Climate friendly borough

Key progress 2024 to 2025

Youth Climate Assembly

In the Youth Climate Assembly, young people take part in climate action and democracy lessons within their own classrooms before leading a youth debate with other schools in the Council Chambers at Stockport Town Hall.

This year, over 1,900 young people engaged through lessons, workshops, youth summits, and Town Hall debates. In March 2025, 72 students from 41 schools and colleges voted to support composting food waste at school to use in gardens or feed wildlife in bug hotels. This winning idea was proposed by Cale Green Primary School.

Following the youth vote, the Climate And Nature team is developing guidance for schools on composting with supported grants to schools, to be shared at the start of the new school year.

Find out more about the Youth Climate Assembly project.

Resilience 4 Communities

Stockport was selected as a focus area for Greater Manchester’s three-year Resilience 4 Cities programme, aimed at understanding climate risks and building community resilience in Edgeley. The initiative includes £100k funding, with a focus on the impact of prolonged heatwaves.

In 2024, community research in took place including:

  • 270 household surveys
  • 12 key informant surveys
  • 3 focus groups
  • 13 community events

This led to the idea of creating a resilience hub in Park View. The 'What If?' space was launched in August 2024. The program, curated by Civic and Social and supported by Life Leisure, engaged over 700 local residents and more than 80 volunteers contributed over 320 volunteer hours.

Following the success of the pilot, the space is being developed into Stockport’s first resilience hub, supporting climate resilience, social cohesion, and community leadership.

Stockport CAN Summit

The CAN Summit in November 2024 was attended by 140 people. It focused on advancing climate action in the borough and featured young voices from St Winifred’s Primary who spoke to the audience about food waste and its impact on climate. Workshops gathered views on:

  • climate, health and inequalities
  • approaches to climate and nature action in Stockport
  • how to promote green skills in the construction sector

Stockport CAN Fund

Two community funding schemes were open between March 2024 and February 2025 which awarded £55,657 of support for community-led projects.

Support for businesses

This year, the Climate Action Business Forum engaged 165 people from over 100 businesses through events and training, with workshops and speakers from organisations such as:

  • Where the Light Gets In
  • British Business Bank
  • Hursts Accountants
  • Green Economy (part of the Growth Company)
  • Trafford and Stockport College Group

This year, 82 Stockport businesses received tailored support on their journey to Net Zero. Twelve developed action plans, nine completed technical projects, and seven set clear carbon-cutting targets. Three businesses signed on as Sustainability Champions, and seven invested in green technologies. Additionally, 140 businesses were referred to Bee Net Zero for further support.

Find out more about how businesses and organisations can get involved with climate action.

Support for Communities

The Stockport Green Network is a space for residents and members of voluntary, community, faith, and social enterprise groups to connect around climate and nature action. In 2024 to 2025, the network saw over 1,100 people attending across five events, involving 88 community groups.

The second Greenstock event, led by 62 volunteers, welcomed over 800 attendees to the Kindling Trust’s Woodbank Community Food Hub.

This year, the network began transitioning into community leadership and organising. The council’s CAN team continues to support the network and is working closely with members to shape its future direction.

Find out more about how residents and communities can get involved with climate action.

Stockport Food Partnership

The Stockport Food Partnership continues to grow, focusing on food education, food waste, food insecurity, and access to growing spaces.

In 2024 to 2025, the partnership hosted meetings and a workshop at the CAN Summit, where ideas like A Plot on Every Block were developed. Nearly 80 community growing sites were mapped and promoted.

A part-time Food Partnership Coordinator was appointed in April, hosted by Re:Dish and supported by council teams including Climate And Nature, Public Health, and Anti-Poverty.