A call to arms

There was a time when being ‘green’ was just something that just a handful of councils did. It was a bit of a sideline, something to keep the slightly more hippy members happy, and it cost a great deal of money. Tackling climate change was, for most local authorities, a rather expensive hobby.

That’s all about to change. The advent of the carbon reduction commitment energy efficiency scheme, which kicks off this spring, will see to that. From April 2010, local authorities across the UK will need to register with the government-run scheme if they use more than 6,000 megawatt hours of electricity every year. And from April 2013, they will find a cap on their carbon emissions - and fines for not complying. Organisations will be fined for not registering, not providing information and not providing a footprint report. Cutting carbon emissions won’t just be something a small team hidden away worries about: it will concern everyone.

Financial penalties

Operating in much the same way as the global carbon trading scheme for big business, councils will be required to buy a set number of carbon allowances annually. If their carbon emissions breach those allowances, they can either buy more credits from organisations which have cut their emissions, or risk a fine from the department for Energy and Climate Change.

Councils must pay attention for several reasons. The first is financial. The advent of the CRC is causing finance directors’ ears to prick up at the words ‘energy efficiency’. According to Jane Morris, national lead for sustainability at the Audit Commission: ‘Financial managers are going to take this much more seriously because it is going to cost them money. In the past they have shunned green projects because they need to see the financial benefit from them, but the CRC is the way to get the more foot-dragging councils on board,’ she says.

Energy efficiency is also creeping up local authorities’ agendas in the form of the Audit Commission’s new method of sizing up public services: comprehensive area assessment. One of the things CAA commends or condemns through its green and red flag system is how environmentally sustainable an area is. When the commission launched its most recent assessments through its OnePlace website in December, 28 areas received green flags for their approach to sustainability - and nine were given red flags.

But it isn’t just that councils will lose money, or find themselves named and shamed for failing to cut their emissions. Energy efficiency programmes will also save them money. Bristol Council’s energy management team, for example, has cut so much from the authority’s fuel bills with projects such as low-energy street lighting schemes, that the team is now entirely self-funded.

The Audit Commission also believes councils can take a lead in their local areas as ‘pioneers’ in reducing emissions. Its Lofty Ambitions report, published last October, says that councils should lead by example by cutting their own emissions, and also by ‘encouraging local communities and public and private sector organisations to take action on domestic energy by developing a clear strategic vision, facilitating partnership working, providing information, advice and support and championing energy issues’.

Housing presents a huge opportunity for councils to stand out from the crowd on green issues. They have the opportunity to cut emissions by retrofitting their housing stock on a large scale, and they can also tie this in to other operations. Janine Michael, head of development at the Centre for Sustainable Energy, says: ‘Councils have an ability to pull organisations together in their area, particularly local strategic partnerships.’

This adds up to a fairly rousing call to arms for councils. But are they ready? There certainly seems to be growing interest in the area. The new local performance framework, launched in 2008, enabled councils to pledge to cut their own and overall local emissions. Ninety per cent of councils have included indicator 186, which deals with per capita reduction in CO2 emissions in the local authority area.

But Alice Owens, lead commissioner for local and regional issues at the Sustainable Development Commission, is concerned councils are falling behind other social landlords on bringing their stock up to energy efficient standards.

‘In general, councils have got carbon emissions on their agenda,’ she says. ‘But not with the big focus that housing associations have shown.’
The authors of Lofty Ambitions were not so sure, either. ‘Progress has been patchy,’ reads the report. ‘[It is] often reliant upon the commitment of individual staff, and hampered by lack of knowledge or skills to make best use of the available opportunities. There has been inadequate co-ordination between the different council services that have a role in reducing CO2 emissions.’

Coherent approach

It is this lack of a unified approach that the CSE believes is holding many back from developing successful green agendas.

Ms Michael says: ‘To be really successful at cutting emissions, councils need to be making sure that energy is a cross-departmental concern. I do not think councils are technically set up at the moment to do that. I think we are probably in a transition period where just some of the more innovative ones are working to make energy efficiency a cross-council concern.’

David Potruff, senior manager at the Audit Commission and author of Lofty Ambitions, believes councils need to go further than that. ‘Councils which have achieved the most have done so by working in partnership.’ he says. ‘Councils can combine their resources with the expertise of energy suppliers to undertake area-based projects on energy efficiency.’

Another barrier to councils engaging with the green agenda is that it has evolved in such a piecemeal way. Andy Deacon, head of regional and local delivery at the Energy Saving Trust, says: ‘For some of the larger, urban authorities, the issue is that there are too many types of support from central government. What they now need is help to target just the support that is relevant to them.’

Once they have found the funding stream or programme that suits them, councils will find it easy to cut emissions up to a certain point, argues Zoe Leader, sustainable homes policy advisor for WWF.

‘If you are just going to reduce your demand by switching screen savers off, that’s easy, but if you are going to do more difficult stuff, it would be quite reasonable to expect that not all of them can do the necessary things to reach an 80 per cent cut, such as generating their own electricity,’ she says.

Ms Michael agrees. Combined heat and power schemes, which can provide heat and electricity for large buildings or entire streets of domestic properties, are 75 per cent efficient in their fuel use, compared with around 50 per cent efficiency for conventional electricity generation. Such systems can cut energy costs by up to 40 per cent, and councils are uniquely placed to deliver them.

‘But getting a CHP or district heating scheme put in requires a great deal of forward planning,’ she says. ‘A lot of decisions are probably made in planning departments, not necessarily by people thinking with the right mindset. They will be trying to get retail or jobs into the area, and they won’t necessarily join up with energy concerns to put the framework in place to install CHP a few years down the line.’

But before they fork out tens of thousands of pounds per house for photovoltaic panels, or produce homes which meet level six of the Code for Sustainable Homes, councils can focus on simple measures.

‘The most effective thing to do is reducing emissions from existing stock by making sure that they have done everything they can in terms of insulation,’ says Mr Deacon.

Mr Potruff adds: ‘About two thirds of the homes we will be living in when we reach 2050 have already been built. The challenge is much more about how we retrofit existing stock than how we influence what new homes are going to look like.’

Councils recognise they have their work cut out. ‘We are already keen to cut our carbon,’ says Alex Minshull, sustainable city manager at Bristol Council. ‘But what the CRC does for us is raise the stakes. At the moment we are doing everything because of the council’s own commitment, but the CRC means we will have to do it, or face losing money.’

Fortunately, it is a couple of years before the cap and trade part of the CRC scheme kicks in, which means councils - especially those less far down the eco-line than Bristol - have time to pull themselves together. Whether this is enough time for those which are most behind and least motivated is another thing, but it’s their best chance yet.

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