HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

ENVIRONMENT AND PLANNING CABINET PANEL

TUESDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2010 AT 10.00 a.m.

CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVITY AND PERFORMANCE UPDATE 2009/10

Report of the Director of Environment and Commercial Services

Author: John Rumble Tel: 01992 556296

Executive Member: Derrick Ashley, Environment, Planning and Waste

1. Purpose of report

1.1 To provide an update on the climate change work being undertaken by the County Council and performance achieved during 2009/10.

2. Summary

2.1 Performance in reducing CO2 emissions from the authority’s operations is progressing well. However much of the reduction reported to date has been due to better data collection and the correction of errors in previous estimates of gas consumption by the authority. Overall electricity use is increasing slightly and direct transport use within the organisation is going up.

2.2 Planned activity on CO2 reduction in 2010/11 is substantial and programmes are in place to address staff behaviour in relation to energy use and to continue to improve information and intelligence on energy use in both property and street lighting. Significant for 2010/11 is the inclusion of departmental carbon reduction plans: draft plans are expected to be made available by the end of September 2010 for each department.

2.3 Activity in relation to climate change adaptation has been focused on the inclusion of climate factors in corporate and departmental risk management processes. This is well underway and appropriate measures to manage significant risks are being put in place where necessary. Joint work with district councils is being discussed with a view to all local authorities progressing to level 2 (an explanation of the levels used to assess performance in relation to adaptation can be found in Appendix 3) by the end of 2010/11. If this is achieved it should enable the County Council to report level 3 in April 2011.

2.4 Work undertaken with the Hertfordshire Climate Change Partnership and Hertfordshire Forward has resulted in the agreement of a climate change Strategic Framework for Hertfordshire. This is being followed up by the creation of a joint action plan to address both CO2 emissions within the county and climate risk activities. It is expected this will be complete by the end of this financial year.

2.5 This report will be considered by the Environment and Planning Cabinet Panel on 14 September 2010 and by the Policy and Resources Cabinet Panel on 15 September 2010.

3. Recommendation

3.1 That the Panel notes the report

4. Background

4.1 Climate Change activities within the County Council are undertaken in three main areas, these being:-

·  Activity to reduce the amount of CO2 being generated by the County Council from its estates and operations (mitigation).

·  Work with partners to address both CO2 reduction and climate change adaptation within Hertfordshire.

·  Activity to ensure that the organisation is resilient to the potential impacts of future climatic change (adaptation).

4.2 These activities are monitored using three national performance indicators which are as follows:-

·  NI 185 - % CO2 reduction from Local Authority operations

·  NI 186 - Per capita reduction in CO2 emissions in the LA area

·  NI 188 - Planning to adapt to climate change

These indicators and the targets associated with them have been included variously in the County Council’s Corporate Plan and the Local Area Agreement for Hertfordshire. The targets set are:-

·  NI185 - 25% reduction on a 2008/09 baseline by 2012/13

·  NI 186 - 9.1% reduction on a 2005/06 baseline by 2010/11

·  NI 188 - To achieve level 2 ( scale is from 0 to 4) by 2010/11

4.3 In 2009 the County Council reported its starting position against all of these indicators as follows:-

·  NI 185 - The County Council reported a baseline of CO2 emissions from its property, street lighting and Highways energy use and from its use of transport of 170,492 tonnes CO2. This excludes emissions from buses although if these are included the overall emissions for HCC rises to 171,872 tonnes CO2.

·  NI186 - Information on this indicator is provided to the County Council by the Department for Energy and Climate Change. In 2009 this showed that the county had achieved a 3.96% reduction on the 2005 baseline. This is on-target for the 9.1% reduction to be achieved by 2010/11.

·  NI 188 - At the end of March 2009 the County Council reported its performance against NI 188 at level 1. This puts the authority on target to reach level 2 by the end of 2010/11.

4.4 The County Council has signed up to additional CO2 reduction targets via the national 10:10 campaign. This commits the organisation to achieving a 10% reduction in its CO2 emissions from non-schools uses during the financial year 2010/11. The amount of CO2 to be saved is determined by the authority’s 2008/09 NI185 return. For HCC this means a saving during 2010/11 of 5,350 tonnes CO2. Performance results against this target will be available by July 2011.

4.5 To date there has been no information from national government concerning the future of the climate change national performance indicators. At present we are assuming that we will have to report performance against these three indicators, NI 185, NI 186 and NI 188 as per the usual timetable for the period 2010/11.

4.6 Since the 1st April 2010 the County Council has been required to participate in the new mandatory emissions trading scheme the ‘Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy efficiency Scheme’. This scheme will require the authority to purchase carbon allowances for all of its qualifying emissions (those from property, including schools, and highways related energy use). It is estimated that the cost of allowance purchase for the County Council will be in the region of £1.5 to £1.8 million per annum with most of this being recovered via a performance related payment recycling scheme, which in its first year will be based on 10% of the County Councils allowance purchase cost.. The County Council will be required to purchase its first set of allowances in April 2011 to cover the year 2011/12.

5. Carbon reduction activity and performance update 2009/10

5.1 Hertfordshire County Council achieved a reduction of 12.2% in its overall CO2 emissions in the year 2009/10. The reported CO2 reduction via National Indicator 185 is slightly higher and shows a reduction of 13.9% as this figure excludes emissions from buses used or supported by the County Council as part of its service delivery. The breakdown is shown in table 5.1 which also sets out the targets for the end of 2010/11 and 2012/13.

5.2 The breakdown of these emissions by fuel source for property and highways related energy use is shown in table 5.2. This shows that the majority of savings realised from these areas are related to gas consumption and reflect more accurate data being available for 2009/10. This has enabled previous errors arising from over-estimates of gas consumption to be corrected. One significant issue arising from this data is that electricity consumption actually rose in 2009/10 which is a cause for concern.

Table 5.1 HCC CO2 Emissions 2008/09 – 2009/10

Source / CO2Emissions
(tonnes) / % Change / Targets
(tonnes CO2) /
2008/09 / 2009/10 / 2010/11 / 2012/13 /
Schools / 95,118 / 78,420 / -17.6% / 71,338
Property / 24,352 / 23,560 / -3.3% / 18,264
Highways (incl. street lighting) / 23,246 / 23,083 / -0.7% / 17,435
Transport / 6,547 / 6,850 / 4.6% / 4,910
Outsourced Services / Property / 1,462 / 967 / -33.9% / 1,097
Transport / 21,147 / 18,023 / -14.8% / 15,860
Total / 171,872 / 150,903 / -12.2% / 128,904
Bus Emissions / 1,380 / 4,146 / 200.4%
NI185 Qualifying emissions / 170,492 / 146,757 / -13.9%
10:10 qualifying emissions / 54,145 / 53,493 / -1.2% / 48,144

Table 5.2 Property and highways emissions by fuel source

Fuel Source / CO2 emissions (tonnes) / % Change
2008/09 / 2009/10
Electricity / 73,976 / 74,830 / 1.2
Gas / 68,717 / 49,700 / -27.7
Oil / 1,484 / 1,465 / -1.3
CHP / 0 / 35 / N/A
Total / 144,177 / 126,030 / -12.6

5.3 Data for CO2 emissions from transport is set out in table 5.3. This shows an ongoing increase in car related emissions. Whilst the overall picture for transport related emissions shows a decrease this is due to the significant drop in emissions from outsourced services. If this is excluded from the figures the picture is somewhat different and the emissions from direct HCC transport has increased.

Table 5.3 Transport emissions by mode

Source / CO2 emissions (tonnes) / % Change /
2008/09 / 2009/10 /
Air / 36 / 27 / -25.1
Car / 3,816 / 3,862 / 1.2
HGV / 1,454 / 1,435 / -1.3
Bus / 27 / 18 / -34.6
Rail / 81 / 90 / 10.5
Van / LGV / 1,004 / 1,156 / 15.0
Fuel use (mode unknown) / 128 / 262 / 105.0
Outsourced Services / 21,147 / 18,023 / -14.8
Total / 27,694 / 24,873 / -10.2

5.4 Work has taken place during 2009/10 to break down the authority’s emissions to a departmental level. The results of this can be seen in appendix 1 to this report. This includes two tables, table A1 details the emissions by department and by emissions area for 2008/09 and 2009/10 and table A2 shows the breakdown of transport emissions by mode and use for the same period. These tables demonstrate a mixed picture for both overall emissions and for transport emissions across the departments of the County Council. For overall emissions, although the figure for the authority is down, emissions are increasing at the departmental level for Strategy and Partnerships, Fire and Rescue Service and CSF non-schools. For transport emissions only, all departments, with the exception of Adult Care Services and Resources and Performance, have seen their emissions rising, this is in the main due to increased business and fleet mileage.

5.5 Figure 5.1, shows the percentages of emissions assigned to each department. As can be seen, schools are still responsible for the majority of emissions; however Environment and Commercial Services have a significant role to play because of their overall responsibility for highways related energy use.

Figure 5.1 HCC Departmental Emissions 2009/10

5.6 For 2010/11 each department has been asked to produce its own CO2 reduction plan and the first drafts of these are expected to be completed by the end of September 2010. Each plan is aiming for a 10% cut in emissions in line with the authorities target under the 10:10 campaign.

5.7 During 2009/10 a significant number of projects aimed at cutting CO2 emissions are being implemented. The County Council has in place a ring-fenced energy efficiency fund totalling £1 million that is part financed by the national Salix Initiative provided by the Carbon Trust. During 2009/10 this fund has been used to support a wide range of projects that address energy use across the HCC property portfolio. A summary of the projects supported by this fund and the anticipated CO2 savings can be found in Appendix 2. These projects should realise their first full year emissions savings in 2010/11.

5.8 Other significant initiatives that are being put in place for 2010/11 include:-

·  The installation of a PECU array for street lighting to enable better monitoring of street lighting emissions through the accurate recording of turning on and off times during the year.

·  The initiation of an energy saving campaign and supporting web site, ‘the Terence campaign’, to encourage changes in staff behaviour over energy use to be promoted and supported.

·  The installation of automatic energy use meter reading (AMR’s) at all significant HCC sites, including schools. This programme will be completed in 2011/12.

·  The development of a schools energy advisory service, funded by schools, to support the development of school-based energy plans.

5.9 2010/11 is the first full year for the new Carbon Reduction Commitment: Energy Efficiency Scheme. The County Council is required to participate in this mandatory emissions trading scheme and will be required to purchase its first full years allowances as of April 2011. During 2010/11 the authority has to complete the registration process for the new scheme and be in a position to complete its first footprint report at the end of the financial year. HCC’s registration process was completed in July 2010 and the work being undertaken on AMR’s and NI 185 reporting has put us in an excellent position to be able to compile an accurate footprint report at the end of this year.

6. Climate Change adaptation activity and performance update 2009/10

6.1 The authority’s reported performance in 2008/09 on National Indicator 188 was at level 1 on the scale of 0 – 4 (see Appendix 3 for a full explanation of these levels). In 2009/10 HCC reported the same level of performance, level 1, however this is still on target for reporting level 2 in 2010/11 as is set out in the Corporate Plan.

6.2 Work during 2009/10 has been focused in getting climate change risk established as part of the organisations risk management processes and working with departments to understand what this means for their services and how these risks can be managed. Work to include all significant corporate risks arising from climate change is underway and when completed will be held in the authority’s risk management register. In addition all County Council departments are working on including relevant departmental risks into their own risk management processes. Appropriate control measures are being established and where necessary action is taking place to manage these risks.