This report provides a quarterly update on Devon County Council’s (DCC’s) corporate Environmental Performance programme that implements the Environmental Policy. The report is split into topics and gives a short update on the individual projects we are running to improve environmental performance.
Period
Nov 2023 – Jan 2024
Project Colour Key
Each project is assigned a colour to indicate its current status. The key is as follows:
Green 🟢 – Project is performing well. There may be minor issues that do not affect project viability or timescales significantly.
Amber 🟠 – Issues have arisen that affect the time, cost or scope of the project. However, these can be dealt with by the Environmental Performance Management Group. The Environmental Performance Board should be notified.
Red 🔴 – Significant issues that cannot be handled solely by the Environmental Performance Management Group. The Environmental Performance Board must be engaged to assess the situation.
Energy
The Energy Programme Manager post has been filled.
Energy Data and Management Service
SW Norse is preparing a quotation for revisions to the annual energy data report used to prepare the carbon footprint. This is funded from a dedicated budget held by estates. Alongside this they are quoting for a managed energy service that will investigate excessive consumption and propose remedial works. Quotation expected imminently. Depending on the cost, this may become an ‘invest to save’ proposal.
Corporate Building Retrofit [Amber 🟠 ]
Target: Retrofit 10 buildings by March 2031 to save 269 tCO2e per year. Achieved 9 buildings and 346 tCO2e at current emission intensities due to unexpected funding opportunities from government.
Revenue funding is being used in the remainder of 2023/24 for SW Norse to prepare a shortlist of buildings to focus on and to develop investment-grade proposals for between 2 and 4 of these. These proposals will be used to find alternative investment opportunities. It is planned to do a rolling programme of investment-grade proposals each year to take advantage of a variety of funding opportunities. Amber because funding opportunities are currently uncertain.
Renewables [Amber 🟠]
Target 1: 600kWp new capacity installed by March 2024 on DCC assets. Current achievement is 303kWp.
Solar PV on salt barns – Tiverton (28kW) is remaining installation from Phase 1 and has to be delayed to the spring due to delay in tendering meant that installation would have occurred during the gritting season. Permission will be sought from finance to carry the capital over to next financial year. This will bring the total installed to 331kWp.
A capital request for Phase 2 of the solar depots (Okehampton, Crediton and Tavistock – 75kW in total) was unsuccessful.
The identification of further opportunities on buildings and land assets in cooperation with the property and waste teams (to include county farms and redundant landfill) has been let to a renewable energy contractor. This will be completed by March and will identify opportunities that will subsequently need to be developed into investment grade proposals.
Target 2: Use Virtual Power Purchase Agreements to buy power from 23MWp of new solar capacity in Devon by 2030. Current achievement is 0MWp.
The business case for purchasing renewable energy from community schemes via Virtual Power Purchase Agreement does not look positive following the work done by the Power Allotments project funded by DCC’s Community Energy Fund. It’s likely we’ll concentrate on finding more opportunities on our own estate to ensure we are contributing to reducing the carbon intensity of grid-supplied electricity.
County Farmhouses Retrofit [Green 🟢]
42 of 66 dwellings completed. This leaves 24 remaining. Two more will be completed by March 2024.
Street Lighting [Green 🟢]
Target: Retrofit 100% of lighting with LED lamps by March 2024.
70,000 of the 79,000 lamps (89%) have been replaced (up from 68,000 last quarter). A programme of installing dimmable lenses has commenced in addition to the LED replacement to save more energy.
Schools Estate [Amber 🟠]
Priorities for achieving energy efficiency enhancements using the maintenance programme need to be explored. This is not currently able to be a priority.
Transport
Travel Plans for Strategic Work Locations [Green 🟢]
Majority of staff are continuing to work flexibly. Car parking capacity is being monitored. Wednesday’s are the busiest day at County Hall.
An estimate of commuting emissions is being prepared for integration into the corporate carbon footprint for 2022/23 and backdated to the baseline year of 2012.
Electric Vehicles and Charging [Amber 🟠]
Visitors and Staff
The Deletti project is providing 4 charging bays available for staff (and public) use at County Hall and Great Moor House. Two bays at Great Moor House are active. Two bays at County Hall have been delayed due to the need for the correct heritage consents. Consents now obtained and the provider is happy to proceed.
Fleet
Target: 32 electric vehicles in the fleet by March 2024. Currently achieved 19.
Eighteen more vehicles are to be procured in 23/24 meaning a total of 36 will be in the fleet (one lease vehicle being returned) – this will meet the target.
The Phase 1 charge posts are almost complete. Taw View is awaiting an electricity meter, and South Molton is awaiting a data connection.
The Phase 2 charge posts are being installed now. Posts at Ryefields, Great Moor House, Avocet Road and County Hall are expected to be complete by the end of January. Rydon will be later, but progressing.
The Phase 3 chargeposts project will install 16 further charging sockets. Capital budget has been confirmed. SW Norse will be commissioned next quarter to procure and install these. These posts (two sockets per post) will be at:
County Hall x 2
Avocet Road x 1
Ryefields x 1
Taw View x 2
Tiverton x 1
Honiton x 1
SW Norse have been looking at the viability of establishing a charging depot for minibuses. This has not proven fruitful.
Waste and Resources
Establish a new Reuse Policy [Green 🟢]
Policy was adopted via delegated Cabinet member decision in December. It is now online.
Establish a waste/recycling data management system [Green 🟢]
The waste analysis, to look at the composition of the refuse from County Hall will occur in early February. Following this a system will be put in place to improve performance.
Procurement and Commissioning
Low Carbon Supply Chain Strategy [Amber 🟠]
Senior Leadership Team (SLT) feedback been incorporated into an amended version and it will be considered again by SLT before progressing to Cabinet in April 2024. Resourcing could be an issue.
Highways, Development and Infrastructure Activity [Green 🟢]
Work to improve asset management systems is progressing. This will enable teams setting budgets and works programmes to consider carbon.
The first carbon literacy training was held as a taster session for 12 people.
Three carbon dashboards have now been published – job breakdown, monitoring of jobs, and baseline trends.
Discussions with contractors on the data and carbon reduction road maps have commenced.
CCAs standards were published to the industry on 31st October 2023. This utilises the Devon model at its core.
A382 (Including Jetty Marsh Link Road) – Carbon Negative Project
Since receiving £3.68m funding the team have been exploring products and innovations that will reduce the carbon value of the project. In parallel with this work, the University of Exeter have been working on the carbon calculation tool. This work brings together DCC’s and Milestone’s tools to create a hybrid that is better suited to measure the carbon in large projects as well as the ongoing carbon for maintenance.
We now have a good understanding of where the carbon hotspots occur in the project and are getting to grips with calculating the overall impact of design and construction process changes. The project decision board have approved spend on processes aimed at reducing carbon, namely, tree translocation, procurement of a sawmill to use site won timber on the project, procurement of a mobile bio-char plant and creation of a behaviour change app for the project site team. The team will also be preparing a business case on the long term use of the bio-char plant and it’s potential to aid DCC’s carbon reduction agenda. Over the coming weeks and months we will be taking proposals associated with materials and street-lighting to decision boards.
Environmental Risk
Produce a Template for Service-Level Climate Adaptation Risk Assessments [Amber 🟠]
No further progress this quarter. Template is available to all service areas. Requires promotion and offer of support to encourage further uptake.
Enhance Procedures for Reporting and Learning from Environmental Incidents and Near Misses [Amber 🟠]
No further progress this quarter.
Water
Water Resource Management Surveys [Amber 🟠]
Water Resource Management Surveys completed. The development of a strategy proposal is delayed due to a focus on delivering energy projects.
Countryside, Coast and Heritage
The Countryside, Coast and Heritage Action Plan required modification to make the strategy clearer from the plan elements. This will return to the Environmental Performance Board in February and subsequently progress to Cabinet.
Support the delivery of the Devon Ash Dieback Action Plan [Green 🟢]
DCC have continued to engage with tree planting initiatives, having planted over 25,000 trees since 2021, with a further program of 40,000 trees planned for delivery by 2025. DCC have continued to secure external funding to support county-wide tree planting, engaging volunteers and communities from a diverse range of demographics, including young people and hard to reach groups.
Carbon Offsetting
Review of Options [Green 🟢]
- The pilot of a carbon footprint assessment of one County Farm to determine carbon sequestration opportunities has completed. Further assessments will not take place this financial year as the methodology needs refining.
- A partnership project with Plymouth City Council has commenced looking at the viability of purchasing offsets from the retrofitting of social housing.
- A procurement to purchase an offsetting solution for the 2023/24 commitment will launch at the end of January.
Brook Wood [Amber 🟠]
Planting has been moved forwards to the planting season of 2024/2025 largely due to delays in the England Woodland Creation Offer application and the shortage of tree stock in the UK. It is likely the EWCO application will be terminated and instead the project funded via a bid to the Plymouth and South Devon Community Forest, subject to appropriate sign off.