Climate Emergency UK’s assessment of all UK councils on the actions they’ve taken towards net zero is a complex process that involves seeking the required evidence from each council. As you can imagine, when we discovered that Bracknell Forest had put it all in one place ready for the marking process, we were very impressed. 

We spoke to Will Barnes, Climate Change Officer, to find out more. How did the council first come across the Scorecards?

“Originally, it was one of our councillors who brought them to the attention of council officers. With climate change being a top priority for the council, both councillors and officers have gone on to take a particular interest in the Scorecards methodology and results.”

As Will continues, he confirms our belief that the Scorecards are not just a useful tool for the public: they also provide an invaluable service for councils themselves.

“We now use the Scorecards as one way of having our climate action independently and externally assessed. 

“We use it as a way of marking our progress on tackling climate change as a council, and benchmarking ourselves against how other single tier councils are doing, and what they are doing too. 

“To support this process, we have been centralising answers and evidence on the council website to assist the scorecard markers and to make this information available to the public too.”

We are so impressed to hear this, on many levels. Of course, we’re very grateful that the work of assessing the council has been made easier; but we also admire the transparency with which Bracknell Forest has approached the project, for the benefit of the public.

We’ve heard how the Scorecards help the council and the general public. There’s one more person benefitting — Will himself.

“Having started in my role as Climate Change Officer four months ago, I’ve found that the Scorecards have helped me to understand the climate action already taking place across all corners of the council. 

“They’ve also helped me to identify potential opportunities for further projects which we could implement in support of our ambition to be net zero by as close to 2030 as possible.

The climate change team work to embed and promote sustainable practices and initiatives across the council, and the Scorecards have provided us with ideas for action and have supported us to put projects forward to various teams for consideration. 

“In doing so, they’ve played a part in the progress that has been made on a range of projects since the 2023 Scorecards. For instance, we now have a social value policy in place that aligns procurement and contracting activity with our commitment to address the climate emergency and achieve net-zero carbon emissions. 

“One of the workstreams of our new business change project is focused on delivering carbon awareness training across council teams, and the Public Protection Partnership (PPP) have developed a project plan to enforce the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES) for privately rented domestic properties in the borough. 

“Projects like these will help us to achieve our ambitions of tackling climate change and reducing emissions in Bracknell Forest.”

That’s great — thanks very much to Will for sharing his experiences. We don’t think we’ve come across any other councils proactively publishing their evidence like this before, but as we hope this case study shows, it’s beneficial all round. Perhaps others will follow where Bracknell Forest leads. We hope so!