Carbon Reduction Panel

Minutes of the Meeting held on 21 January 2010

Time Commenced: 11.00am Time Terminated: 12.20pm

Present:

Councillor B. Holland (In the Chair)
Councillors Kelly, S.R. Oldham, Parker-Perry and Whitehead.

Also In Attendance:

Kerry Lea, Nilam Patel and Amy Butler (Deputising for Kathryn Randles) – Student Representatives.

Apologies for Absence:

Councillor Piddington, M. Smith and Taylor.

32. Declarations of Interest

There were no declarations of interest to report at this meeting.

33. Minutes

The Minutes of the proceedings of this Panel held on 21 January 2010, having been circulated, were taken as read and signed by the Chair as a correct record.

34. Presentation on The School’s Eco Group

Kerry Lea, Fairfield High School gave a presentation on the school’s Eco Group, which had been in existence for over seven years and had made several positive changes to the school environment.

She made particular reference to the following events/activities as follows:-

• Bulb planting and litter pick in November 2008;
• New seating areas – new benches would be purchased for the school grounds and consultation had been undertaken with the students to ask where they would like the benches to be placed. The benches would be made of recycled plastic and would minimise the schools carbon footprint;
• Art Quadrangle Regeneration Project – a competition had been held for redesigning of a piece of land to make it more environmentally attractive and the winning designs were currently on the school’s website;
• Tree O Clock Event and Litter Picking – the Eco Group had taken part in a Tree O Clock event, which was an attempt to break a world record in tree planting. She stated that cherry and alder trees had been planted in the school grounds, which would be of great environmental importance for generations to come;
• Fones 4 Schools – the Eco Group had also begun a new campaign “Fones 4 Schools” where girls could collect old mobile phones and bring them to school to be recycled in return for prizes and helping the environment by preventing phones from being taken to landfill and also raising money for future eco groups;
• Vegetable patch – the Eco Group was looking into the creation of a vegetable patch on the school grounds to grow organic food which could be used in the school’s canteen or for the Food Technology lesson;
• Wind turbines in school – the Group was investigating the possibility of having a wind turbine on the school grounds, such as the one sited at Ashton Sixth Form College;
• Expansion of recycling and litter reduction in school – the Group was looking into obtaining more recycling bins, in particular for plastic waste and also a composter to further reduce the amount of waste; and
• Glasses Collection – Vision Express – the collection of old glasses for Vision Express which could be repaired and passed on to developing countries.

Members thanked Kerry Lea for a very comprehensive and informative presentation.

Resolved
That the presentation be noted.

35. Greening the Fleet – Staff Travel Options

Consideration was given to a report of the Assistant Executive Director – Technical and Property Services, detailing the options to help reduce staff travel costs and fuel consumption, together with improving carbon emissions across the Council.

Reference was made to the Energy Savings Trust health check recommendations, together with the six potential options the Council could undertake to help reduce carbon emissions and reduce costs of travel for staff, whilst they undertook Council duties as follows:-

• Operate a staff lease car scheme;
• Procure eco friendly cars for staff use (high car mileage users);
• Increased use of existing Community Transport buses;
• Increased usage of video (web cam conference style) technology;
• Increased use of cycling facilities; and
• Flexible working/working differently (reduction of movements).

He reported that from the list of six options the following actions were being considered for implementation:-

• Operate a staff lease car scheme;
• Procure eco friendly cars for staff use (high car mileage users);
• Increased use of existing Community Transport buses;
• Increased usage of video (web cam conference style) technology; and
• Flexible working/working differently (reduction of movements).

He further gave an update on the travel plan, which would be relaunched in the new financial year and the proposed initiatives as follows:-

• Revamping the authority’s transport related intranet pages under the council’s “10:10” banner and linking them in a more cohesive and user friendly manner;
• The potential launch of a “salary sacrifice” annual bus season ticket type scheme sub approach of HMRC to operate in a similar way to the authority’s “Bike to Work” initiative to operate on a year round basis;
• The relaunch of the staff car sharing database;
• The promotion / reinvigoration of the Bike to Work scheme as part of the relaunch; and
• The signing up to the Department for Transport’s nationwide initiative “Cycle to work Guarantee”.

Resolved

1. That the Panel note the actions and support further work in respect of options:
i) Procure eco friendly cars for staff use (high care mileage users);
ii) Increased use of existing Community Transport buses; and
iii) Re-launch of the Staff Travel Plan.

2. That further reports be brought to future meetings of the Carbon Reduction Panel showing further progress and identifying findings from the trials and analysis of costs and benefits with respect of eco friendly cars.

36. Bike to Work Scheme

Consideration was given to a report of the Assistant Executive Director – Environmental Services detailing the success of the implementation of the Bike to Work scheme and its re-introduction during 2010.

He stated that the Bike to work initiative had been introduced to Council employees on 15 August 2009 for a trial period of three months and 95 employees had applied to the scheme, with £5,657 of savings being achieved for the Council via reduced National Insurance Contributions and a further £7,854 had been saved in VAT. Employees had, on average, saved £193 per purchase.

Reference was also given to the other benefits that had resulted from this scheme and due to the success of the trial it was proposed that the Bike to Work Scheme be re-introduced during 2010.

Guidance had been published by Her Majesty’s Revenues and Customs stating that all employees should be able to access bicycles and equipment as part of the scheme and it was essential that the Council provided a pool of bikes for the workforce to utilise, which could be funded via the VAT savings from the scheme. It was proposed that the scheme be made available to staff under the age of 18, provided that they had an adult guarantor.

He also stated that it had been proposed that Cyclescheme was once again the scheme’s administrator as they had provided a good service during the trial and minimised administration for the Council, provided comprehensive and high quality employee information, internet and IT support and also provided good customer service.

Resolved

1. That the Bike to Work scheme be re-introduced to Council employees on a permanent basis.
2. That a pool of bicycles and equipment be provided to those staff that may not qualify for a bike through the current salary sacrifice arrangements.
3. That any member of staff under 18 years of age be entitled to join the scheme provided they had an adult guarantor.
4. That the VAT savings that had been retained by the authority be used to fund the pool bikes, together with further cycling related promotion activity and infrastructure.

37. Carbon Reduction Commitment – Energy Efficiency Scheme

Consideration was given to a report of the Assistant Executive Director – Environmental Services detailing an update on the Carbon Reduction Commitment, now known as CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, following revised Government guidance.

He stated that the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme was designed to reduce energy consumption and help achieve the UK Government’s national target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. It was a mandatory requirement for all organisations to participate if in 2008 they had:-

• Consumed at least 6,000 megawatt hours of electricity; and
• Had at least one electricity meter monitored via half hourly automatic readings (i.e. they had at least one meter ‘settled on the half hourly market’), either by voluntary choice, or mandatory requirement.

He reported that the Council had met the requirements for participation in the scheme and where the property was leased, the landlord or tenant would be responsible for compliance with the scheme, depending who was named in the energy supply contract. This also meant that properties within the portfolio of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund had to be included in the Council’s submissions, together with data for all schools that fell within the Council’s responsibility.

Reference was given to the purchase and sale of allowances as follows:-

• Scheme to commence in April 2010;
• Registration fee of £950 and an annual payment of £1290 payable in April each year for costs and administration;
• April 2011 purchase allowances from Government to cover the forecast carbon emissions for the next 12 months at a fixed price of £12 per tonne;
• Report to be submitted detailing actual emissions made in July each year to commence in July 2011, with an evidence pack being made available to support the report;
• Further allowances could be purchased from the open market, if it had become clear that insufficient allowances had been bought at the start of the year; and
• The market price per allowance could be higher or lower than the initial sale price – if the market price for allowances became too high, an organisation could ask Government to issue more allowances for purchase as a ‘safety valve’.

Details were also given of the league table and recycling payments as follows and it was stated that the non compliance could result in the following:-

• Failure to register and pay the registration fee in time could incur a £5,000 fee plus £500 per working day of non-compliance until July reporting deadline for that year; and
• Failure to submit a footprint report by the required deadline would incur a fine of £5000, further fines of 5p per tonne of CO2 per working day of delay would be incurred for the first 40 working days and after this period the finer per working day would double.

Resolved
That the report be noted.

38. Low Carbon Community Pilot

Consideration was given to a report of the Low Carbon Community Pilot programme, which aimed to reduce carbon emissions and improve affordable warmth.

The Council and its partners were working together within the Tameside Strategic Partnership to reduce the borough’s carbon footprint and raise awareness amongst residents and businesses of the need for change. The proposed Low Carbon Community Pilot was a further step towards achieving environmental sustainability for Tameside.

Details were given of the aims of Tameside’s Low Carbon Community Pilot:-

• Improving energy efficiency of existing homes and businesses;
• Improving access to affordable warmth for low income households;
• Engaging local residents and businesses as local champions for energy efficiency;
• Supporting local companies involved in the improvement of energy efficiency in homes and businesses (e.g. through the installation of insulation, boilers, double glazing and renewable sources of energy), especially those involved in Tameside Works First and Buy with Confidence scheme; and
• Investigating external funding sources in order to provide a demonstration project to show the savings that could be achieved through energy efficiency improvements to existing homes.

She reported that the Dukinfield Ward had initially been indentified as the location for the pilot as it included homes of a wide range of construction types, both in private and public ownership and strong links already existed in Dukinfield with community groups that were interested in environmental concerns.

It was further stated that Powerperfector equipment would be installed at Dukinfield Town Hall and a heat exchanger was being installed at Dukinfield Crematorium. New Charter Housing Trust Group was the main social landlord within the Dukinfield Ward and was committed to ensuring that its homes met the Decent Homes Standard and was looking for ways to introduce more energy efficient lighting, preferably powered from renewable sources.

It was stated that the proposed pilot programme consisted of several elements and the final extent would depend on the amount of match funding achieved.

She reported that £500k had been made available from Council budgets to provide monitors and energy efficiency measures as part of the Low Carbon Community Pilot and additional funding had been sought from a joint Greater Manchester bid to the European Regional Development Fund with other participants in the ‘Domestic Retrofit’ pilot.

Resolved
That the Low Carbon Community Pilot programme be supported.

39. Recycling Performance Update 2009/10

Consideration was given to a report of the Assistant Executive Director – Technical and Property Services, detailing the Council’s recycling performance for 2009/10 and outlined the progress made in the introduction of managed collections across the borough.

He reported that for the period 1 April 2009 to 30 November 2009 recycling performance was 36.3%.

An analysis of domestic residual waste sent to landfill over the last four years showed how recycling had improved and black bin waste had reduced.

Reference was made to the progress made in the introduction of managed collections in the borough up to and including 31 July 2009 which was as follows:-

• Number of Properties on Managed Collections 92500
• Number of Properties still to be introduced
  • Rural Round 1133
• % of borough operating managed collections 94%

He stated that rural properties would commence on the managed collection scheme in mid March 2010.

He reported that every household had the potential to reduce carbon emissions by 1.1 tonne per annum if all waste was recycled. If all Tameside households recycled then there was a potential to reduce carbon emissions by 105,600 tonnes from the position of zero recycling.

Taking a baseline recycling level of 8.5% in 2003/04, the following chart demonstrated the CO2 saving per annum linked to recycling performance:-

*Current level to 30 November 2009.

With recycling levels currently at 36.3% then 63,888 tonnes of carbon emissions were being saved annually.

Reference was made to the Kerbside Textile recycling trial and Members requested that when this trail was introduced, to ensure that plastic bags were not used, as this could lead to textiles being left behind and littering the pavements.

Resolved

1. That the report be noted and the progress made in the introduction of managed collections be noted.
2. That a further report in respect of the Kerbside Textile recycling scheme be considered at a future meeting of the Panel.

40. Dates of Future Meetings

It was noted that the next meeting of the Carbon Reduction Panel would meet on 25 March 2010 at 11.00am.

41. Urgent Items

The Chair reported that there were no urgent items for consideration at this meeting.

Chair