News

LGA and UKSSD launch Sustainable Development Guide for councils

Posted on July 18, 2020 by Admin

17 July 2020: Local Government Association (LGA) news release announcing that the LGA and UK Stakeholders for Sustainable Development have today launched a guide to “help councils engage with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at a time when many are starting to re-think the role of local government in leading places and empowering people.” Read the full story and access the guide here.

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The Role of Carbon Pricing

Posted on July 6, 2020 by Admin

June 2020: A consortium of five London boroughs, Barking and Dagenham, Ealing, Greenwich, Haringey, and Westminster have commissioned and recently published the following study: “Towards Net Zero Carbon Achieving greater carbon reductions on site: The role of carbon pricing“. This report seeks to review the current planning guidance from the GLA on Carbon Offsetting, and in particular the carbon offset price recommended in that guidance. This new study presents the rationale for this work as follows: “the current carbon offset price (£60-£95/tCO2) and requirement of a minimum 35% carbon reduction do not incentivise sufficient savings on site. This means that new buildings have substantially higher carbon emissions that they should.” The GLA’s 2018 guidance document sets out that “Currently, the GLA’s recommended price for offsetting carbon is £60 per tonne. This is a nationally recognised non-traded price of carbon and is also the Zero Carbon Hub price.” However, the guidance also recognises the need to review this offset price level and states “To assess whether this price continues to be appropriate the GLA commissioned AECOM to carry out a study of possible carbon offset prices, considering both published carbon prices and the cost of undertaking various carbon reduction projects in London… The new draft London Plan includes a new recommended carbon offset price of £95 per tonne which was tested as part of the viability assessment. This is intended to be the price (Local Planning Authorities) LPAs adopt, unless LPAs have set their own local price. The recommended GLA carbon offset price will be reviewed regularly.” (the new London Plan reference to £95/tonne is referenced as footnote 155 on page 384 of the London Plan 2020). Note – the option is available to boroughs to set their own offset price – but there needs to be some evidence to support any such price being set.

This new study by the London boroughs is an attempt to do this – and sets out the following: “We have undertaken extensive energy modelling on several typologies of buildings. Our calculations demonstrate that the decarbonisation of the electricity grid means that, for the same specifications, a greater improvement over Part L is achieved with no extra effort/cost (‘60% is the new 35%’). On this basis, and given the consensus on the need and benefit of a ‘fabric first’ approach and low carbon heat, our recommendations are:

  • To incentivise on-site savings by adopting a high first tier price of £1,000/tCO2 for those easily avoidable and unnecessary residual emissions not met on-site, which fall short of a 60% improvement threshold (measured over Part L1A) for domestic and a 50% improvement threshold (measured over Part L2A) for non-domestic developments.
  • To incentive PV with the introduction of a medium carbon price second tier of £300/tCO2.
  • Finally, and only for residential applications for which it is easier to achieve this high level of performance than for nonresidential applications, we recommend a low carbon price
  • third tier of £100/tCO2 as a positive signal. “

The report concludes with some further opportunities to ensure that zero carbon buildings take into account their full environmental impact.

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Major funding secured for planned Enfield Heat Network

Posted on June 30, 2020 by Admin

June 2020: Press release from Amber Infrastructure, fund manager for the Mayor’s Energy Efficiency Fund (MEEF), announcing that MEEF “has provided £15 million to the London Borough of Enfield to part-finance the construction of their Meridian Water Heat Network which will supply over 10,000 new homes with better value, environmentally friendly energy as well as providing funding for the extension to some of Enfield’s existing networks.” Importantly, this money has been matched fund by the Government’s Heat Networks Investment Project (‘HNIP’), managed by Triple Point. Energetik, Enfield Council’s heat network company managing this project, state that this project will be the first in the UK to match HNIP and MEEF funds,

The heat supplied to the network will use waste heat from the planned Edmonton Energy Recovery Facility at the North London Waste Authority (NLWA) EcoPark from 2026 onwards, which has just received permission on on Thursday 25 June when councillors on the NLWA approved plans to let bidders come forward to construct the facility.

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Merton Net Zero Study

Posted on June 20, 2020 by Admin

June 2020: Merton Council have commissioned a study to better understand the borough’s existing greenhouse gas impact and decarbonisation pathways to achieve its net zero carbon target. The report sets out “Merton Council declared a climate emergency in July 2019 and set carbon reduction targets to decarbonise the Council by 2030 and the borough by 2050. To underpin the development of Merton’s Climate Strategy & Action Plan, Merton Council commissioned a series of products including greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories for the borough and council, decarbonisation pathways to reach the targets, and means to track progress towards the targets.” Read the full report here.

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Richmond – Plan for greener new developments approved

Posted on June 1, 2020 by Admin

1 June 2020: A newly updated sustainability checklist that aims to help developers make new developments as green as possible has been approved by Richmond Council. The Sustainable Construction Checklist Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) is an update to the existing SPD, which was last revised in 2016. It gives housebuilders and those developing non-residential spaces a clear steer on what is expected of them to reduce the environmental impact of their developments, regardless of whether their projects are new builds, conversions or extensions. Full details set out on press release here.

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Hackney carbon strategy plans

Posted on June 1, 2020 by Admin

1 June 2020: A FOI request has been submitted to Hackney Council asking for details on a number of areas of the council’s carbon action plan – the answer to which provides a useful summary of the areas of work including the council’s carbon offset policy, its green energy strategy, and a list of projects that have contributed carbon offset payments. Read the full FOI here.

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London: Achieving Net Zero

Posted on April 22, 2020 by Admin

April 2020: Think tank Future of London recently hosted a useful online seminar for their ‘Achieving Net Zero‘ project, involving public sector and built environment professionals looking at the challenges faced in decarbonising London’s building stock.

The session included speakers from the London boroughs of Camden, Lambeth and Hounslow providing updates on their climate emergency plans – as well as contributions from LandSec, Arup and Montagu Evans amongst others. The agenda for the meeting is available to download here – and the webinar has been posted in full online and can be seen here.

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Businesses must take bigger strides towards net zero carbon

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Admin

14 April 2020: Welcome to see the following blog published on the website of London business trade association, London First, by Robert Spencer, Head of Sustainable Development at AECOM. The article highlights the challenges of decarbonising to Net Zero London’s built environment – including at looking at area-wide opportunities through deploying technologies such as heat networks. “A recent example of a heat network in action is on AECOM’s 339 Edgware Road project in London [sic – should be 399]. This is a mixed-use development encompassing 183 residential units, a Morrison’s supermarket and Oriental and Far Eastern retail malls and food courts.”

Some background to the energy strategy employed at this project is provided on the planning report from Brent Council here and the GLA’s planning report here.

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COVID-19 provides lessons on climate adaptation for cities

Posted on April 9, 2020 by Admin

9 April 2020: Link to an article on phys.org – one of a number which are bringing together some of the parallels between the impacts cities are facing as a result of the coronavirus crisis and likely challenges these urban communities will encounter due to increasing temperatures as a result of global climate change. This piece, by environmental lawyer Amy Turner (also senior fellow at Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law) includes some useful links to other thought pieces and research work in this area.

“I hesitate to draw early conclusions about the connection between global emissions, climate impacts and our current pandemic conditions. However, this is a moment of opportunity to marry the best of city climate policy and virus response. While big policy conclusions, connections and questions will continue to be debated, right now there are important observations to be made and potential lessons learned for city policymakers about overlapping approaches from past emissions reduction policies, current COVID-19 policy and future climate policy after the virus has subsided. This post explores some of these intersecting policy areas.”

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A framework for understanding local government sustainable energy capacity applied in England

Posted on April 7, 2020 by Admin

April 2020: Academic research paper published in Energy Research & Social Science Volume 62, April 2020 looking at a critical issue of the lack of capacity within local authorities to engage on energy and climate issues.

“Analyses of local climate change governance and sustainable energy transitions have tended to focus on understanding broader governance networks, within which local governments are important actors. Such approaches often make appeals to (lack of) capacity when seeking to understand the many limits to local sustainability programmes, however local government capacity is rarely given a primary analytical focus. We offer a definition of local government sustainable energy capacity, organise it into six types, and explore it in relation to contextual factors across scales: political institutions; energy and climate change policies and material aspects of energy systems. This heuristic framework is applied to case studies of eight local and combined authorities in England, a country with particularly centralised political institutions and energy systems. We conclude that capacity is a useful lens through which to explore the extent to which, and importantly how, local governments can become active sustainability actors. We also find that the development of knowledge capacity is becoming increasingly important; that there is some evidence of political re-scaling in energy; and identify some ways in which material aspects of energy systems have significant implications for local government sustainable energy capacity.“ Open access article here.

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100% of Hackney Council electricity now supplied by renewables

Posted on April 3, 2020 by Admin

2 April 2020: Following on from plans set out in July 2019, and a climate emergency declaration made in June 2019, Hackney have now announced the council will be sourcing all of its electricity supplies from renewable generation. Hackney’s press release sets out that its annual £6.5m electricity bill will now go to “electricity sourced from wind and solar power”.

The Council’s strategy is to shift its energy supplies to fully renewable sources, initially via green tariffs linked to Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO) – which today’s announcement relates to – with an ambition to move to supporting the development of new/additional renewable energy supplies by the council entering into longer term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) (ie rather than sourcing green electricity from the power market, directly investing in new renewable generation through a long-term contract).

A July 2019 article by the Hackney Gazette sets out that: “Cllr Jon Burke (Lab, Woodberry Down), cabinet member for energy, laid out further ambitions to decarbonise the council’s gas demand on top of its electricity. He is also aiming to secure a contract to purchase renewable energy directly, going beyond the current arrangement which sees Hackney’s energy come with certification guaranteeing it as renewable.

“Cllr Burke said: “Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin certificates (REGOs) are a major step forward for the council in delivering our 2018 manifesto commitment to transform the way we purchase wholesale energy to increase the generation of renewable energy beyond Hackney’s borders by using our corporate spending on gas and electricity to increase investment in sources of clean energy. However, we want to go a step further by securing a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with a specific generation facility.”

A Hackney Council procurement meeting in September 2019 included a paper which provides some further details on the contract:

  • As part of the Mayor and Council’s commitment to rapidly decarbonising the full functions of the local authority, the Council switched to a minimum of 50% renewable electricity on 1 April 2019. This next step will see the Council secure 100% renewable electricity through the purchase of Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin Certificates (REGO).
  • The natural next step in the process beyond 1 April 2020 will be to explore the potential for a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with a specific generation facility. …Securing such an agreement…would demonstrate in a very visible way to the residents of Hackney that our corporate spending on renewables is contributing to the delivery of new sources of clean energy, rather than merely sending a signal to the market that more renewable energy is required, which is the role that the purchase of REGO certificates performs.

Suppliers awarded have not been announced – but an October 2019 procurement paper sets out the sums awarded (point 7).

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Energy efficiency boost for London homes

Posted on April 1, 2020 by Admin

1 April 2020: Further information has become available on the Mayor’s latest iteration of his homes energy efficiency retrofit programme. Previously known as RE:NEW, the Mayor announced back in February, via the following press release, the new Retrofit Accelerator for Homes programme stating that it will be “the first initiative of its kind in the UK – will provide much-needed support for the under-resourced public sector to retrofit homes with urgent upgrades and improvements such as better insulation, low-carbon heat and alternative power sources.”

The GLA webpage for the programme sets out that the programme will:

  • Help London boroughs and housing associations to develop energy efficiency projects at scale with technical and commercial solutions.
  • Get started on 1,600 whole-house retrofits in Greater London over the next three years.
  • Create a market for the low carbon and environmental goods and services sector, creating new, high-skilled jobs.
  • Save over 4,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.
  • Unlock funding and low-cost finance for energy efficiency projects.
  • Tackle fuel poverty by making homes warmer and more affordable.

The Mayor responded to a recent question stating that the “primary objective of the Retrofit Accelerator – Homes programme is to reduce carbon emissions. But its target audience (social housing) and approach to improving the performance of dwellings (deep, whole-house retrofit) means that many Londoners vulnerable to fuel poverty and living in some of the least energy efficient properties will benefit.”

A further question set out some further information on the targets for the programme: “My Retrofit Accelerator – Homes programme has a target of 1,678 homes being either fully retrofitted, in the process of being retrofitted or in contract to be retrofitted by August 2022. Of those, at least 50 homes need to have ‘deep retrofits’ completed and monitored during this period. Deep retrofits’ will take a whole house approach and reduce the carbon each home is responsible for by an average of 60 per cent and in many cases to near net-zero energy. For comparison these homes should save 2.5 times as much carbon per home than was achieved on average under the previous RE:NEW programme.” Some further info here

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