Category: Cities and local authorities, Emission Inventories, Policies and measures

North East Scotland sustainable energy action plan

Aether led the development of the North East Scotland Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP) for Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen City, Angus and Moray.

Aether led the development of the North East Scotland Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP) encompassing the local authorities (LAs) of Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen City, Angus and Moray. The project involved providing technical assistance and capacity building support to the four LAs through the development of a regional SEAP as well as providing individual SEAPs for each LA. Aether was responsible for core GHG data compilation, emission scenario modelling, stakeholder engagement and assessing the impact of actions as well as authoring the final report and associated materials for submission to the Covenant of Mayors (CoM). The support focussed on creating a SEAP empowering public, private and community actors alike to enable efficient and engaging actions on local GHG emissions.

The Challenge

The regional approach the North East of Scotland is taking in order to develop a comprehensive and integrated SEAP requires the involvement of the private and public sectors across the region. Stakeholder engagement is key to enable significant and implementable climate change mitigation policies and actions and to develop the low carbon economy in the region. The key challenge for the project was to develop a cohesive evidence base and ‘route-map’ to demonstrate the region’s pathway to a low carbon future to inspire and galvanise professionals and inhabitants into coordinated action.

The Solution

Aether led a multidisciplinary team of collaborators to design and develop the project and ongoing programme for the North East Scotland SEAP. Working with each of the LAs and a regional steering group, the team considered LA-specific and regional mitigation actions and identified possible funding sources, financial mechanisms and potential co-benefits of the SEAP. The energy and GHG impacts of each policy/action were estimated and compared with targets for reductions. A SEAP governance structure was developed to ensure the ongoing decision-making and implementation of the plan. A regional SEAP report was authored for submission to the EU Covenant of Mayors

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Chris Dore

Director

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Testimonial

Don't just take our word for it...

“Chris was excellent to work with and always very pro active in making suggestions, taking work forward and applying his considerable technical knowledge in effective ways.”

Robert Vaughan, Defra Air Quality Team

“A heartfelt thank you to all the Aether team for this very comprehensive review – this is certainly turning out to be one of the most beneficial capacity building projects I have ever been involved in.”

Saviour Vassallo, Senior Environment Protection Officer, Malta Resources Authority

“The professional service provided by your company was of very high quality and completed within agreed timelines.”

Matthew Dudley, UNFCCC Secretariat

“Aether is a great partner for work in the area of European Air Emissions. The team was committed, reliable, well organised and had a deep technical understanding and motivated other partners with their good spirit.”

Umweltbundesamt: Environment Agency Austria

“I must congratulate each of you for your professional and tireless efforts. Let me point out that this has been the 'neatest' in-country review expert review team I have coordinated, and it has been a real pleasure.”

UNFCCC Secretariat

“Professional team and very collaborative communication. Effective result in terms of suggestions for improvement in the quality of the inventory and proposals on how to streamline specific topics.”

Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research

“It is always an absolute pleasure working with Aether. I always know what is expected of me. Their work ethic is of a very high standard and projects are always handled in a very professional manner. I have learnt many skills in terms of project management, quality control and workshop training styles from Aether and I hope to carry these principles forward in my own work. I look forward to collaborating with Aether more in the future.”

Luanne Stevens, Gondwana

“Aether delivered training workshops and generated learning materials for our SSN members, providing technical content in a manageable and comprehendible format. We particularly benefitted from their extensive knowledge and ability to interpret the needs of our members into the training materials.”

Jennifer Anderson, Sustainable Scotland Network

“The Aether team were a joy to work with and I would recommend the consultancy - the service provided throughout the process was exceptional.”

Clare Bayley, Defra

“It has been a pleasure to work with Chris Dore and Richard Claxton from Aether: they did their job in a very professional and timely manner. The workshop was organized and carried out in a cooperative spirit; the information provided to the workshop participants was complete and clear.”

Alina Novikova, UN/ECE Secretariat

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