Issue - meetings

Progress update from Exeter City Futures and city of Exeter Greenhouse Gas inventory

Meeting: 05/07/2022 - Executive (Item 70)

70 Progress update from Exeter City Futures and City of Exeter Greenhouse Gas inventory pdf icon PDF 507 KB

To consider the report of the Chief Executive & Growth Director.

 

The Strategic Scrutiny Committee considered the report at its meeting on 16 June 2022, and its comments will be reported.

 

Additional documents:

Decision:

Agreed:

 

RESOLVED that the Executive:-

 

(1)  Acknowledge the requirement of a comprehensive and whole system approach to delivering Net Zero Exeter 2030, and that no single organisation, including the City Council, could solve the challenge of reducing city greenhouse gas emissions to zero. The Executive also acknowledge that a 20 year timetable ahead of national and county targets for net zero was very ambitious, requiring place based co-ordination and cross institutional cooperation. The Executive welcome the Exeter Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, acknowledging the pace and scale of change required to deliver on the Net Zero 2030 goal and the required step change in resources, activity and policy making both at a local and national level.

 

(2)  Invite Exeter City Futures CIC to reflect on the challenges of resourcing the step change in activity to meet the Net Zero 2030 Goal and options for meeting the challenges be provided for consideration by the Executive and Council.

 

(3)  Welcome the Strategic Scrutiny Committee to look into the practical issues raised for the construction sector and the supply chain to meet the demands of retrofitting the housing and commercial stock, and support scrutiny members pursuing a wider brief as a critical friend of Executive in addressing the financial, technical and policy issues.

 

(4)  call for immediate and concerted effort to be taken on one specific intervention required under the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, such as the goal of connecting homes and non-residential buildings to a district heat network and explore the practical challenges to securing delivery with limited capacity against the 2030 time line to report a plan of action to the Executive by December 2022.

 

(5)  welcome the decision of the Strategic Scrutiny Committee to acknowledge the importance of biodiversity and carbon sequestration to address the challenge of delivering a net zero Exeter. The Strategic Scrutiny Committee be invited to advise the Executive on practical proposals for linking the planning and development system with the climate and ecological emergency and how to deliver net biodiversity gain on development sites and offsetting carbon in Devon.

 

(6)  Note that Councillor Zion Lights (Member Champion for Net Zero), had been appointed as a Director on the Board of Exeter City Futures, replacing the Chief Executive & Growth Director as the Council’s Director on the Board.

 

Reason for Decision: As set out in the report.

 

 

 

Minutes:

The Executive received the progress report from Exeter City Futures Community Interest Company (CIC) outlining the work being undertaken to progress the Net Zero Exeter 2030 Plan, which included the Baseline Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory for the city, the reductions required to achieve Net Zero in 2030 and also identifying specific and timely metrics for monitoring progress towards carbon neutrality in each emissions sector.

 

The report outlined the scale of the challenges faced in achieving a Net Zero city by 2030 and provided measurable key performance indicators for use as a strategic dashboard on the performance for the city and provided suggested options for achieving the Net Zero goal. The report had also been presented to Strategic Scrutiny Committee on 16 June 2022, and its comments had been included in the report presented.

 

Referencing The Creative Bureaucracy and its Radical Common Sense book by authors Charles Landry and Margie Caust, the Chief Executive & Growth Director emphasised the seriousness of the challenge the world now faced and how Exeter, and the City Council in particular, were seeking to respond.

 

Referring to UK Government and local authority initiatives, he identified a gap between the City Council’s ambitions and those of some other local authorities and also the Government itself. Exeter City Council had declared a Climate Emergency in 2019 and pledged to work towards creating a carbon neutral city by 2030, which was 20 years in advance of the national 2050 net zero target required under the Climate Change Act 2008. It was therefore showing leadership of place at a critical time and he proceeded to detail both the seriousness of the problems and initiatives that could be taken.

 

The strategy for delivering a Net Zero Exeter was broadly understood and the circulated report set out measures that could be taken, but the challenges and complexity of implementing these were largely self-evident. Measures included:-

 

·         optimise the amount of renewable energy from photovoltaics (PV) on residential and commercial properties;

·         connect over 11,000 additional homes to district heating networks;

·         minimise energy use within buildings by retrofitting commercial buildings, and retrofitting the homes in the city with a fabric first solution, such as cavity wall insulation;

·         replacing all gas boilers with air heat pumps - 42,000 in total;

·         replacing all fossil fuel cars - there were 50,430 licensed vehicles in Exeter - with Electric Vehicle (EV) battery cars;

·         making the most of the short journeys in the city by walking or cycling and increasing the amount of cycling;

·         plan all new homes so they don’t need to be retrofitted; and

·         make sure all new homes are within 15 minutes of facilities and designed in a fashion to avoid the need to use the car, and improve recycling rates.

 

The City of Exeter’s institutions collaborating for local impact was an explicit aim of the Exeter 2040 Vision and, in Exeter, the City Council and County Council had vital roles to play in putting in place a policy framework to deliver the Net Zero goal for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 70