Four or five years ago, if you asked a gathering of local government chief executives what were the top three priorities for their councils over the next decade, a majority would have included climate change. Ask the same question today, and you'll get a very different answer.
Climate change seems to have fallen off the local government agenda. A recent Local Government Chronicle poll, based on research by Green Alliance, found that 37% of councils are de-prioritising climate change, and 28% are narrowing their ambitions to focus only on reducing emissions from their own buildings.
Is this inevitable in a period of economic slowdown, and when there are so many other radical changes afoot (in public health, social care, education and housing) that require our time and capacity? And not least when we're trying to deliver around 30% in savings from our expenditure at the same time?
I don't think it is. It's as essential as ever for us to maintaining leadership around climate change. And local authorities continue to have a vital role in galvanising partners, residents and communities to respond positively to the environmental challenge. This leadership role comes in four parts:
Leading by example
Local authorities are major employers – and major consumers of energy – in our areas. Our operations involve buildings and vehicles; we consume water, heat and power; we buy and prepare food; we manage and maintain parks, open spaces, and the vast majority of the nation's countryside; we control the nation's waste stream.
It's essential that we manage across all of these areas in the most sustainable way, not least because of the visible signal it sends to our communities. Our actions on sustainability need to speak louder than our words.
Leading our partners
It's well documented that we can have significant influence in our work with the voluntary and community sectors, and through our public sector partners. But we have a role to play in leading local businesses too.
Local authorities can have formal influence through our procurement policies (and most of us now do), but also in terms of the wide range support we can put in place to help businesses to develop their own sustainability projects.
Leading individual residents
We can support our residents through a range of innovative behaviour change projects, as well as some practical interventions such as home energy audits and loft insulation. There is some exceptional work going on around the country in these areas, much of it leading to cost reduction to authorities and reduced energy bills for our residents.
Leading whole communities
Most importantly, we can lead communities through our housing and planning policies, and increasingly through the government's new neighbourhood planning initiative. Those who are attempting to do this know that it's not easy; it requires times, energy and resources, and needs a genuine political commitment to community engagement and empowerment.
The age of austerity is not an excuse to abandon any of these leadership roles. Instead, in a time of reduced spending, the need for council leadership is greater than ever. We must work together in our local areas; find innovative solutions; and keep climate change at the top of the agenda.
Daniel Ratchford is strategic director of environment and leisure at the London borough of Sutton and a member of the Guardian local government network editorial advisory panel
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