Bournemouth Borough Council
Borough of Poole
An assessment of the implications of signing up to the EU Covenant of Mayors
January 2012
Prepared by:
Ben Frier
Local Delivery Manager
Energy Saving Trust
Contact details:
Supported by:
Ian Hutchcroft
Head of South
Energy Saving Trust
Contact details:
Table of Contents
1 Executive Summary 3
2 Assessing performance on carbon emissions reduction 5
2.1 What is the Local Carbon Management Matrix? 5
2.2 Assessing performance 5
2.3 Performance assessment findings 6
3 Detailed discussion of results 9
3.1 Strategic role and commitment 9
3.1.1 Highlights 9
3.1.2 Considerations 10
3.1.3 Risks 12
3.2 Domestic energy efficiency 12
3.2.1 Highlights 12
3.2.2 Considerations 13
3.2.3 Risks 13
3.3 Business energy efficiency 14
3.3.1 Highlights 14
3.3.2 Considerations 14
3.3.3 Risks 15
3.4 Public sector 15
3.4.1 Highlights 15
3.4.2 Considerations 17
3.4.3 Risks 17
3.5 Renewables and low carbon technologies 17
3.5.1 Highlights 17
3.5.2 Considerations 18
3.5.3 Risks 18
3.6 Own transport 19
3.6.1 Highlights 19
3.6.2 Considerations 20
3.6.3 Risks 20
3.7 Local transport 20
3.7.1 Highlights 20
3.7.2 Considerations 22
3.7.3 Risks 22
3.8 Communities 22
3.8.1 Highlights 22
3.8.2 Considerations 23
3.8.3 Risks 23
Recommendations/ key risks 24
3.9 Signing up to Covenant of Mayors 24
4 Next steps 24
2
1 Executive Summary
Bournemouth Borough Council and Borough of Poole are considering becoming signatories of the EU Covenant of Mayors programme. The Covenant of Mayors (COM) is an initiative that is helping galvanise local authorities across Europe to save energy, reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and play their part in meeting the EU wide ‘202020’ targets - 20% improvement in energy efficiency, 20% contribution from renewable energy, 20% reduction in CO2 emissions.
The scheme is gaining popularity across the EU member states and beyond, with over 2,300 local authorities signed up and more joining all the time - the COM is a formal commitment made by a city or local authority to reduce area wide CO2 emissions by more than 20% by 2020 (the UK wide target enshrined in law is a 34% reduction in emissions by 2020 based on a 1990 baseline).
In signing the COM an authority pledges to:
1. Carry out a baseline emissions inventory (BEI)
2. Develop a Sustainable Energy action Plan (SEAP)
3. Monitor implementation progress
4. Reduce emission by defined amount within SEAP by 2020
These pledges go beyond the requirements of any current programme, including the Nottingham Declarations new initiative 'Climate Local – a local commitment to action on climate change'[1].
In comparison to Climate Local, there is a compelling business case for the next stage of Bournemouth & Poole’s low carbon strategies and action plans to be focused on and driven by signing up to EU COMs. In doing so, the Councils should expect the strategic outcomes and benefits to include:
· Bournemouth and Poole making a public declaration of their ambition to be ranked and regarded as UK leaders on climate change and carbon reduction.
· The Executives of both Councils backing this up with a correspondingly large appetite for investing in the infrastructure and resources critical for the stepped improvement in carbon reduction needed for success.
· The Councils being accountable for their delivery to the EU COMs through its transparent and tough external reporting requirements.
· The Councils knowing that failure to deliver on the EU COMs commitment could have a significant adverse impact on their reputations and ambitions to be seen as UK leaders on climate change and carbon reduction.
· Greater credibility and real substance supporting both Council’s Green Knowledge Economy ambition and expectations, including the growth of new green jobs and establishing a nationally recognised Centre of Carbon Excellence.
· Stronger influence on the Local Enterprise Partnership’s emerging strategy and action plans, with the focus on;
· Enabling more sustainable economic growth
· Greater business efficiency through improved environmental performance
· Increasing the local production and use of renewable energy to protect our economy from the growing threats of ever increasing oil prices and unstable supplies of fossil fuels
· Significant added-value by removing the need for EU COMs sign-up as an increasingly applied pre-condition for access to EU funding streams and bid-based pots.
· New and separate Sustainable Energy Action Plans for Bournemouth and Poole which will
· Use the same ‘tried and tested’ model for meet the EU COMs planning & reporting requirements
· Better enable the development and delivery of a Bournemouth & Poole programme of individual and joint low carbon projects and measures.
· Overarch and bring together the development and delivery of the low carbon action plans for Bournemouth and Poole, to include actions supporting the Bournemouth Dorset & Poole strategies for Energy Efficiency (existing from 2008) and Renewable Energy (new from 2012).
· Network with other COM authorities across the UK and Europe.
See more at www.eumayors.eu/home_en.htm
Both Councils are able to access support from Severn Wye Energy Agency (SWEA) to develop their SEAPs, which minimising minimises the cost associated with the initial first year of the programme.
In order to stock-take the challenges and opportunities presented by Bournemouth Borough Council and Borough of Poole joint-signing, the Energy Saving Trust has been asked to undertake and assessment of the implications of signing COM by the two unitary authorities.
In addition to providing the intelligence to make decisions on signing COM, the assessment and associated outputs would also provide broader strategic guidance on how the authorities are placed regards long term carbon reduction, where they need to ‘level up’ and how they may interact in a more united fashion going forward irrespective of sign-up to COM. The work could also provide a lead-in to any revision of the Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole Energy Efficiency Strategy and pro-actively support the. Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole Renewable Energy Strategy
This paper is the first output of the main output of the work. Additional items of work are a presentation and facilitated discussion with key decision makers and stakeholders, to evaluate the risks and recommendations within this report and make a decision to sign up to COM.
2 Assessing performance on carbon emissions reduction
2.1 What is the Local Carbon Management Matrix?
The Local Carbon Management Matrix was developed by the Centre for Sustainable Energy[2] (CSE), originally to enable a council to self-assess its performance specific to National Indicator 186 (area-wide per capita emissions reduction).
The Energy Saving Trust has opted to use this matrix to encourage the establishment of a single national baseline tool, to allow easy comparison with local authorities across the UK.
The Matrix assesses a local authority’s performance on the following themes:
· Strategic role and commitment
· Domestic energy efficiency
· Business energy efficiency
· Public sector
· Renewables and low carbon technologies
· Own transport
· Local transport
· Communities
Under each theme, a local authority can be rated either ‘weak’, ‘fair’, ‘good’ or ‘excellent’, with the impetus being on the local authority to provide sufficient evidence to justify their scores.
The following section presents the findings from the exercise to measure the performance of Bournemouth Borough Council and the Borough of Poole Council.
2.2 Assessing performance
The performance assessment was delivered through a self-assessment exercise. This was led by Lee Green and Paul Cooling, where officers were designated parts of their respective performance matrix to fill in.
In addition to Lee and Paul, those officers involved in the self-assessment and adding to the covering report w were:
BournemouthAnna Bourne
Andy Williams
Bob Askew
Bob Johnson
Chris Hardy
Chris Kelu
David Harrop
Debbie Clifton
Gary Bentham
Graham Twigg
Ian Selby
Kevin Smith
Larry Austin / Malcolm Hodges
Marcin Grabowski
Mark Axford
Martin Wilkins
Matt King
Medi Bernard
Neil Short
Paul Hancock
Phil Robinson
Simon Percival
Spencer Gardner
Steve Goold / Poole
Stuart Bickel Adrian Trevett
Hilary Evans Graeme Smith
Peter Haikin
Mike Harrison
Ian Johns
Rebecca Landman
Stuart Osman
Mark Parsons
John Paton
Gary McCann
Theresa McManus (DEAC)
Jeff Morley
These officers completed the local carbon management matrix where their own knowledge was sufficient to provide a fair overview of their own council’s performance on area-wide carbon reduction.
The completed matrices produced through this process are attached as appendices 1 and 2 to this report.
The information in the performance assessment was based on activity to date, and was found to accurately reflect the two Council’s performance up to September 2011. However it should be noted that the results are a snapshot of performance from a limited period. Future re-assessments of performance may be carried out as part of the overall programme process, for example to monitor improvement, and it is suggested that re-assessment using the Matrix should be undertaken not sooner than two years from the original assessment date.
2.3 Performance assessment findings
Figure 1 – Visual summary of Bournemouth’s performance assessment
Table 1 – Results from Bournemouth’s benchmarking performance assessment
Topic / Performance rating / Numerical score(out of 4)
Strategic role and commitment / Fair-good / 2.5
Domestic energy efficiency / Good / 3.0
Business energy efficiency / Fair-good / 2.5
Public sector / Fair-good / 2.5
Renewables and low carbon technologies / Fair-good / 2.5
Own Transport / Good-fair / 2.5
Local Transport / Good / 3.0
Communities / Good / 3.0
Figure 2 – Visual summary of Poole’s performance assessment
Table 2 – Results from Poole’s benchmarking performance assessment
Topic / Performancerating / Numerical score
(out of 4)
Strategic role and commitment / Good / 3.0
Domestic energy efficiency / Fair-good / 2.5
Business energy efficiency / Good-fair / 2.5
Public sector / Fair-good / 2.5
Renewables and low carbon technologies / Good-fair / 2.5
Own Transport / Fair / 2.0
Local Transport / Good / 3.0
Communities / Good / 3.0
3 Detailed discussion of results
The matrices used to make this assessment can be found in appendix 1 and 2 of this report. This contains the full evidencing and reasoning behind the scoring allocations. However highlights of the assessment, considerations and risks are found in the following sections.
3.1 Strategic role and commitment
Bournemouth score = Fair/ Good Poole score = Good
3.1.1 Highlights
Bournemouth
· The Council has seen an area wide per capita emissions reduction of 16% from the baseline year of 2005 to 2009 (latest available statistics). The Council signed up to a 6.7% reduction in its Local Area Agreement 2 (LAA2). This represents a move from per capita emissions of 5.9 (adjusted from 5.7) tonnes to 5 tonnes and is significantly above the desired target. It is one percentage point higher than the national average.
· The Carbon Management Programme commits the Council to an ambitious target of reducing CO2 emissions from Council operations by one third by 2014. This supersedes the Council’s LAA2 National Indicator 185 (CO2 reduction from local authority operations) target of a 5% reduction from the baseline figure of 27,325 tonnes CO2 for 2008/ 09.
· Significant statements supporting the priority and need for more activity on climate change and carbon reduction in the Council’s current corporate plan.
· Consequential improvements in delivery through better governance and accountability are expected to result from Bournemouth having just established a new Low Carbon Programme Board, with elected Executive Member and Director involvement in oversight of the delivery of the Council’s internal and external climate change and carbon reduction policies, plans and projects.
· Strong community engagement in some areas, such as Transition Bournemouth and East Dorset Friends of the Earth. This will deepen through the upcoming merger of the Bournemouth 2026 Earth Charter & Sustainable Environment Partnership.
· The Council has produced its Core Strategy which has been submitted to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government for examination. The Core Strategy contains strategy and policies on climate change actively encouraging renewable energy and heat and improved energy efficiency in new buildings. It also proactively seeks to reduce carbon emissions through transport policies with the objective of managing transport demand, promoting accessibility and integration across the conurbation and promoting greener travel choices.
· The Core Strategy takes into account other strategies such as the Local Transport Plan 3, Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole Renewable Energy Strategy and Action Plan and the Bournemouth Sustainable Community Strategy to produce a coherent approach to carbon reduction.
Poole
· The Council has seen an area wide per capita emissions reduction of 14% from the baseline year of 2005 to 2009 (latest available statistics). The Council signed up to a 12% reduction in its LAA2. This represents a move from per capita emissions of 7.2 (adjusted from 6.8) tonnes to 6.2 tonnes and is above the desired stretching target.
· The Council is linked in to the key local partnerships and has good governance in place to complete work that benefits the environment, local organisations and residents.
· The Council was also chosen as one of 12 Forward Commitment Procurement pilots to stimulate the provision of an ultra-low carbon heating solution for its Town Centre North regeneration project.
· Poole’s Core Strategy (Strategic Objective 8) sets out the key outcomes to address local climate change in Poole within the period to 2026. Planning policies that set out criteria to reduce carbon emissions and increase supply of energy from renewable sources are in place. A Delivery Framework sets out how outcomes will be achieved.
· Poole’s Carbon Management Programme has set an equally ambitious five year, 25% reduction target from a 2008 baseline to reduce carbon emissions from Council operations. Systems to capture energy usage and project output data are also in place.
· Annual Monitoring Report assesses the extent to which policies in the Development Plan are being implemented and monitors any unintended consequences and check relevance of policies over time
· The Local Transport Plan 3 (adopted 2011) accords with the priorities and objectives within the Core Strategy, Corporate Strategy and Sustainable Communities Strategy.