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The One Planet Centre is pleased to announce that it has provided the first One Planet ‘Local Delivery Strategy’ (LDS) for a local authority in the UK.

We worked with the Local Action Group which manages the Rural Development Programme for Swansea Council to develop the strategy which has now been approved.

Gower Peninsular from the air

The area around Swansea city includes urban areas and the Gower Peninsula, classed as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and is a popular tourist destination, which means environmental management especially vital, part of the reason why the One Planet approach was adopted. Picture: John McLinden.

It incorporates One Planet principles to address climate change, by placing sustainability and community resilience as the fundamental element of its work.

In a statement on Swansea Council’s website, it proudly announces: “This is the first time any local authority LAG has used the One Planet approach in Wales to affect strategy and grant making decisions.

“It is a new way of working and thinking, which will be required from those who wish to partner with Swansea RDP.

“It is in line with its acknowledgement of Swansea Council announcing a climate emergency and the urgent need for everyone to change tack away from ‘business as usual’ to a way of doing things to protect the lives of future generations.”

We have been pressuring Swansea Council to adopt a “One Planet” city approach in response to their declaration climate emergency.

Swansea RDP’s vision is a ‘One Planet’ future for a rural Swansea which:

  • Increases community resilience and self-reliance by producing more of what it consumes;
  • Does this in a way that is less damaging to people’s health and the environment;
  • Supports more abundant natural resources and biodiversity;
  • Encourages an end to needless waste;
  • Yields more local and meaningful jobs;
  • Gives greater protection from the possibility of disruption in the rest of the world in the environment, trade and the economy;
  • Reduces the area’s ecological and carbon footprints

Read more about it here.

Our involvement continues with the delivery of training in support for staff to understand and implement the new strategy.

David Thorpe of the One Planet Centre said,” I extremely pleased with the enthusiasm and confidence with which Swansea’s RDP local action group embrace the one planet approach I look forward to seeing how it pans out in practice.

“They are right, it is a new way of thinking and working that concentrates minds on what is required to make the way we live truly sustainable, and not just ‘greener’.”