We spoke to Martin O’Brien at Lewisham Council about the Climate Council Action Scorecards, and the ways in which he’s used them to support his role as Head of Climate Resilience.
The Scorecards assess all UK councils across a large variety of different climate actions, publishing the final marks online, for both councils and the public to see.
So, how do all these numbers actually help a council in their work towards Net Zero? Martin told us that there are three distinct ways in which they’re useful.
“Firstly, I use them to build a sense of what’s going on around climate action, across all local authorities. They help me identify areas where we have gaps in our own action, and the places where we might pick up useful insight, tools and advice from other councils.
“Then they’re also useful for our engagement across the council’s service teams, to spell out and reinforce the connections between what they do and our ambitions on climate action.
“And then finally, they help with our communication and engagement with residents, particularly local activist and environmental groups. They encourage a conversation that acknowledges we can’t do everything, that there are some areas where we are taking meaningful action — but also, areas where we are keen to learn, to expand and improve how we work and what we can achieve.”
Can Martin put any measures to the impact the Scorecards have had for Lewisham?
“It’s hard to translate the benefits into hard facts and figures, but I feel that they’ve given us, as a council, confidence and pride in some of the things we have achieved. They’ve shown that while the scale of the challenge might sometimes feel overwhelming, it’s possible to break it down into achievable steps.
“I don’t always agree with the scoring. If I’m honest there are times I’m surprised we get a mark (I won’t tell you which ones) and there are other times I’m outraged we don’t (happy to share information about this). But more often than not when I look at the methodology and the assessments, I can see there’s a potential opportunity to reshape the way we do things for the better.”
Thanks very much to Martin for sharing these insights — it’s always helpful for us to understand exactly how the Scorecards are proving useful. The Climate Council Action Scorecards are a joint project between Climate Emergency UK and mySociety.
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Image: Robin Inkysloth cc by-nc-nd/2.0
