Carbon-neutral islands project: progress report

The Carbon Neutral Islands (CNI) Progress Report 2023-2024 has been published.

It highlights some of the exciting projects that have been taking place across the six islands which are part of the project (Barra, Cumbrae, Hoy, Islay, Raasay and Yell).

The report highlights the good progress made, with community ownership at the heart of everything that has been achieved. On-island projects benefit the people, environments and economy of these unique communities.

The CNI project aims to demonstrate the climate-resilience and low carbon potential of islands and help point the way to actions that can be taken elsewhere in Scotland to help lower emissions and meet Scotland’s climate change targets.

Since its inception under the ‘A Fairer, Greener Scotland: Programme for Government 2021-22', the project has worked closely with communities and built capacity to support decarbonisation activity across the six islands.

The report summarises activity which took place in financial year 2023/2024.

Jim Fairlie MSP, Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity said:

“Scotland’s island communities lie at the sharp end of climate change and biodiversity loss. Sea level rise and coastal erosion pose visible and direct threats to our islands’ resilience, economies and heritage.

“The need to reduce carbon emissions and accelerate adaptation is critical throughout Scotland. However, our islands have the greatest sense of urgency, and inaction is simply not an option.

“Despite these challenges, island communities continue to display remarkable resilience and, drawing from their spirit of innovation and resourcefulness, are developing new solutions that put them at the forefront of Scotland’s journey to net zero.”

The CNI project is supporting Scotland’s islands to move towards carbon neutrality according to their own decarbonisation priorities and at a pace that considers their community needs whilst recognising the urgency of taking action. To do so, the six islands received support towards developing community Climate Change Action Plans that respond to the interests of the island stakeholders and community.

The project’s key principles remain:

Alignment: The project aims to align with existing island-based climate change efforts and to avoid duplication.

Justice and fairness: The project will support islands to become carbon neutral in a just and fair way. Fairness will be promoted through an effective bottom-up participatory process driven by the six island communities.

Replicability: All Scottish islands will benefit from the project through the sharing of good practices coming from the implementation of the project. Effectively the six islands will act as catalysts for net zero action across Scotland.

You can find the full report at: Carbon-neutral islands project: progress report