Halesworth Area Sustainability Hub (Halesworth ASH) aims to connect people, ideas and projects to inspire a thriving, nature-friendly and climate-resilient community.

Heartwood – Background and resources

Halesworth Climate Action Energy Weekend is around the corner. Here’s our DRAFT plan. Save this date – September 26/27/28th.

Halesworth Climate Action Energy weekend is a positive practical event, enabling people and organisations to take steps with their own energy needs. As well as imagining never having to pay an electric bill again we will present Halesworth Energy Pathway towards Net Zero, by launching the results of our commissioned baseline study from Opergy,




_______________PAST 2025 EVENTS

JUNE 29 Rydal Mount Biodiversity day celebrating diversity REVIEW with photographs and text here.

JUNE 6-8 Beccles Climate Conference

MAY 10/11 Green Film (as part of VE Day) My Neighbour Totoro & weekend of events Saturday and Sunday events at the Cut, Church and Millennium Green.

MAY 17/18 Agroforestry Open Weekend 2025 Wakelyns

MAY 24 Halesworth Annual Parish Meeting in the Park – with Halesworth Ash represented

2025 Baseline study

To find a route map to achieve net zero carbon or adapt to climate change sufficiently, the first step is to know the baseline of the current and predicted future carbon emissions of the area as if no external intervention was taken, ie the business-as-usual scenario (BAU).
A baseline study will enable us to:
– Know where the most effective interventions are
– Allow for an accurate comparison after 5/10 years’ time.
The parameters for the study:
– Housing/buildings
– Transport
– Agriculture
Possible choices are to use the current Halesworth report or to commission Opergy (recommended by Leiston Net Zero – Notes are here.
Aim to set a target to align with the Paris Agreement, which means working within a carbon budget (rather than focussing on net zero).


Some of our past events

Events 2024 – a series of events we ran in 2024

Halesworth Climate Action Conference II 2024: LAND & FOOD

Wilding at the Cut, sold out

Norwich 2025

Totoro weekend 2025

6 Inches of Soil sold out at the Cut – 2024

Partners and who we work with

Climate Change history and basics

When humans burn plants, we put the carbon those plants drew from the air, to build their leaves and trunks, back into the atmosphere. In the chemical reaction of burning, two oxygen atoms attach onto one carbon atom, forming carbon dioxide, CO2. Carbon dioxide represents 74% of heat trapping emissions; methane and nitrous oxide make up the rest. These greenhouse gases trap heat near the Earths surface instead of letting it escape into space. This extra heat warms the air and land and upper oceans.

The lions share of greenhouse gas emisions today is created by our burning of ancient plants. This fossil carbon is the 300 million year old remnants of lush swamps and sludgy sea beds transformed by heat and pressure into fossil fuels like coal oil and gas.

Humans have now warmed the world 1 degree C above its pre-industrial average.

What we, who live today, do really matters for the climate. We are now determining the climate from around 2035. The stone age didn’t end because it ran out of stones. The fossil age must not end because we ran out of dirty energy.

A life well lived is one that mazimimizes meaning and minimizes carbon (Under the sky we make)

Short history of Climate Change Politics BBC
New York TImes interactive questions
Climate Change Basics

Photo c Bill Jackson, take at South Cove

About Halesworth Ash

Climate Action Halesworth/ASH has grown out of Halesworth Climate Action Conference 2023. From being part of Halesworth Town Council, it became constituted in 2025 as an independent group, which advises and works with Halesworth Town Council and Blyth Valley Churches to meet the Town and Councils challenging target of becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

Working with local communities we gather local solutions, driving sustainable actions to mitigate Climate Change.

Anyone is welcome to join us.

Our Objectives are:
i. Serve as a hub to support practical, sustainable measures in response to the climate emergency
ii. Celebrate nature and promote measures to increase biodiversity in the town and surrounding areas
iii. Facilitate events that educate and inform local people about the part they can play
iv. Collaborate with Halesworth Town Council (HTC) and Blyth Valley Churches (BVC) in
implementing their plans to mitigate the impact of the climate emergency in the
communities they serve.

As well as active engagement we focus on 3 areas: Open Spaces, Energy, Water. Our local engagement takes these forms:

a. Conferences – started in 2023, our first conference was a broad brushstroke of themes. Our 2024 specialised in Land and Food.

b. Green Films – held at the Cut Arts centre in Halesworth, these are a series of ‘green films’ to inspire, challenge and inform.

c. Series of events organised or promoted throughout the year – either organised by ourselves or in conjunction with other organisations.

d. Mailing list updates – we keep you in touch through monthly newsletter of local events or initiatives.

Halesworth ASH is responsible for funding its own activities. Our form and constitution is here



“If we care about our common future and the common future of our descendants, we should all in part be naturalists”

Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, in Economics of Biodiversity, commissioned by the UK Treasury in 2019, which sets the agenda for the UK Government’s 25 year environment plan.

Contact

halesworthash@gmail.com

Rachel Kellett
Cllr.RachelKellett@halesworthtowncouncil.gov.uk

Rev Alison Alder
alisonalder@hotmail.co.uk