should be prepared with input from people with lived experience and related organisations that represent people with lived experience of marginalisation. 

Response to Consultation September 2024

Did you know there is a proposal by ExxonMobil for a pipeline to transport CO2 into a storage site in the English Channel? The SoCAN team have looked at it and have submitted the following response:
 

Response to Solent CO2 pipeline consultation from Southampton Climate Action Network (SoCAN)
 

We are deeply concerned that one of the main aims of the pipeline will be to facilitate production of so-called ‘blue’ hydrogen at Fawley, which in reality would be no greener than ‘grey’ hydrogen (see here).
 

Carbon capture and storage is inefficient and expensive and leads to increased energy consumption to power the process. The flaws in the whole concept of CCS are highlighted in the report by the Institure of Energy Economics & Financial Analysis which shows that the majority of projects hve failed or are underperforming, and the most successful ones are those which use the CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (thus worsening emissions!) https://ieefa.org/resources/carbon-capture-crux-lessons-learned 

The environmental harm resulting from any of the proposed routes is unacceptable and none should be taken forward. We endorse the response from Transition Southampton which point out both the environmental damage and the inappropriateness of carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a ‘solution’ to carbon emissions.
 

Finally, the analysis by the Solent Protection Society shows that the pipeline itself is pointless in the absence of any evidence regarding both the feasibility of the carbon capture process itself and the safety and feasibility of the proposed storage location in the Solent. Money (especially taxpayer money) must be directed toward solutions which reduce emissions at source rather wasted on attempting to capture and bury (some of) them afterwards.