Verbal update from officers on work the Council have been doing on Climate Change.
Minutes:
Members received a verbal update from Officers on how the council is doing with Climate change plans.
The team have managed to appoint a Climate Change Officer. The team are excited to really push forward with the Council’s climate change agenda and the team understand that there are a number of areas deemed to be priority. The team will be working with key officers, as well as portfolio holder for climate change over the coming weeks, to ensure that the council are working towards a 2030 net zero promise and in the most structured way possible.
Received the annual monitoring report for Hatfield Swim Centre, which was completed following the heating system upgrade, as part of the public sector decarbonisation scheme phase one. For the year 1 March 2022 to 28 February 2023, the overall carbon emissions from the building associated with gas and electricity, the new decarbonisation scheme in operation were 169.1 tonnes of carbon for the same period in 2019, the total carbon emission was 698.4 tonnes, so this reflects a 76% reduction in the building's annual carbon emissions. As part of Phase 1, the council also completed similar schemes to campus east, the main Council building and also campus West, as they finished slightly after, the council are still monitoring systems and hopefully should be able to provide an update as part of the next meeting.
The team are looking to reform the Climate Officers Group. The team will be working on the terms of reference over the coming weeks and to ensure that internal officers are conscious of their obligations to assist with meeting the Council's overall aims and objections, this is something we should be able to update the group at the next meeting.
In regards to the Climate Emergency UK Scorecards, in March this year the council were able to respond to the scorecard comments collected by climate emergency UK imposed on all UK councils. This right of reply period closed in May and the council are expecting the results of the evaluation this coming Autumn and unfortunately there has not been a more definitive date so we will update the group if this changes.
The team will be meeting with key officers within the council to review the current action plan to make sure it is on track and to review the actions and make sure targets are being met.
The council are looking at forming some sort of Climate Alliance. Following on from the Climate Emergency UK Scorecard, it was clear that the council, as an organisation, need to prioritise engaging with residents, businesses and organisations within the borough, and with that in mind, we will be looking into forming a platform to assist with bringing this all together we are at a very early-stage discussions. Members were also given a list of the benefits of signing up to an alliance.
The following points were noted:
· Members noted the reduction in annual carbon emissions through the de-carbonisation grant and were happy that the reductions in emissions was successful.
· Members asked if the group had an update on the solo together project as residents have contacted them saying they paid the deposit, found it hard to contact someone on the project and were still waiting for the work to be done. It was noted Hertfordshire County Council had endorsed the project. Officers stated they will contact the Solo Together Project for information on progress, numbers of registrations and the uptake and will bring an update or report back to the next meeting in September.
· The Executive member stated there was very significant uptake on the project and payment of deposits were taken but there has been a disjoint in communication because what was not made particularly clear to residents was that the contractual negotiations do take quite a while and is a complex process, so whilst residents have paid their deposits some time ago, the process is still ongoing.
· Members stated they looked at the Climate Action plan on the website. Members asked for a progress report to be added to the agenda on the actions so they can assess how the action plan is being progressed. Officers stated they were happy to look into this for the next meeting in September. It was noted that the action plan will also form part of the agenda for the Climate Officers Group.
· It was noted that previously there had been an action tracker on the agenda so that members could see what the current projects were, what was the timescale, what the council were hoping to achieve and how the council achieved it.
RESOLVED:
That the update be noted.