PORTFOLIO: LOCAL GOVERNMENT
In this section: 41 Carbon emissions | 42 Interview: Graham Houston, Stirling Council | 43 Scottish Futures Trust | News digest | 44 Opinion: David Scott
Need to reduce
Kerry Lorimer reports on a scheme to shame councils into reducing their carbon emissions
I
f councils need a good reason to cut otherwise have been brought forward,”
carbon emissions, they are about to says Ewing.
get two: their reputation and their bot- Fife is doing all it can to prepare for
tom line. the introduction of the scheme. It is the
The introduction of the carbon first Scottish council to achieve the Car-
reduction commitment in eighteen bon Trust Standard certification and the
months’ time will propel climate change only authority north of the border tak-
to the top of the local government ing part in the Local Government Infor-
agenda. By forcing councils to buy allow- mation Unit’s Carbon Trading Council
ances for the energy they use, and then pilot, which is designed to help local
shaming poor performers in a public authorities gear up for the introduction
league table, the scheme will focus minds of the carbon reduction commitment.
fast on the need to cut emissions. So far, the pilot has proved useful at
The vast majority of councils are flagging up areas of improvement, says
expected to be targeted by the scheme, Ewing, but the real test will be when the
which will apply to organisations, public scheme takes off.
and private alike, with an electricity con- Even without the commitment, it
sumption of 6,000MWh/yr, equivalent would be surprising if councils were
to an annual bill of around £500,000. not looking to improve their energy
Allowances will be sold at a fixed price – Chris Ewing, environmental sustain- efficiency, says Ewing. His concern is
£12 a tonne – during a three-year intro- ability manager at Fife, says he is in two whether carbon management will be
ductory phase starting from April 2010. minds about the merits of a league table. pushed down the agenda because of
After that, they will be auctioned to the Because the table is based on relative tightening budgets. “We are enter-
highest bidder, with a diminishing num- performance, even if all organisations ing very choppy economic waters, and
ber of credits available over time. improve significantly, the achievements whether local authorities will have access
“Then the open market price goes of those at the bottom will not be recog- to the funding required to bring build-
through the roof, which is very deliber- nised. Similarly, if all do badly, the per- ings up to scratch remains of particular
ate,” says Paul Minto, head of the public formance of the ‘least worst’ may look concern,” he says.
sector group at HBJ Gateley Waring. “It disproportionately good. “It won’t tell There are also concerns within local
gives [organisations] three years to get the real story,” he says. government about the practical impli-
their bills down and to begin investing in Worse, councils could be tempted cations of the scheme. Councils will be
renewables.” to postpone energy management mea- responsible for calculating their emis-
At the end of each year, the per- sures until the league table comes into sions responsibility, purchasing allow-
formance of each organisation – based force to ensure they receive full credit. ances, monitoring and reporting annual
mainly on absolute carbon reductions “There is a risk that organisations have energy consumption and keeping an
since the introduction of the scheme – been delaying improvements that might evidence pack which involves an audit
will be summarised in a league table. trail.
The reputational risk is significant, espe- Hamish Campbell, energy manager
cially within Scottish local government
>> The carbon challenge
at East Renfrewshire Council, says there
where direct comparison between coun- The Scottish Government has committed to reduce carbon was dismay among his colleagues when
cils is studiously avoided: councils’ green emissions by four-fifths by 2050. Against that backdrop, the UK the details of the scheme were unveiled.
credentials will take a serious knock if
Government announced proposals for a mandatory carbon
“Chins hit the floor,” he says. “Fellow
they are seen to be languishing towards
reduction commitment for all large non-energy intensive busi-
energy managers realise this will be quite
nesses and public sector organisations by 2010.
the bottom. “That lever will have a very an onerous piece of work. It’s not going
pronounced effect,” says Minto.
The objective of these proposals is to reduce emissions by 0.5m
to be easy, and we’re unlikely to get much
Unsurprisingly, there are some res-
tonnes of carbon per year by 2015, rising to 1.2m per year by
help from government.”
ervations within local government about 2020. Around 5,000 organisations, including the vast majority of Accurately recording energy usage
the scheme. For Fife Council, the carbon
councils, will be included in the scheme.
will be one of the thorniest problems.
reduction commitment is part of the “All systems have to be bang up to date
council’s plan to reduce carbon emis-
A draft Scottish Climate Change Bill, setting mandatory targets
to record energy usage, which is not as
for emissions reduction, is expected by the end of this year.
sions by 3 per cent year on year. But easy as it sounds,” he says. “Most coun-
| www.holyrood.com | Holyrood magazine | 17 November 2008 |
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