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Following a call out by Climate Emergency UK (CE UK) to councils across the UK that were using the Scorecards, we were grateful that Gedling Borough Council responded and wanted to talk more. Annie from CE UK spoke to Sim Duhra, their Climate Change Manager, and learned about the current and potential uses of the Scorecards as they see it.
“I started in this role at the end of 2022, so it wasn’t long after — Spring 2023 — that I was receiving emails from CE UK about the Right of Reply process for the first Council Climate Action Scorecards. I completed the Right of Reply both in 2023 and the most recent one; I have attended their webinars and made use of their website, too.
“Gedling Borough Council is currently reviewing their Carbon Management Strategy and Action Plan and we are looking at how we can make our own actions SMARTer. The Scorecards offer further scrutiny, clarity and focus on those seven sections that we can learn from.”
Sim then went to talk more about how the Action Scorecards are useful, even for a small borough council.
“I appreciate that it is an independent piece of work, the Scorecards. You are a completely separate organisation from the council. The comparison tool is interesting and we have made use of this too to see what other local authorities are doing. Although, we are a small borough council, and if we had more capacity, both in terms of staff and funding then we would be able to incorporate more best practice into our work in terms of climate action.
“Although we could improve in some sections we are progressing in others, such as Collaboration & Engagement. The Planning section is useful as it is a good way to start a conversation with internal departments about what they are doing in relation to climate action within Planning. The questions and topics in the Scorecards give you gravitas to approach different departments internally and engage in conversation about what can be done in these departments for relevant bits of climate action.
“We know that there is so much more than we need to do as a council on our journey to Net Zero, whilst also recognising that some things are out of our control in terms of the funding and resources that are available to us.
“We appreciate that a lot of work goes into the Scorecards, including from councils when they respond to the Right of Reply and the FOI requests, but we do get something out of this work we put in which we recognise.”
It was wonderful to put a human face to one of the many local councils in the UK and we really appreciate the time Sim took to talk to us: thank you! Scorecards are a joint project between mySociety and CE UK.
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Image: Alan Murray-Rust (CC by-sa/2.0)
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In many of our recent case studies, we’ve seen how councils benefit from the Council Climate Action Scorecards — but they are also of use to campaigners and residents who would like to fully understand, or perhaps get involved in, their local authority’s climate action.
We heard from a Cirencester resident about how information on their council’s climate action led them working together. It all began when they used the right that everyone has, to ask a question of their council:
“I used the Scorecard ratings of Cotswold District Council’s climate performance as the basis of a public question, which I put to a full council meeting last February (2024).
“This led to a one-to-one with the council’s Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Sustainability, and an initiative to form a residents’ group which would work directly with the council on specific climate issues.
“And so Cotswold Climate Action Network (C-CAN) was formed! There are currently 12 of us (ten residents and two councillors), my fellow residents being recruited by invitation from other Facebook-based climate action groups in the Cirencester area. We meet every eight weeks or so at the council offices and talk on WhatsApp in between.”
Great stuff — so what sort of things is the group achieving together?
“We’ve set up a number of sub-groups. One collaborates directly with the council on retrofit — that is, the adaptation of existing housing to be more efficient — together with the council’s newly appointed Retrofit Officer.
“Another works on Public Transport and Active Travel, then we have a dedicated member area for 16-18s.”
Are there plans to grow?
“Yes! We’ve just launched a Facebook page to promote what we’re doing and recruit more members from across the Cotswolds. The aim is to widen our involvement in more climate and sustainability issues over whose outcome the council has influence.
“It’s really empowering: our group has the opportunity to be involved, and directly influence, Cotswold District Council’s climate actions. And it all began with that question based on the Scorecards.”
We’re so pleased to see the Scorecards inspiring a resident to ask questions, and leading to such constructive collaboration with their council. Scorecards are a joint project between Climate Emergency UK and mySociety.
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Image: Matt Seymour
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The Council Climate Action Scorecards are having tangible effects in councils across the UK, encouraging better, more effective climate action.
We recently asked councils to let us know what the Scorecards have done for them, and Luke Waddington, Climate and Environment Project Officer at South Cambridge District Council, answered the call. Pleasingly, the Scorecards have brought about carbon literacy training right across their workforce.
As Luke explains, “In 2022 we received the climate scorecard for South Cambs, and it highlighted several areas for improvement in our Climate Action Plan.
“One of the gaps it identified was around climate awareness training for staff and councillors. Previously, we’d purchased externally provided carbon literacy training for a small number of colleagues within the Climate and Environment (C&E) team. While this helped to improve knowledge within the team, it wasn’t reaching colleagues in the wider organisation. Although these colleagues would come across climate change in their day-to-day roles, they weren’t necessarily fully equipped to champion it throughout their work.
“So, once CE UK highlighted this gap through the Scorecards, we were able to make the case to senior colleagues that there was a need for, and value in, investing staff time into skills and training on climate change.
“As a result, our 2023 business plan included an action to investigate and improve staff training on climate change. This culminated in an ongoing programme of Carbon Literacy training sessions, open to all colleagues and delivered by members of the Climate and Environment Team.
“We also recognise the need to provide Carbon Literacy training for councillors, and so held our first a member training session in November 2024.”
That’s a great throughline from the Scorecards to positive impact.
“Thanks to the Scorecards identifying this gap, our training programme is now helping us to embed an understanding of climate change throughout the organisation, stimulating climate action. And to prove it, we’ve been awarded Bronze Carbon Literate Organisation status — and are working toward Silver status.
“88 colleagues have now received carbon literacy training across the council, from new starters to our Chief Executive. These colleagues are now able to take their learning into their service areas and make changes or take actions to reduce their work-based emissions. Many of our departments have a large influence not only over carbon emissions produced by the organisation, but also those in the wider district.
“For instance, planning officers who are more aware of the impacts of climate change feel more empowered to encourage developers to incorporate more sustainable design and construction methods. Newbuild housing officers can better improve the sustainable credentials of the council houses they build, and our business support team are better equipped to advise local enterprises on the benefits and advantages of carbon reduction for their business.
“Furthermore, having the training delivered internally by colleagues strengthens ties between the C&E team and other departments, opening dialogue between us and making us more accessible for colleagues seeking advice on carbon reduction at home or within the workplace. Basically, helping to break down silos.”
Thanks so much to Luke for sharing the experiences from South Cambs: it’s great to see such a direct and positive impact. The Scorecards are a joint project between mySociety and Climate Emergency UK.
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Image: Chris (CC by-sa/2.0)
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The Council Climate Action Scorecards, a joint project between mySociety and Climate Emergency UK, have a twofold impact. On the one hand, they help people understand what their local council is doing to achieve their Net Zero targets; on the other, they help councils themselves to put their own action in context.
When we saw that Colchester City Council were referring to the Climate Action Scorecards in their Environment and Sustainability meetings, we were keen to find out more — and Ben Plummer, Climate Emergency Officer at Colchester, was happy to fill us in on the details.
Ben said, “The Scorecards give some external critique of our work, which I think is important and ultimately helps raise awareness of what we’re doing.”
That awareness has spread internally within the council, and externally among residents — so it’s win/win!
Plan for success
Ben has been aware of the Scorecards since the very beginnings of the project, which was then assessing councils on their Action Plans rather than their actual activities. That iteration, he says, was “really useful, especially alongside CE UK’s previous guide to structuring a good Climate Action Plan. They helped us put together a plan that was more informative and useful for residents.
“When the Action Scorecards followed, they were important for seeing if action plans translated into action being taken on the ground.”
Internal knowledge-sharing
And how has this information been used internally?
Ben says, “For both the Action Plan Scorecards, and the Action Scorecards, we produced a summary of results which we shared with councillors and presented to our Environment and Sustainability Panel.
“Using the Scorecards, we could show councillors where there was room for improvement, and where we were making progress on actions where we may not have met the criteria to get the mark at the time.”
Indeed, reading through the council minutes, you can see that they’ve noted the activity for which they had scored well, such as on the energy performance of the council’s housing stock; work on developing sustainable travel methods such as electric scooters and an electric car club; and efforts to phase out use of glyphosate and reduce mowing of green spaces.
At the same time, the report noted some action that could improve their progress to Net Zero, including the creation of a more detailed greenhouse gas emission report; training members on carbon literacy; and using peat-free compost in parks, among others.
The Scorecards continue to be a useful resource, says Ben: “I use them when we’re planning new projects or developing existing ones, to identify what other councils are doing in the space.
“On a couple of occasions I’ve been able to reach out to councils where I’ve found examples of good practice to discuss projects they are doing in more detail.
Peer support
“Having the database of Scorecards has certainly made it easier to find good practice and help reduce the time scouring the internet for local authority climate action!
“Additionally, the external critique — and recognition — from the Scorecards just helps to raise awareness of what we could be doing as a local authority at a more senior level with staff and councillors.”
The expert advice that went into creating the Scorecards methodology has not gone unnoticed. “Having that expert involvement of key environmental organisations gives them a respected feel and supports claims we might be making for more action to be taken in particular areas where we had low scores.”
Ben finishes by saying, “Without the Scorecards, we councils might not get held to account as much as we should. Having them there can help senior staff pay a bit more attention to the climate agenda!”
That’s great to hear — and indicates that the Scorecards are working exactly as planned. Thanks very much to Ben for sharing Colchester’s experience.
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Image: Marek Studzinski
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/RSS FeedIt’s our first ever podcast at mySociety! Heeey how about that?
Myf, our Communications Manager, runs you through all the stuff we’ve been doing at mySociety over the last month. It’s amazing what we manage to fit into just 30 days: you’ll hear about a meeting of Freedom of Information practitioners from around Europe; our new (and evolving) policy on the use of AI; a chat with someone who used the Climate Scorecards tool to springboard into further climate action… oh, and there’s just the small matter of the General Election here in the UK, which involved some crafty tweaking behind the scenes of our sites TheyWorkForYou and WriteToThem.
Links
- TICTeC videos on YouTube
- TICTeC photos on Flickr
- Browse the TICTeC 2024 schedule, find slides etc
- Matthew’s post on updating TheyWorkForYou on election night
- Sign up to get an email whenever your MP speaks or votes
- Democracy resources and our future plans in Alex’s post
- Local Intelligence Hub lets you access and play with data around your constituency
- Matt Stempeck’s summary of the Access to Information meetup
- Our summary of Matt’s summary of the meetup
- Updates from all those ATI projects around Europe
- New in Alaveteli: importing & presenting blog posts; request categories and exploring csvs in Datasette
- Fiona Dyer on how volunteering for Scorecards upped her climate action
- Where to sign up if you fancy volunteering as well
- mySociety’s approach to AI
- Contact us on hello [at] mysociety.org if you have any questions or feedback.
Music: Chafftop by Blue Dot Sessions.
Transcript
0:00
Well, hello and welcome to mySociety’s monthly round-up.
My name is Myf Nixon, Communications Manager at mySociety.
0:11
This is part of an experiment that we’re currently running where we’re trying to talk about our work in new formats, to see if that makes it easier for you to keep up with our news. (more…)
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As we look back on a million public requests, we’re also looking to the future and how WhatDoTheyKnow might be leveraged for the most important issue of our generation — the climate.
The climate emergency is a “wicked problem,” that is to say that it is a challenge with incomplete, contradictory, and often changing requirements. When you add misinformation into the mix, with politically-driven narratives that seek to derail progress (indeed, question the need for progress), it is easy to see why the release of factual information might be a vital tool in our journey to decarbonisation.
There is, as it happens, a legal mechanism that was designed specially for requesting information about the environment. The Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs) are similar to FOI in that they allow you to request information from authorities, and they can be used when requesting anything — broadly — to do with the environment.
Happily, they cover more authorities and have a higher bar for refusal than FOI. Equally happily, you can submit an EIR request on WhatDoTheyKnow, just as you can with FOI requests. Find out more about EIRs on WhatDoTheyKnow.
With that in mind, no matter who you are — a company, a campaign or just a concerned citizen — there are ways in which you can put the EIR to the service of the climate. Here are just a few of them.
- If you’re a startup in the climate sector, you might ask authorities about contract renewals, research whether any competitors exist, or request data that will inform your product development. There are many more such uses, but hopefully that’s enough to get you started!
- If you are running a climate-related campaign, you may also find EIRs helpful. You can get the facts and figures that underline your arguments; find out richer data about your issue; or even get minutes from meetings where decisions have been made about your cause.
- If you’re an individual who would love to do something for the climate, but don’t know where to start, how about holding authorities to account, for example over divestment from fossil fuels in their pensions? Ask a question, get the facts — and then maybe write to your councillors, or even ask a question at a council meeting to get the point home.
- If you’re a journalist, you can use WhatDoTheyKnow (or WhatDoTheyKnow Pro if you want to keep your findings private until your story goes out) to uncover the truth — or even corruption — around climate issues. For inspiration, take a look at what journalist Lucas Amin found out with a series of dogged requests.
- If you’re a researcher, or just someone who loves stats, remember that you can fill in any gaps in your information with WhatDoTheyKnow. Just see what Climate Emergency UK did when they needed information from every council in the country, to inform their Scorecards project. That was a massive endeavour, but the principle can be applied to any quest for information.
Yesterday we considered what the world would look like if WhatDoTheyKnow had never been launched. Come back tomorrow for thoughts about what’s in that massive archive of requests and responses, and how society as a whole can benefit from it — beyond the obvious utility of simply accessing useful information.
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Image: Matjaz Krivic / Climate Visuals Countdown (CC by-nc-nd 4.0).
Startup Climeworks uses Co2 from an incineration plant in their greenhouses. -
Our second Innovations in Climate Tech grantee was im23 (previously known as Better Futures), working in collaboration with Sandwell Council. They put forward a proposal for researching and scoping a database to share climate projects from councils across the UK.
We were excited by the possibilities of this project, which is all about councils learning from one another so that the best ideas can be copied and implemented elsewhere — a theory of change which has some parallels with our work in collaboration with Climate Emergency UK on CAPE and the Council Climate Scorecards.
In principle it sounds reasonably simple — find the case studies; publish them! But how have they been getting on? Rob Hale gave us this update:
“We set out to build a website that could bring together real examples of climate adaptation work to act as a knowledge hub for local government and communities.
“Our idea was that by showing what others had done, it could act as both a catalyst for the adoption of climate adaptation solutions, in the form of a searchable project database, but also bring people together to share ideas and challenges.”
So, have there been any surprises along the way?
“We knew from the outset that building a way for people to access key information quickly and easily would be really important, so we focused a lot of effort on making the site really clear and easy to use.
“What we found interesting is that the need for a way for council officers to share info openly and candidly seems to be as important as the projects database. To respond to this we’re adding a form and chat tools to the site from the outset so that we have a mix of projects and a place for the community to talk to each other!”
Part of the project was to scope the landscape. Has it become clear that there is a need for the site?
“Over the course of the project we’ve received nothing but positive reactions and support,” says Rob. “This has been from the local government teams – infrastructure, transport and climate – and also from trade bodies such as the Local Council Roads Innovation Group (LCRIG). Along with mySociety, LCRIG have added resource to the project and enabled us to get further and much closer to a sustainable project going forward.”
And have there been any stumbling blocks?
“So far the biggest challenge — or rather surprise — has been the difficultly in sourcing examples of varied climate adaptation projects.
“From the outset we knew that there was a need for a site like this to showcase projects to act as a guide for others, but we genuinely thought there would have been a far bigger resource to draw on and pull together.
“It may be that we’ve been looking in the wrong places — and we’re certainly asking everyone we can — but the response has been far more of “This is a great idea and just what we’ve been looking for!” rather than “Great, we’d love to share what we’ve done!”.
“Still, either way it’s good to know that what we’re building will be useful, and even if it starts with fewer projects then at least these are shared and we can play a small part in helping accelerate the takeup of workable climate adaptation solutions.”
Rob tells us the website will be live soon, so keep an eye on our social media and we’ll be sure to share it when it is. And one more thing — if you’re a council with a great climate adaptation project you could share, do let im23 know.
“We’re still very much looking for projects,” says Rob, “and will always be going forward, so please let us know if you’d like to share your knowledge with the community!”.
Thanks to im23 for the update — we can’t wait to see this project in all its glory.
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Maai Makwa is an open source, open data and public domain project from The Demography Project, Kenya, and it’s the outcome of our fifth TICTeC subgrant.
Our fifth Civic Tech Surgery discussed the question of how the civic tech community can learn from, and contribute to, climate action, to drive impactful societal change. The subsequent working group commissioned The Democracy Project to establish Maai Makwa (indigenous Kikuyu language for My Water): a water quality and quantity monitoring project integrated with practical civic education to empower individuals, households and communities in Kenya to participate in freshwater conservation and sustainable water resource exploitation.
Kenya is classified as a chronically water-stressed country by the United Nations. Population growth, growing agricultural water use, frequent droughts and mains supply disruptions all increase the difficulties of accessing and preserving water.
Through this project, the Demography Project have developed:- An interactive Water Cost Calculator to enable Kenyans to understand the full cost of water services from all 81 water companies in the country
- A compilation of national and local water laws and regulations
- In-person forums in vulnerable communities to help them understand water rights and contribute to water conservation
- A real-time Water Distribution calendar
- Collaborations with higher education institutions, recruiting eight student climate champions who conducted field research on water supplies in their regions and authored stories on their findings
- The deployment of low-cost, compact, modern meteorological kits and water monitoring devices to communities
The project was showcased at World Wetlands Day celebrations, and collaborations with local youth groups recognised by a visit from the President of Kenya, Dr William Ruto.
As a result of this work the Demography Project have entered into fourteen partnership/ membership agreements with local and global organisations working in freshwater conservation and youth networking. They continue to develop the project, with plans in progress to translate the content and tools into local languages.
We’re impressed by this extensive set of outcomes and we hope that it will help bring about solutions for the water issues of the region.
To find out more about Maai Mawka:
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Last year, mySociety provided technical support to Climate Emergency UK (CE UK) for their Council Climate Scorecards project, which marked every UK local authority’s climate action plan across 78 different areas. The resulting data made clear where plans were adequate, and where there was still work to do. It has informed campaigns, researchers, news stories and councils themselves, as well as feeding into government-level policy.
But plans are one thing, and putting them into action is quite another — not to mention, rather more crucial. So this year, CE UK have set themselves the task of scoring councils on the progress they’ve made on climate action.
To do so, they’ll be using many of the same methods they put to such good effect in the Action Plan Scorecards: they’re currently assembling teams of volunteers (want to get involved? See the end of this post) that they’ll train up with the research skills needed to scrutinise such a huge body of data accurately and with a good understanding of the issues at hand.
Scoring the plans may have seemed like a big task, but at least they are documents which were — to a greater or lesser extent — possible to find online. Action, of course, happens in the real world, so some different methods are required.
CE UK’s methodology for the Action Scorecards can be seen in detail here; it relies not just on the councils’ own reporting, but on a number of different documents and news reports. And where the information can’t easily be found in the public arena, they’ll be submitting Freedom of Information requests.
Of course, this is an area in which we at mySociety have long experience, so our Transparency team is helping out. CE UK will be using our WhatDoTheyKnow Pro service to send the large batches of FOI requests and manage the responses; once the Action Scorecards are launched, the data will, of course, be made public for everyone to access.
With our help, the requests have been refined to provide minimum disruption to busy council officers; at the same time, we hope that these requests, which are all for information that really should be available — energy standards for council-operated housing, for example, or numbers of staff members in climate-related roles — will encourage more proactive publication of data, so that it won’t need to be requested in future years.
We’ve also been able to advise CE UK on forming good FOI requests that will surface the required information.
Because of CE UK’s training strategy, we’re delighted that this knowledge will be passed on to their cohorts of volunteers, effectively informing a new tranche of citizens on how and why to use FOI responsibly. They’ll be helping to classify the responses and compile useful datasets through our early-stage FOI collaboration tool.
We’re proud to be supporting this important work from a climate perspective, too: councils have a crucial role to play in cutting emissions, and there’s an obvious public interest in how they go about doing so — how they allocate public funds, how effective their interventions are, and whether they are on track to reach carbon zero by their self-set deadlines.
All in all, the small team at CE UK have embarked on a massive but vital task. Can it be done? Their approach, as always is: there’s only one way to find out, and that is to try it!
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If you’re interested in helping out, there’s still time to apply to be a volunteer — closing date is this Thursday though, so hurry! You’ll be working from home, trained up via online webinars and then helping to collect data as part of this huge effort. Sounds good? More details are here.
