For immediate release: Thursday 21st March 2024

Headlines

  • “Scorecards Successes: What factors enable climate action within UK local authorities?” report launched today by Climate Emergency UK, which analyses the Council Climate Action Scorecard results
  • Political leadership, good governance and external funding have the biggest impact on enabling climate action within local authorities. 
  • Having a dedicated portfolio councillor for climate was found to improve a councils’ Scorecard result by 11%, and access to external funding for climate action improved a councils’ score by 9%
  • The report recommends that climate action becomes a statutory duty for councils, with the necessary finance and guidance that it would require

Climate Emergency UK calls for action on climate to be a legal duty for councils

Today, Climate Emergency UK publishes their first analysis report of their Council Climate Action Scorecards, “Scorecards Successes: What factors enable climate action within UK local authorities?”. This report was commissioned by Climate Emergency UK (CE UK), from sustainability consultants Anthesis. It identifies the key characteristics of councils that encourage further climate action, and one of the report’s core recommendations is that climate action must be a statutory for UK councils. 

The findings of the report are released today as part of Climate Emergency UK’s (CE UK) conference, Scorecards Successes: Enabling Local Climate Action Conference. The report reveals that political leadership, good governance and external funding are the factors that have the biggest impact on enabling climate action within local authorities. 

CE UK calls for climate action to be a legal duty, as this would help councils to better deliver on net zero and implement these main impactful factors of good climate action, found in the report. A statutory duty would likely include the requirement for all councils to have a named lead Councillor for climate, ring-fenced funding for climate action and guidance for councils on what to do and how to report and measure their net zero work. 

The report’s findings focus on what councils can do to improve their climate action delivery, which  CE UK claim would be more easily facilitated if such actions were mandatory. The report found that having a dedicated portfolio councillor for climate resulted in the biggest increase in a council’s overall Action Scorecard score, improving a councils’ score by 11%. Access to external funding for climate action improved a councils’ score by 9%, the second biggest characteristic that impacted on a councils score and having a published Climate Action Plan was the third biggest factor in increasing a councils’ Scorecard score. 

Isaac Beevor, Partnerships Director at Climate Emergency UK said, “Despite many councils being underfunded and overstretched, this report highlights some of the most effective actions councils can and are already taking to have the biggest positive impact on their climate action delivery. But, effective reporting, leadership and funding for net zero work at a council level would be much easier if climate action were a statutory duty for UK councils, like social care and waste and recycling.”

Anthesis analysed the Scorecard results by comparing councils against different characteristics or features that might impact its ability to conduct or manage climate action, such as a specific policy, funding, staff or elected councillor position. Councils were split into two groups, those with and those without a particular characteristic and then scores from these two groups were compared to see if there was a difference in council Scorecard results due to a specific characteristic. 

On the report results, Simeran Bachra, an Associate Director of Anthesis said “While most UK local authorities have established climate action plans, these must now be translated into practical action on the ground. This requires funding towards decarbonisation and resilience projects, a change in behaviour and ways of working and a shift in finance flows towards low-carbon initiatives”.

Ms Bachra added: “Local authorities face the challenge of delivering against their climate targets with ongoing financial and resource pressures. By making climate action a statutory duty for UK local authorities, it would give them the authority to deliver their targets and ensure that climate change remains a priority.”

CE UK will publish the next Council Climate Action Scorecards in 2025, this being the first time councils’ scorecards will be able to be compared against the previous Action Scorecards from 2023. 

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Contact press@climateemergency.uk or Annie, Operations Director at Climate Emergency UK on 07934486877 for more information

Notes for Editors

Background information

  • Climate Emergency UK is a not-for-profit community interest company which has been working with councils and residents since 2019 to share best practice about what councils can do to tackle the climate and ecological emergency and to encourage effective action.
  • Last year, Climate Emergency UK published the Council Climate Action Scorecards in October 2023 which was an assessment of councils’ action plans they’ve taken towards net zero. This is the first time an assessment of all UK council climate action across all sectors has been completed.   
  • The report “Scorecards Successes: What factors enable climate action within UK local authorities?” has been commissioned by Climate Emergency UK (CE UK). The main analysis of the scorecards data was conducted by Anthesis. The structure and content of the final report was completed with input from Anthesis, CE UK, the CE UK Advisory Board (including representatives from local councils), mySociety, ADEPT and Ashden. The underlying scorecard data is available from CE UK and further details of the analysis are available on request.