Governing and monitoring our progress
What we will establish
An 'Environmental Strategy Partnership Group' will be established with the following objectives:
- To facilitate the sharing of best practice and collaborative, joined-up environmental actions across the district
- To monitor, evaluate, and report on progress against the vision and ambitions on an annual basis
Chaired by the Service Director for Environment and Climate Change at Kirklees Council (on an interim basis until an appropriate independent chair can be identified), the partnership group will meet quarterly and be made up of pledgers who represent partner organisations, the community, and Kirklees Council.
How the group will be structured
The partnership group will be indicatively structured across four sub-groups which align with the four core themes of the strategy. Each sub-group could contain four leads who will sit on and report into the partnership group: The scope of these lead roles are as follows:
Chaired by the Service Director for Environment and Climate Change at Kirklees Council on an interim basis until an appropriate independent chair can be identified, the partnership group will meet quarterly and be made-up of pledgers who represent partner organisations, the community, and Kirklees Council.
- A Partner Lead: A member of a partnership organisation, they will provide technical direction and oversight for their theme.
- A Community Lead: A representative of a community group or a Kirklees resident, they will focus on the 'Always on' priorities in relation to their theme.
- A Democratic Lead: A Kirklees Council employee who represents a relevant service area to their theme, they will help co-ordinate the sub-group and the annual monitoring, evaluation, and reporting process.
- A Council Lead: A Kirklees Council Ward Councillor who acts as a democratic representative for the associated theme.
Each of the sub-groups will be made up of pledgers, those who sign up to the partnership pledge, whether individual residents or representatives of organisations, businesses, agencies, and community groups.
Resourcing the strategy
This top-tier strategy for Kirklees is an ambitious one, and a clear question to be answered is 'how will it be resourced'?
This is both a critical and a common question for local authorities, many of which have declared climate or nature emergencies but are also working within the context of over a decade of budget cuts and austerity, exacerbated by strains brought about through the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the Local Government Association (LGA) this key issue of how to fund climate action is one of their member's major concerns.
Help is available and blending diverse resource streams to meet the challenge is possible. The LGA itself has comprehensive 'green ambition' advice for local authorities on financing their sustainability commitments. Also, the 3Ci Commission on climate investment is developing a new model focused on how to invest in Net Zero.
More widely, there are many innovative (and mainstream) ways to resource the measures from both the public and private sector, outlined in this strategy, some of which the Council already adopts including:
- Co-funding with a Combined Authority or National Government
- Public-Private Partnerships, particularly with property sector
- Leveraging spend on other programmes (e.g. infrastructure, transport, housing)
- Recirculating cost savings in areas such as reduced energy use
- Accounting for local economic impact of co-benefits (e.g. jobs created or better health outcomes)
- Pursuing major national funding programmes (e.g. Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, Levelling Up, Nature for Climate)
- Major programmes exploring the Public Works Loan Board and UK Infrastructure Bank
- Procurement value added (e.g. through Social Value frameworks)
- Section 106
- Retained Business Rates for sustainable business programmes
- Town or city-centre based work within budgets of Business Improvement Districts
- Biodiversity offsets, net gain, and natural capital accounting
- Co-delivery through utility funds for land management
- Nature-related financial disclosures from private sector partners to support strategic aims
- Green Bonds, Community Investment Bonds, and debt finance
- Levy mechanisms which can directly fund sustainable projects
With so many schemes and resources available, having a well set-out and clear strategy for action such as this one makes bidding for resources faster and more efficient.
How we will achieve it
This strategy is a high-level framework to help inform and provide direction for action, much of which will sit throughout this website, within action plans and associated documents that are developed and delivered by organisations and business (including Kirklees Council) across the district.
We will monitor, evaluate, and report progress against the ambition within the strategy via the following mechanisms:
- Quarterly 'Environmental Strategy Partnership Group' meetings to share best practice, facilitate networking and updates on reporting
- Annual data collection and subsequent reporting against the ambition of this strategy (targets and objectives)
- Collation and advertisement of case studies, sharing of best practice
As part of the pledging process for this strategy, pledgers commit to participating in this monitoring and evaluation process.
