Agenda item

The Council considered the first annual report of the Climate Change Board which summarised the Board’s activities and achievements, including a summary of the reduction of the Council’s carbon emissions for 2022/23. 

Councillors noted that, in 2019, the Council had committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions across its operations by 2030 and making the entire borough carbon neutral. However, the initial years faced significant challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, financial pressures and resource constraints, which slowed progress. By early 2023, the Council had established and adopted a comprehensive Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP), which had set out a roadmap for reducing emissions across nine key areas of the Council’s business and operations.

Since the declaration of the Climate Emergency in 2019, the Council had:

·      Formed a Climate Change Board (CCB) to oversee the Council's climate initiatives.

·      Established a carbon emission baseline and set a carbon reduction trajectory.

·      Adopted a Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) to provide a pathway to achieve GBC’s carbon reduction and climate change goals.

·      Completed 19 of the 305 actions described in the CCAP, while 86 were in active development.

·      Adopted a Corporate Strategy within the past year which included sustainability as one of the key priorities.

The Report noted that, for 2022/23, the Council had recorded a net carbon footprint of 7,472 tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e), representing a 13% reduction from the baseline year of 2019. Additionally, 2022/23 emissions were slightly lower than the previous year.  Both 2020/21 and 2021/22 were considered as “non-standard” years in terms of the Council’s activities, due to the Covid pandemic and subsequent recovery period. This indicated that there had been real-terms progress in carbon reductions in the most recent year for which figures were available. However, despite this progress, the Council was currently not on track to meet its 2030 net-zero target.

The report had identified and acknowledged that there remained ongoing challenges in terms of financial and resource constraints and the complexities of measuring Scope 3 emissions (indirect emissions from procurement, contracts, and services).

Whilst significant progress had been made since 2019, achieving net-zero by 2030 remained an ambitious goal requiring continued effort, innovation, and collaboration.  The Council was committed to overcoming these challenges and would continue to refine its strategies to ensure meaningful reductions in carbon emissions, in line with both local and national climate objectives. The Council’s CCB would play a critical role in monitoring and advising on these efforts and ensuring that the borough remained on the path to sustainability.

At its meeting on 3 October 2024, the Executive had also considered this report and had commended it to full Council in recognition of the Council’s current carbon emissions and climate change status.

The Lead Councillor for Environment and Climate Change, Councillor George Potter proposed, and Councillor Joanne Shaw seconded the adoption of the motion to formally adopt the annual progress report.

During the debate the following points were made:

·      Concern that the reduction of carbon emissions from the Council’s operations was off track and that the Council's target already looked unachievable, mainly due to the operations at Spectrum.  The Executive should have revised the target.

·      The Council’s focus should be less on mitigation, but much more on things the Council can directly influence such as adaptation and building resilience in our community.

·      Appearing not to be on target does not mean that the Council should move the target. It means that the Council should redouble its efforts.

·      The report was disappointing and contradictory. On the one hand it had stated that significant progress had been made, whilst on the other the report had conceded that the Council was currently off track with the annual carbon emission target.  Scope 1 and Scope 3 emissions seemed to be going up rather than down, whilst Scope 2 emissions were flat lining. 

·      The Council declared a climate emergency in 2019, but only employed one Climate Change officer. The Council needed to commit more resources to achieving net zero.

·      The Council should continue to do whatever it could with the resources that were available in respect of the Climate Change Action Plan.

·      The green economy can provide positive benefits for the country. 

·      Whilst, at first glance, some of the results may appear to be disappointing, continuing with the good work may result in a large incremental improvement in the future.

·      Concern that, of the 305 actions detailed in the Climate Change Action Plan, there appeared to be 138 actions which had not yet been addressed.

·      Over the past year, the CCB had been putting in place a framework to ensure that the actions were being monitored, and delivered.  The actions were shared by every service across the organisation and not the sole responsibility of the Climate Change Officer.

·      The CCB had identified a priority list of key actions for this year and significant progress had been made with those actions going into the budget setting period, including active bids in for a dedicated bidding officer to help access more government funding, and a growth bid for a utility officer to oversee the transformation of the Council’s energy usage.

Having considered the matter, the Council

RESOLVED: That the annual progress report be adopted in recognition of the Council’s current carbon emissions and climate change status.

Reason:

In 2023 the Executive adopted the Climate Change Action Plan, subsequent to a motion passed by full Council, committing the council to a target date of 2030 for net zero emissions. On 23 July 2024, full Council adopted a new Corporate Strategy that included a ‘more sustainable borough’ at Priority 1 and once again reinforced this Council’s commitment to reaching net zero by 2030. The Climate Change Action Plan included a commitment to report progress annually to full Council. For this reason, this report has been referred to full Council for wider engagement and comment, and also includes an annual report of the Climate Change Board, which is constitutionally a working group of the Executive and is otherwise only required to report on its business and achievements to the Executive.