Nailsworth CAN have been thinking about projects that the town, community groups and businesses can sponsor or participate in. Here are some initiatives we can all play a part in promoting:

• Public Buildings: To lobby for all publics buildings to be fitted with renewable systems (such as solar PV combined with heat pumps).

• Commercial Buildings: To lobby for all new significant commercial buildings including supermarkets to be fitted with renewable systems (such as solar PV combined with heat pumps), and for a programme of retrofitting such systems to existing buildings.

• Relaxations in Planning: To lobby for relaxation of planning restrictions on Solar and Wind energy projects in the Stroud District.

• Community Energy: To work towards community energy installations - including wind and solar PV - and lobby for greater support for these.

• Energy Local Schemes: To lobby for schemes that allow locally generated energy to be shared on a community basis.

• Water Sources of Energy: To explore opportunities to generate energy from water including community hydro schemes and water-sourced renewable heat.

• Anaerobic Digestion: To explore opportunities for community based anaerobic digestion schemes for process food or other organic waste.

What are the benefits of these projects?

Carbon Reduction: There are direct saving is carbon dioxide emissions by creating local energy production capacity to displace fossil fuel capacity.

Local Economy: There are local jobs possible in the construction and maintenance of renewable energy installations.

Fairness: Executed properly, community energy can be delivered in a way to provide fair options, and eleviate energy poverty.

Health & Wellbeing: Locally run and owned community energy schemes could eleviate the prospect of energy bills escalating, and the stress this causes.

Nature Restoration: The positive impacts are to be felt further afield but are significant (we saw the distress and damage directly caused by the Deepwater Horizon spill, and now, with the Arctic Circle thawing, we are seeing renewed threats to the natural environment)

Resilience: By being more independent, at local scale (and regionally, and nationally), we become more resilient to the energy shocks that periodically have hit us, due to wars and politics in the Middle East and elsewhere.