The findings of the report are released today as part of Climate Emergency UK’s (CE UK) conference, Scorecards Successes: Enabling Local Climate Action Conference. The report reveals that political leadership, good governance and external funding are the factors that have the biggest impact on enabling climate action within local authorities. 

CE UK calls for climate action to be a legal duty, as this would help councils to better deliver on net zero and implement these main impactful factors of good climate action, found in the report. A statutory duty would likely include the requirement for all councils to have a named lead Councillor for climate, ring-fenced funding for climate action and guidance for councils on what to do and how to report and measure their net zero work. 

The report’s findings focus on what councils can do to improve their climate action delivery, which  CE UK claim would be more easily facilitated if such actions were mandatory. The report found that having a dedicated portfolio councillor for climate resulted in the biggest increase in a council’s overall Action Scorecard score, improving a councils’ score by 11%. Access to external funding for climate action improved a councils’ score by 9%, the second biggest characteristic that impacted on a councils score and having a published Climate Action Plan was the third biggest factor in increasing a councils’ Scorecard score. 

Isaac Beevor, Partnerships Director at Climate Emergency UK said, “Despite many councils being underfunded and overstretched, this report highlights some of the most effective actions councils can and are already taking to have the biggest positive impact on their climate action delivery. But, effective reporting, leadership and funding for net zero work at a council level would be much easier if climate action were a statutory duty for UK councils, like social care and waste and recycling.”

Anthesis analysed the Scorecard results by comparing councils against different characteristics or features that might impact its ability to conduct or manage climate action, such as a specific policy, funding, staff or elected councillor position. Councils were split into two groups, those with and those without a particular characteristic and then scores from these two groups were compared to see if there was a difference in council Scorecard results due to a specific characteristic. 

On the report results, Simeran Bachra, an Associate Director of Anthesis said “While most UK local authorities have established climate action plans, these must now be translated into practical action on the ground. This requires funding towards decarbonisation and resilience projects, a change in behaviour and ways of working and a shift in finance flows towards low-carbon initiatives”.

Ms Bachra added: “Local authorities face the challenge of delivering against their climate targets with ongoing financial and resource pressures. By making climate action a statutory duty for UK local authorities, it would give them the authority to deliver their targets and ensure that climate change remains a priority.”

CE UK will publish the next Council Climate Action Scorecards in 2025, this being the first time councils’ scorecards will be able to be compared against the previous Action Scorecards from 2023.