SSDC Climate Change Action Plan
South Staffordshire Green Party Response and Next Steps
We welcome the Climate Change Action Plan developed by South Staffordshire. The priorities proposed for council estate and commercial estate are impressive. We applaud the council’s commitment to on an absolute reduction in carbon emissions rather than offsetting. We particularly welcome the willingness to work with and learn from other councils who have gone a little further on this journey.
As Green Party Councillors, climate change is central to our thinking, and we would welcome the opportunity to discuss the Plan with policy makers in South Staffordshire as it evolves. We want to share our understanding and knowledge with the council to help achieve and exceed the council’s goals.
Having reviewed the Climate Strategy and Action Plan, we have set out below some points which could provide a starting place for further discussion and development.
Scoping and monitoring
The presentation of evidence, targeting and monitoring needs strengthening to effectively communicate the breadth of the council’s achievement and ambition.
The approach taken in the Stroud 2030 Strategy (click here) is powerful. For each sector, they present their position clearly under these headings:
Where are we now?
Where do we want to be?
What are we doing about it?
This makes it very easy to understand the current position and goals going forward. In the next iteration of the Strategy and Action Plan, SSDC should aim to do something similar. In order to introduce this level of clarity to the SSDC plan we recommend making some changes to the structure of the plan.
The council has already separated the plan into different areas of operation where the council hope to make reductions. For each of these, a more detailed overview should be presented.
Council Operations is currently broken down really well into different aspects. Adding some figures into each aspect would help to demonstrate both internally and externally where the most effective savings can be made.
Adding forecasts for each bullet point will show clearly which will give the best results, and allow progress to be measured. Data on both anticipated emissions reduction and improvements in energy efficiency should be presented. There is of course an argument to be made for cost savings too – if the council thought it was suitable, we feel including cost of implementation and projected financial savings could also be included.
For each of the bullet points under Raising Awareness, Strategic Planning, Influencing Partners and Council Operations the following should be set out:
Where are we now?
First and foremost, the baseline for reporting should be taken from 2019 figures, not from 2010 figures. Reductions against 2010 are as a result of national or international level effects not local initiatives.
To help identify priority areas, the plan needs to utilise and present quantitative data.
The same exercise needs to be done for the ‘prior’ position on the council property/activities etc. such as the Hub, schools, waste management etc.
The Impact tool gives an overview of both consumption and territorial emissions and gives a clear insight into the biggest issues in the district as a whole.
In what way will this action have an impact?
In order to clearly see and evaluate the impact of each bullet point in the plan, it is important to specify in what way each action will contribute to tackling climate change. Each action should contribute in one or more of the following ways:
- Reduction of CO2e
- Improved energy efficiency
- Reduced energy use
- Generating clean energy
- Reduced use of Fossil Fuels
The inclusion of quantitative forecasts will make this information really tangible.
For SSDC to show its commitment to local action on climate change, clarity is crucial.
By making a clear distinction between energy use and emissions, and reporting these separately will enable the council to properly evaluate and reprioritise where necessary depending on the efficiency of the measures taken.
How will this contribute to long term goals?
Setting out the key areas (as suggested above) where the council’s plan intends to have an impact enables longer term goals to be set – and a meaningful path laid towards a zero carbon footprint.
For example, the Impact.org.uk tool reports South Staffordshire’s carbon footprint for mains gas as 2.4 t/a/household. As one of the key areas is to Reduce Use of Fossil Fuels – addressing the use of mains gas would have a massive impact. From this we can create at least two long term goals: 1. To improve insulation in homes to Reduce Energy Use and 2. To replace gas boilers with heat pumps which Reduce the Use of Fossil Fuels. The council can then work backwards to finding solutions on how these now manageable goals can be achieved.
An Example
Below is an example of how the plan could be enhanced in the way described above. In bold is an action point taken from the current plan, from the section on Longer term Actions 2022-25. The addition of the information in italics creates a more robust and tangible plan.
Council Operations
Upgrading of Council’s external lighting to all its Commercial properties with LED lighting.
Where are we now?
100 x fluorescent tube fixtures with 2 tubes per fixture
Annual Energy Consumption: 75,336 kWh
In what way will this action have an impact?
-
- Improved energy efficiency
- Reduced energy use
- Reduction of CO2e
How will this contribute to long term goals?
Replacing 100 x fluorescent tube fixtures with 2 tubes per fixture
with LED equivalent:
Annual Energy Consumption: 28,032 kWh
Annual Energy Saving: 47,304 kWh
Saving 11t CO2e
(Figures are for demonstrative purposes only and not based on actual data)
Other Actions
While we recognise councils are not omnipotent, and financial and legislative support from central government is lacking, we feel some actions could be strengthened.
Renewable Energy
The council’s stance on renewables, especially PV panels on new builds, council estate, commercial estate, could be strengthened. Installing renewables should become the default unless there are real practical obstacles, which should be rare on new developments. New houses can generate solar equivalent to their annual energy use, see NALU homes for an example.
Has the potential for solar on schools etc been fully explored?
Switching to truly green energy suppliers, where installing the facilities to generate on site is not possible, is an easy win to Reduce use of Fossil Fuels and supports the growth of this industry.
By building in default use of renewables, the council can show true commitment to the journey to zero carbon.
Zero-carbon builds
Many wonderful features have been built into the Hub. It would be good to see this reported and celebrated in terms of energy saving relative to standard build.
Good building like this can act as practical examples for other developers, and hopefully ways will be found to do the same for other council estate and council-led developments.
On the council’s estate or commercial estate, set a requirement for a target energy use or a carbon budget.
Biodiversity
Throughout the plan, there are actions which point towards the protection and enhancement of biodiversity. Whist biodiversity is of fundamental importance, it is a completely separate issue to that of reducing emissions and improving energy efficiency. We recommend pulling these points out from the CC Plan and creating a separate document or statement which outlines the council’s plan to support and increase biodiversity.