A major challenge facing our environment is climate change. All communities contribute to climate change through emissions from their energy use, transport and consumption. Addressing the challenges of climate change brings threats but also opportunities for our communities.

ACRE’s national 21st Century Village project, which began in 2006, set the scene for communities to explore and take more control of their own sustainability.

Opportunities include, for example:

• harnessing local community assets for energy production
• introducing community-based transport schemes to reduce reliance on the car
• ensuring local community-owned facilities adopt energy efficient practices in their design and their use
• Using government initiatives such as the feed-in-tariff scheme which makes payments to eligible householders and communities who generate their own electricity from renewable sources, the Green Deal to help improve household energy efficiency and the renewable heat incentive.