ZERO is a Surrey-based charity who use common sense solutions to tackle local issues, such as the poor energy efficiency rating of Surrey homes that costs 300,000 households extra money on bills, the sewage being pumped into our rivers, and the fact that Guildford has the worst nitrogen dioxide air pollution levels of any stretch of the road in the country! 

We want Guildford and Surrey to remain a beautiful place to live, restoring and protecting the places we love, and the people in them. We are strong believers in action at a local scale which not helps to improve these local issues, but which simultaneously contributes to tackling global scale problems such as climate change and nature loss through local action. 

It might feel like your actions are a drop in the ocean when it comes to these huge overwhelming issues, but they’re not! By getting involved with local projects through organisations like ZERO, your efforts can have a huge ripple effect and provide co-benefits across a number of areas.

Take energy use for example. Our Home Energy Advice Team conducts home energy visits for Surrey residents. This helps cut bills, keep the home cosy, and free of damp and mould, in turn reducing pressure on local health services, and we’ve upskilled and retrained over 100 people, several of who have got jobs in the rapidly expanding retrofit sector. So a simple project like this has benefits for the local economy, protecting the NHS and keeping residents healthy, tackling the cost of living crisis, and whilst doing all of that helps to tackle climate change by reducing residential emissions, Surrey’s 2nd largest contributor to climate change!