Following the recent publication of the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) league table, local authorities will be assessing their carbon emissions position after jumping through the multiple hoops set down by the Environment Agency.
But with over 2,000 organisations listed, how can they gain any meaningful results from it and how can this data be viewed in order to give meaningful insight?
The rankings use a complicated metric covering many factors including absolute carbon emissions, automatic metering, and whether the organisations have adopted standards such as those of the Carbon Trust.
If the league table really wants to live up to its name, then it needs to show how organisations are comparing against both their industry peers and similarly sized companies. This will give organisations a better understanding of how they are performing.
Sustain has analysed the league table to make it more meaningful, applying a simple sector split and reviewing the carbon intensity against turnover. This provides a very different table of results, and one which is of greater interest to comparable local authority organisations.
Click here for Sustain's full analysis of the CRC league table. The top five authorities on the complex CRC ranking metric are Manchester (5), Kirklees (10), Salford (11) Oxfordshire (14) and West Sussex (17).
However, these are not necessarily the most carbon efficient authorities. When one considers the amount of carbon which is emitted for each unit of turnover of the authority then the London boroughs of Camden, Enfield, Hammersmith and Fulham and Hackney head up the table.
Certainly the carbon intensity appears to be more efficient in the London boroughs perhaps due to their high population density and compact geographical areas which allows services to be delivered with less emissions. If this is an accurate dynamic then the boroughs of Bromley, Kingston and Greenwich should take a more detailed review of their carbon emissions as they are toward the bottom of the table. Also high on carbon intensity of delivering public services are Oxford City, Northampton, Warrington, Barnsley and Dudley.
With over £68m being spent on the CRC by local authorities, this is a big dent in ever tightening budgets and the large authorities are obviously spending the most such as Birmingham (£1.27m), Leeds (1.45m) and Hertfordshire (£1.14m).
Schools traditionally make up around 50% of a local authority’s carbon emissions and there is a great deal which can be done to quickly and effectively reduce school’s carbon emissions. However from April this year, schools will no longer be included in the authority’s CRC return, giving some welcome relief to the cost of this carbon taxation.
Therefore authorities should focus on their own buildings within the corporate estate and make meaningful reductions in their emissions. The challenge is aligning the carbon reduction strategy to the wider estate rationalisation strategy while ensuring the latter is not a barrier to the former.
With the Government announcing that the CRC is a high priority for removal ‘when the public finances allow’ and the Treasury not budgeting for it to continue past 2016, why should anyone care what the league table shows?
Is it simply a reminder that the emissions and the tax of the CRC is costing significant amounts of money in an era where budgets are constantly being squeezed?
For at least the next three years the CRC remains a significant taxation burden to our local authorities but it does highlight the need for a continued focus on carbon reduction.
Recent surveys by Sustain indicate that all too frequently the controls in the local authority corporate estate are not set efficiently, not only adding to the carbon taxation burden of the CRC but, more importantly, the direct cost of energy this incurs.
By focusing attention on better controls in the corporate estate, local authorities can help reduce their future carbon tax liability, display their commitment to serving their communities and find innovative ways to respond to those challenges.
Matt Fulford is head of low carbon buildings at Sustain
