High Peak Borough Council is at the forefront of a campaign to help councils across the country to improve their sustainable energy performance, and meet the increasing need for action against climate change at a local government level.
High Peak Borough Council, a Beacon council for sustainable energy since 2005, has pooled its experience with 6 other Beacon local authorities for sustainable energy, the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department of Transport and Industry (DTI), to develop a toolkit and benchmark.
The benchmark and toolkit can be used by all councils regardless of their current level of commitment on sustainability issues. The benchmark enables council’s to evaluate their current performance across a breadth of energy practice and the toolkit works as a standalone tool to provide a wealth of guidance on action to improve.
Each of the Beacon councils recruited two non-beacon councils to trial the toolkit and benchmark. One council received direct mentoring support and the other used the toolkit independently.
High Peak mentored Macclesfield Borough Council, who completed an ‘invest to save’ funding application, to install energy efficiency measures and technologies. They also met with the Energy Saving Trust to arrange for a free review of ‘green’ efficiency savings to be made in their fleet of vehicles.
Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council used the toolkit independently, and the benchmarking exercise established that they were already dealing effectively with many of their internal responsibilities and domestic energy obligations.
Councillor John Haken, High Peak Borough Council’s Executive Member for the Environment, said: “Developing a coherent response to sustainable energy will play a fundamental role in curbing carbon emissions in our area, and throughout the country. It is important for all councils to look seriously at energy management and this toolkit provides the perfect platform with which to do it.”
