About the York Climate Commission (YCC)

The York Climate Commission (YCC) is an independent, transparent and collaborative group of organisations invested in York's future. We bring together a diverse range of individuals and groups from the public, private and third sectors to support, facilitate and drive ambitious, impactful, positive and equitable climate and nature recovery actions. Our collective aim is to meet York's net-zero carbon and nature recovery goals by 2030.

Background

The YCC was established in 2019 in response to York declaring a Climate Emergency. Initially, the Commission provided scrutiny and feedback on the City of York Council's (CYC) Climate Action Plan and strategy. It actively challenged major businesses and emitters in York to take decisive action on reducing emissions. In January 2024, the YCC was re-launched to expand its membership and enhance transparency, reflecting the community's call for broader participation in climate and nature recovery initiatives.

Our Objectives

• Enable and Support Action: Facilitate and empower stakeholders to undertake effective climate initiatives, mobilising existing capacities while fostering collaboration and innovation across the city.
• Lead, Promote and Influence: Provide leadership in climate action, promote sustainability efforts, and influence policies to drive significant, positive changes towards achieving net-zero emissions.
• Ensure Effective and Transparent Governance: Collaboratively focus on barriers to progress with effective and transparent governance. 
• Support Measurement of Impact for activity across the city to reach net zero and help nature thrive.
• Communicate and Engage with residents, businesses and visitors to York to raise awareness of the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis, while providing balanced, evidence-based information on these topics.

How We Work

We achieve our goals through a strategic and collaborative approach that includes:

• Convening and facilitating stakeholders to share effective climate and nature action, mobilising existing capacities and fostering open discussions on challenging issues.
• Specialised Working Groups focusing on key sustainability issues. The Chairs of each group, along with relevant specialists, form the Steering Group, which meets quarterly to coordinate efforts and strategise on overarching goals.
• Catalysing action and focusing on impact to initiate collaborations, access funding and build partnerships to lead ambitious new climate/nature action projects.
• Annual Meetings to celebrate achievements, engage in broader discussions and promote city-wide action towards net zero and a thriving natural environment.
• Creating a stable climate/nature-positive policy environment that builds confidence and facilitates action at all levels on climate and nature within the city.