Carbon Neutral Islands

The was initially published as a ‘Story’ on Verture’s website on 17 January 2025. The Carbon Neutral Islands project handbook can be downloaded from the right hand column.

Summary

Scotland’s islands have the potential to be hubs of innovation in relation to renewable energy and resilient, sustainable community development. However many are also particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including flooding, extreme weather, and sea level rise.

Carbon Neutral Islands is a Scottish Government project supporting six islands to become carbon neutral by 2040: Barra and Vatersay, Cumbrae, Hoy, Islay, Raasay and Yell. It is delivered in collaboration with, delivered in collaboration with Community Energy Scotland and local anchor organisations on the islands.

2022/2023

In 2022-23, as part of the Adaptation Scotland programme, we adopted a locally-led approach to support islands to identify their climate resilience priorities as part of the development of Community Climate Action Plans.

Local anchor organisations, and the communities they support, were able to draw on our expertise, working with consultants JBA, to access tailored climate and coastal change information for each island. Through a series of participatory workshops, communities were then able to share their knowledge, experiences and priorities around climate impacts and actions to boost resilience. Working with illustrators, through this process we created a series of community-led maps of the islands.

Local anchor organisations were also able to apply for grant funding to support local adaptation action, including a seagrass mapping project, community good schemes and weather monitoring stations.

The adaptation priorities identified through this phase of the project were integrated into the each island’s Community Climate Action Plan. Priorities included establishing a community hubs in Yell to increase resilience to extreme weather events, completing a coastal flood protection scheme in Cumbrae, and developing a community garden in Hoy.

2023-24

In 2023-24 as the six islands developed their approach to delivering their action plans, we provided further advice and support to enable them to take their priority climate adaptation actions forward. We also contributed to the project Handbook, sharing our collective learning more widely.

The local anchor organisations were also able to access tailored support for the adaptation priorities. Our support included advising Cumbrae on approaches to flood resilience; supporting Hoy to understand the approaches and tools available for climate risk assessment; and helping Raasay to develop a framework for a climate resilience plan.

2024-25

We continue to support Carbon Neutral Islands through the Adaptation Scotland programme, working with Community Energy Scotland to deliver climate resilience training for a wider group of islands through the project’s community of practice. This will ensure that the learning from the project so far can be more widely shared, and help a wider group of islands to adapt to climate change.

Project background

In May 2022 the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands announced the six Scottish islands to be supported by the Carbon Neutral Islands project: Barra, Cumbrae, Hoy, Islay, Raasay and Yell.  This represents one island from each of the local authorities with permanently inhabited islands in their council areas. More widely, the CNI project aims to deliver key commitments in the National Islands Plan and support islands to adapt to and be resilient to the effects of climate change.  

The project aims to align with wider net-zero and decarbonisation efforts and will contribute to the Scottish Government’s statutory target to reach net zero by 2045.