What are the Council Climate Action Scorecards?

The Council Climate Action Scorecards are an assessment on all UK councils on the actions they’ve taken towards Net Zero. The Scorecard assessment consists of 91 questions or less, depending on council type, across 7 different sections, created in consultation with over 90 different organisations and individuals. Each council is marked against this criteria with a team of volunteers, then each council is given a right to reply before the scores undergo a final audit.

Why did we create the Action Scorecards?

According to the Climate Change Committee’s Local Authorities and the Sixth Carbon Budget Report, “More than half of the emissions cuts needed rely on people and businesses taking up low-carbon solutions – decisions that are made at a local and individual level. Many of these decisions depend on having supporting infrastructure and systems in place. Local authorities have powers or influence over roughly a third of emissions in their local areas.”

At Climate Emergency UK, we believe there is so much that local authorities can do to support the transition to Net Zero. That’s why we’ve assessed every UK council on its climate action.

The Council Climate Action Scorecards will:

• Effectively hold councils to account on their claimed climate action and provides credible and transparent data on council climate action in the UK.
• Allow councils to use the results of the Council Climate Action Scorecards to improve their current Climate Action Plans and implement effective policies to help them reach Net Zero in a just way within their current constraints.
• Allow campaigners, through increased citizen knowledge from the Scorecards, use the results of the Council Climate Action Scorecards to hold their councils to account and lobby for specific and targeted policy improvements and win further climate action.
• Be used by Climate Emergency UK and other organisations in the sector to win national government changes (from the UK Parliament and the devolved nations) that support councils to take further climate action.

We also hope that these Scorecards highlight just how hard some councils are working despite lack of support from the national government, as well as encouraging councils who are not performing as well to take more action by seeing what is possible.

How to use the Council Climate Action Scorecards in your area

The Council Climate Action Scorecards let you see how your own council’s climate action performs in comparison to action taken by other councils across the UK.

Based on common themes we saw when assessing all UK councils we have written a short summary, ‘15 ways to improve your Council’s climate action’. This covers 15 things that councils can do to improve their climate action based on our Scorecards.

Once you’ve checked that out, you might be wondering what to do with this information. That’s quite understandable – the path from data to action isn’t always clear! So with that in mind we’ve gathered together some ways in which you, as residents and community groups, can use this data to bring about meaningful change.

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