Westminster Council tops UK climate action assessment

All councils in the UK have been scored on their climate action in a first-of-its-kind initiative.

Westminster City Council came out on top among single-tier councils, while the West Midlands Combined Authority and the Greater London Authority scored highest among combined governments. In the category of district councils, Lancaster City Council emerged as the leader and for county councils, Oxfordshire attained the highest position.

Working with a team of trained volunteers, Climate Emergency UK assessed all UK councils on their progress towards net zero. Councils have previously been scored on their climate plans but the not-for-profit said this is the first comprehensive measurement of actions taken.

Overall, councils were found to be “underperforming”, with only 41 councils in the UK scoring 50 percent or more for their climate action and the average score being 32 percent.

Annie Pickering, Co-Director at Climate Emergency UK, said: “These scorecards are an essential tool for councils and campaigners alike to show them what is possible for local climate action and encourage councils to go further, to mitigate and adapt to the climate and ecological emergencies we are facing.”

The scoring aims to show how climate has been embedded across all of a council’s areas of responsibility. Councils were marked on 91 questions across seven areas: buildings and heating; transport; planning and land; governance and finance; biodiversity; collaboration and engagement; and waste reduction and food.

Top scorers

The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and the Greater London Authority (GLA) achieved scores of 65 percent. While the GLA is not a combined authority, it was included in this category by the researchers due to its similarity in powers.

Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands and WMCA chair, said: “We’re delivering right across our region in practical ways. We’re retrofitting homes to make them more energy efficient and cut household bills, funding valuable community nature projects, and developing sustainable transport infrastructure – including more electric buses, train stations, and cycle routes.”

Westminster City Council achieved an overall score of 62 percent, scoring highly in areas including buildings and heating, planning and land use, and collaboration and engagement. Several other London boroughs also made the top ten for single-tier councils.

Councillor Matt Noble, Westminster City Council’s Cabinet Member for Climate Action, Regeneration and Renters, told Cities Today: “Westminster City Council is absolutely committed to tackling the climate emergency and reaching our target of a net zero city by 2040.”

He highlighted the decarbonisation of council buildings through retrofitting libraries, leisure centres, and offices with low carbon technology, as well as food waste recycling initiatives and the recent launch of “the largest zero emissions waste collection fleet in the UK”.

Around 85 per cent of Westminster’s emissions come from the built environment, and to address this the council launched the Sustainable City Charter, which brings together building-owners and occupiers to reduce emissions from commercial and institutional buildings.

The council also convened its first Citizens Climate Assembly this year, inviting 47 residents to bring forward proposals on how to remove the barriers to reaching net zero.

“We want to do more to drive sustainability across the city, so linked to our commitment to achieving net zero by 2040, the council recently declared an Ecological Emergency and committed itself to improving biodiversity and the natural environment in Westminster,” said Noble.

“There is still much work to be done to reach our Climate and Ecological Emergency targets, but we are ambitious about reducing carbon emissions, improving our natural environment, and making sure we achieve this in the fairest way possible.”

As the top district council, Lancaster City Council scored 61 percent and Oxfordshire topped the county councils list with 53 percent.

Barriers

Climate Emergency UK stressed that UK councils need to step up their action to reach net zero. It  cited national barriers as a key reason for councils’ “underperformance”.

However, a number of councils scored well in specific sections. 36 councils, including Leeds, Cornwall, and the Vale of Glamorgan, scored over 80 percent in different sections, such as planning and land use, waste reduction and food, and collaboration and engagement.

Greater Manchester Combined Authority was the only authority that scored full marks in any one section, in Buildings and Heating.

Pickering said: “The low scores across the board show that there are national barriers for local authorities that make it harder for most councils to deliver the necessary climate action. A lack of funding and government policy U-turns are some of the barriers to effective local climate action. Yet national barriers alone cannot explain every low score.

“For example, the scores in the section Planning and Land Use range from minus one percent to a positive 92 percent, which shows that other local factors, such as political will and community support, are at play in determining the action councils are taking to combat climate change.”

Some of the councils that scored below 20 percent overall scored zero percent or less in one or more sections. In total, 127 councils scored less than zero because the scorecards included four questions where marks are deducted for actions that increase emissions, such as investing in airports or approving planning permission for oil or gas fields.

Thurrock was the lowest-scoring single-tier council, with a score of nine percent. Tamworth Borough Council was the lowest-scoring district council at eight percent. Lincolnshire had the lowest score among county councils at 12 percent, and the North East Combined Authority was last in its category at eight percent.

The scorecard questions were created after nine months of research and in consultation with over 80 climate organisations and experts. Councils were assessed according to a three-stage marking process, which includes a right of reply. The scoring uses publicly available data from council websites, as well as national data and Freedom of Information responses.