Agenda item

This report presents the fifth annual update to Cabinet on progress towards commitments made in the BCP Council Climate and Ecological Emergency Declaration, made on the 16th of July 2019.

2023-24 progress against the main commitments is:

·       Make BCP Council and its operations carbon neutral by 2030 - scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions reduced by 8.6% from the 2019 baseline

·       Work with the wider community to make the region carbon neutral before 2045 – according to data released in 2024, total area-wide emissions for 2022 had reduced by 12.6% from the 2019 baseline.

The report also introduces new emissions dashboards to make progress transparent and presents draft Roadmaps that identify key decisions for consideration if targets are to be achieved.

The Portfolio Holder for Climate Response, Environment and Energy presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'C' to these Minutes in the Minute Book. The report presented the fifth annual update to Cabinet on progress towards commitments made in the BCP Council Climate and Ecological Emergency Declaration, made on the 16th of July 2019.

2023-24 progress against the main commitments is:

·       Make BCP Council and its operations carbon neutral by 2030 - scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions reduced by 8.6% from the 2019 baseline

·       Work with the wider community to make the region carbon neutral before 2045 – according to data released in 2024, total area-wide emissions for 2022 had reduced by 12.6% from the 2019 baseline.

The report also introduced the new emissions dashboards to make progress transparent and presented draft Roadmaps that identify key decisions for consideration if targets were to be achieved.  The report highlighted actions taken to date to reduce emissions.

The Council have had some successes and the case studies outline those, specifically Two Riversmeet Leisure Centre where there were large solar panels and heat pumps which were taking the load.

The Committee was given another demonstration of the new Climate Dashboard which was being updated regularly and was available for the public to review within the Sustainability Pages on the Website after the cabinet meeting. The Committee had previously had a briefing on this and had the opportunity to have a look at it and were informed that this had changed since then.

The Committee asked the Portfolio Holder if the Climate Reports could be made easily accessible from the home page of the BCP website to make it easier for the public to access.

A frequently asked questions button has been added to the homepage of the dashboard which is expected to be added too, as the dashboard progresses.  A feedback form had also been added to the page.

The dashboard had BCP and BCP Area sections, BCP Council covers the council Emissions and BCP area covers the area emissions.  

The data come from 2 different areas

• BCP council the data was the in-house data that the Council hold
• BCP area the government provides the data on the areas and sectors they select and want to report on.

The information was grouped as follows:

• Scope 1 – Energy
• Scope 2 – Fuel
• Scope 3 – Emissions from elsewhere.

It was reported to the Committee that the internal progress on carbon reduction was poor and services had been struggling to survive. Changing the fleet of vehicles to entirely electric would give savings in energy.

It was reported that the officers were not confident the Council would hit the 5 year target however the Committee noted that there were currently no yearly targets to measure this against.

The Chair thanked the Climate Team and IT for getting the dashboard together.

RESOLVED that

a)    The Committee propose to the Portfolio Holder that on the front page of the BCP Greenhouse Gas Emissions Dashboard an additional box is added to highlight the context of any carbon reduction relevant to the annual carbon reduction target

b)    Embedded carbon cost to be included in the calculation and displayed on the dashboard where available.

Voting: Unanimous