The Council Climate Action Scorecards are helping climate officers across the UK to understand which elements of their path to Net Zero are working well, and which areas need improvement.

Marina Ebbage, Procurement Policy Officer at Norfolk County Council, explained the many ways in which Scorecards have helped the authority’s Climate Hub team in their work. She began by explaining how the council came to understand that a council taking climate action is one thing; while communicating that action is something else.

“We first came across the Scorecards following Climate Emergency UK’s assessment in 2021, and through the subsequent publicity which usefully highlighted the areas of work where our actions were not publicly communicated”, says Marina.  

“We’ve found the independent and external assessment of our council’s climate action not only allows us to systematically mark our progress in tackling climate change, but helps us to maintain and strengthen our accountability to the public. 

“The Scorecards have helped us strive for greater transparency and accessibility in our climate action efforts. Following that initial assessment, we realised that a lot of information about the work we were doing was not readily available to the public – hence our initial low score. 

“A key example is our Climate Action Plan, which draws all the information we are doing together on climate-related work and is now publicly available in one place on a dedicated part of the council’s website. Previously, information was in committee papers which are publicly available but often not easy to find, or knowledge was internal rather than shared publicly.

“Since then, we’ve brought together this information and evidence on the council website, making it available and accessible to Norfolk’s citizens and businesses, and indeed more widely.” 

The benefits go more widely than communication, though — they resonate through many aspects of the council’s work, as Marina explains: “We’ve found the Scorecards valuable as a way to check the comprehensiveness of our Action Plan, ensuring that we’re taking a well-rounded approach to addressing climate change. 

“At a senior management level, the Scorecards provide an overarching view of our climate action and comparative performance, which our Climate Board has integrated into its review process, using them to assess our actions and identify areas for improvement.”  

Talking of comparative performance, Marina adds, “We benchmark our performance against other councils. This comparison helps us identify areas where we need to improve and informs discussions with other councils on what further actions we can take.” 

And the bottom line? “Ultimately, the Scorecards have provided a useful means to review and benchmark our climate actions and provided a stimulus to improve the way we communicate what we do to the public.” 

That’s great to hear — and as we near the publication of the 2025 Scorecards, we were gratified to learn that Norfolk see their use into the future: “We plan to continue using the Scorecards as a monitoring tool, ensuring that our climate action remains ambitious, transparent, and effective.”

Thanks very much to Marina for sharing Norfolk County Council’s experience with the Scorecards, which are a joint project between Climate Emergency UK and mySociety.

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Image: Nathan Nelson

The Council Climate Action Scorecards were recently mentioned in East Sussex County Council’s Written Questions (see question 12, on the council’s score for mitigation and adaptation). When we spot that the Scorecards are helping to inform councils’ conversations like this, we often make contact to find out more.

East Sussex were happy to fill us in with more details of how the Scorecards have helped them, and how they’ve been able to feed into the process with their own experiences:

“For local authorities, climate change is an evolving area of work with few statutory responsibilities. As a result, we can struggle to see what ‘good’ looks like, both for individual areas of work and holistically across the council. We’ve therefore found the Climate Action Scorecards useful to help identify areas where we’re doing well and those where we may need to pay more attention. The results of the Scorecards have been briefed to senior officers and elected members.

“Officers have also used the Scorecards as a research tool. When we review an area of work (or our Climate Emergency Strategy as a whole), one of the first questions we ask is what other local authorities are doing. The Scorecards provide an easy way to identify leaders in particular fields for further investigation.

“Finally, the marking process behind the Scorecards has encouraged us to look at our website and the information it provides on our climate change work. As a result, we’ve made changes to place important information front and centre and make the climate change pages easier to navigate.

“Climate Emergency UK have taken an inclusive approach to the Scorecards, and we’ve appreciated the opportunity to attend briefings and feedback on scoring through the right to reply. Through this, we’ve explained some of the issues faced by largely rural authorities such as East Sussex, for example in areas such as public transport.

“We’re pleased to see some of that feedback taken onboard in the latest round of scoring. We hope the CE UK will continue to evolve the scoring criteria to make the exercise even more useful for both local authorities and the public we serve.”

Thanks very much to East Sussex for giving us the view from a County Council. Scorecards are a joint project between Climate Emergency UK and mySociety.

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Image: Neil Mark Thomas

We spoke to Martin O’Brien at Lewisham Council about the Climate Council Action Scorecards, and the ways in which he’s used them to support his role as Head of Climate Resilience.

The Scorecards assess all UK councils across a large variety of different climate actions, publishing the final marks online, for both councils and the public to see.

So, how do all these numbers actually help a council in their work towards Net Zero? Martin told us that there are three distinct ways in which they’re useful.

“Firstly, I use them to build a sense of what’s going on around climate action, across all local authorities. They help me identify areas where we have gaps in our own action, and the places where we might pick up useful insight, tools and advice from other councils.

“Then they’re also useful for our engagement across the council’s service teams, to spell out and reinforce the connections between what they do and our ambitions on climate action.

“And then finally, they help with our communication and engagement with residents, particularly local activist and environmental groups. They encourage a conversation that acknowledges we can’t do everything, that there are some areas where we are taking meaningful action — but also, areas where we are keen to learn, to expand and improve how we work and what we can achieve.”

Can Martin put any measures to the impact the Scorecards have had for Lewisham?

“It’s hard to translate the benefits into hard facts and figures, but I feel that they’ve given us, as a council, confidence and pride in some of the things we have achieved. They’ve shown that while the scale of the challenge might sometimes feel overwhelming, it’s possible to break it down into achievable steps.

“I don’t always agree with the scoring.  If I’m honest there are times I’m surprised we get a mark (I won’t tell you which ones) and there are other times I’m outraged we don’t (happy to share information about this).  But more often than not when I look at the methodology and the assessments, I can see there’s a potential opportunity to reshape the way we do things for the better.”

Thanks very much to Martin for sharing these insights — it’s always helpful for us to understand exactly how the Scorecards are proving useful. The Climate Council Action Scorecards are a joint project between Climate Emergency UK and mySociety.

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Image: Robin Inkysloth cc by-nc-nd/2.0

Cambridge City Council was the second highest scoring district council in the UK on the Council Climate Action Scorecards, a joint project between mySociety and Climate Emergency UK (CE UK).

Given their success, Climate Change Officer at Cambridge Janet Fogg was keen to tell us how they’ve been using the Scorecards since they were launched. She and CE UK’s Annie spoke over Zoom. 

“I came across the project thanks to CEUK letting us know via email about the Scorecards and the Right of Reply back in 2022. We took part in the Right of Reply that year, before the final Scorecards results came out. 

“I used the 2023 Scorecards in the most recent committee report on our climate action.

With the score that we got, we were keen to let people know about it! Receiving this high score helped us show to people that when we say we are doing everything we can, it’s backed up by evidence: the Scorecard results. 

“Sometimes we get criticism that we don’t talk enough about what we are doing on our climate action, and these Scorecards are a way for us to show what work we are doing, and in an easy way for residents to see and understand, too.”

Janet went on to explain how the Action Scorecards are a useful tool within the council when working with other departments. 

“Having the specific actions laid out in the Scorecards helps me justify and put forward a stronger case that these actions are good to do.They’re not just actions that I think we as a council should do, but best practice, and I can point to other councils that are doing these things. And it’s not just a list, we are all also being measured on whether we do these actions, via the Scorecards, so it’s important we really do implement them. 

“A lot of my work is about dealing with change and change is difficult. Having the Scorecards helps us lay out clearly which actions we want to be doing and the benefit of doing so.”

The Council Climate Action Scorecards results are public for everyone to see. Janet told us how this is one of their most useful benefits.

“Having an external organisation like CE UK giving us feedback on our work is helpful. And I’m happy that it’s not a hidden assessment, it’s really clear for us to see where we got marks and where we didn’t, and see also where other councils scored or not too. 

“The Action Scorecards questions help shape our future work plans. The questions set out what needs doing and we shape our work around this.” 

Cambridge City Council also responded to the latest Right of Reply, ahead of the 2025 Action Scorecards. But they are aware of where improvements can still be made. “As a council we have high ambition but are constrained in some areas such as still being in the process of updating our Local Plan”. 

Thanks to Janet for taking the time to talk to us!

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Image: John Sutton (cc by/sa-2.0)

Kelly Murphy is the Climate Change Officer at Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council, a local authority in Hertfordshire that oversees a mix of urban, suburban, and rural areas.

As Kelly explained, Welwyn Hatfield works collaboratively with nine other authorities within the Hertfordshire Climate Change and Sustainability Partnership (along with County Council and Hertfordshire Futures), where they share information and work collectively to broaden the impact of their Net Zero and sustainability projects. We were keen to hear what part the Council Climate Action Scorecards have played within Welwyn Hatfield.

Kelly explained that, for Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council, one big advantage has been the ability to learn from other authorities: 

“We’ve used the Scorecards to understand what areas we need to improve in, and to research what ‘good’ looks like”, she says. “The transparent scoring meant we could identify local authorities across the UK that had performed highly in specific sections, then research what aspects they were doing well on, and how they were doing it.”

And how does that kind of research translate into action? Kelly gave a perfect example: 

“One section where we could see that we needed to develop our approach was Collaboration and Engagement. Having a climate agenda and taking action is obviously of great importance, but we needed to ensure that they were also being communicated throughout the borough so that residents understood exactly what the council is doing.  

“After researching other local authorities that performed well in this section, and incorporating feedback from a resident survey we conducted, we looked at what was within our budget and officer capacity. 

“We decided the best way to engage with residents, community groups and businesses was the creation of our Welwyn Hatfield Climate Hub, a dedicated space on the One Welwyn Hatfield community website. It’s a single source for everything climate-related in the borough, with progress updates, news, links to relevant reports and policies, educational resources, funding information, notification of relevant events and competitions, a list of community eco groups and so on.”

That sounds like a real step up, and a great response to learning that improvements needed to be made in this area.

Compiling the Scorecards is a significant effort, managed by Climate Emergency UK with trained-up volunteers. But equally, they wouldn’t be possible without buy-in from the councils themselves, who are invited to respond to their marks before the Scorecards go live. We asked Kelly what the council’s experience had been of this process.

“It’s actually been very useful,” she says. “For instance, during the right of reply period, I noted that we had not scored on a number of questions. I knew that marking depends on having publicly available evidence, and when I looked for it I discovered that, in some cases, the information was quite tricky to find. 

“A new sustainable procurement appendix, for example, had been recently added to our procurement and commercial strategy 2021-2025, but unless you knew it was there, you might not scroll all the way down through that document. 

“As a result, I updated the Climate Hub, with a new section specifically on sustainable procurement, including a link to take readers directly to the strategy and ultimately improving accessibility to this information.”

Another benefit was also provided regarding funding, Kelly explains “Climate awareness/literacy training has featured in the Scorecards for the last few years. The fact we had not scored in this area, along with a number of other persuasive reasons, was presented in a report to senior leaders and councillors to request draw down of money from the climate reserves to fund this training.

“Having agreed that providing climate awareness training was a crucial step in supporting, enabling and empowering individuals to take climate action, we collaborated with a private company to offer staff, councillors and our residents bespoke climate awareness training. We are excited to launch this training at the end of the month and look forward to hearing about the positive impacts the training has had both internally within the organisation and externally around the borough.”

It’s wonderful to hear of the tangible results the Scorecards have helped to bring about, thanks to Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council’s positive and proactive attitude. 

Kelly says as we conclude our conversation, “You can’t compare councils like for like — they have different demographics, governance structures, administration, budgets, officer capacity, and so on — so it might have been easy to dismiss the Scorecards. But it’s not a competition, and the Scorecards don’t try to make it one. We’ve embraced the process because climate change has no borders.”

“Ultimately, a platform that flags areas for improvement and signposts to best practice should only been seen positively. It enables us all to move in the same direction towards the same goal.”

We heartily agree! Thanks very much to Kelly for sharing her experiences.

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Image by Jim Osley CC by-sa/2.0.

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)

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

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)

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

Tl;dr: We’ve added lots of local council data to the Local Intelligence Hub.

In February, we launched the Local Intelligence Hub, and today we’ve released a huge new update. 

We designed the Local Intelligence Hub — in collaboration with The Climate Coalition and supported by Green Alliance — to provide all the data you need, either about one constituency or across the whole country, on issues around climate. It helps you gain a deep understanding of public opinion, demographics, political considerations, and much, much more. In short, it’s an extremely powerful tool, free to use, and invaluable for anyone pushing for better climate action.  

At launch, we divided the data by UK Parliamentary constituency — but with this huge new update, you can now also explore data at the local council level.

As ever, there are several different ways to view this data:

• by individual authority, so you can deep dive into your local area
• as a table, so you can compare councils by metrics that matter to you
• plotted onto a map, so you can see where to find hot- and cold-spots of action

And it can all be downloaded as a spreadsheet for use on your own desktop.

What kind of data are we talking about?

We’re pulling together data from multiple different sources. What does it all have in common? We reckon that it provides new insights for climate campaigners, researchers, journalists and organisations  — especially when it’s combined in new ways, as Local Intelligence Hub allows you to do quickly and simply. 

Sources include national polling data, information from our services CAPE and Scorecards, and other Climate Coalition member organisations, like the National Trust and the RSPB. 

And we’re always looking for more data, so do get in touch if you know of a useful source we haven’t yet included! 

What can I do with it?

You will know best how this rich data could inform your work, but here are a few ideas to get you started.

1. Build a profile of your local council

Dip into the local council page and see what data awaits you! Here’s an example of the top-level stats you can find for Leeds City Council:

• The area has a strong mandate for climate action. MRP polling suggests we’d see 88% of Leeds City residents support onshore wind compared to 83.5% national average, and just 10% oppose net zero compared to 12% national average. 
• Leeds City Council is doing better than most councils, but could be doing more. It scored 53% on the Climate Action Scorecards, gaining its highest scores in Planning and Land Use, but with the biggest room for improvement on Transport. 
• Emissions are huge, but so is the population. Leeds City Council serves 798,786 residents compared to the average of 307,712. According to BEIS data, Leeds City Council has influence over 2,822 kilotons of CO2 emissions, which is more than twice the national average of 1,168.3.
• There’s an active climate movement. In Leeds city there were more Great Big Green Week events than average in both 2022 and 2023.

2. Design a national campaign strategy 

If you’re a campaigning organisation looking to work out where and how to allocate resources, the table-builder and CSV download could form an essential part of your planning process. Here we’ve generated the single-tier councils with Net Zero target dates that fall within the coming decade, and sorted by their Action Scorecards overall score, alongside useful data about public opinion and emissions.

3. Visualise your goals

Local Intelligence Hub helps you zero in on the areas of the country that meet specific criteria. For example, where are the district councils who have declared a climate emergency but haven’t published a climate action plan? Here’s a map that shows you — just one of hundreds of maps that you can generate with a few clicks, and no expertise required:

What to do with all this lovely local data?

Thanks to this update, it’s now easier than ever to push for local climate action. With these rich new insights, you now have a number of talking points with which to engage your local councillors or council climate officers — and a wealth of facts and figures to back them up.

What next?

We need you to use the Hub and tell us what works, and what doesn’t! Give us your feedback  — and if you’d like to know whenever we add something new,  sign up to updates and we’ll let you know when there’s new data to play with.

Photo by Daniil Korbut on Unsplash