Campaigners: What to do with the draft methodology?
We know that there are lots of campaigners throughout the UK who are already pushing their council for further climate action, and there are others who want to start. This blog gives you some ideas on how you might want to use this draft methodology to help with your campaigning. It includes how to engage with your council about the draft methodology, researching your councils’ current climate actions yourself and volunteering with us to mark the next Scorecards.
Let’s start easy. The first thing to do is to make sure your council, and the relevant staff, know about this draft methodology. Whilst we do what we can to get the word out about our Scorecards, we can never be sure if we have reached every relevant staff member at all councils. Especially as there are 409 of them across the UK and Northern Ireland! Also, if the Scorecard information comes from someone local, or someone with a pre-existing relationship with the council, this counts for a lot. Council, staff and councillors, are more likely to read what you send. We encourage you to send your council the draft methodology and this blog on how councils can use this draft methodology.
Another way to make sure that people know about our draft methodology is to share it on social media and get coverage in your local press. This isn’t a super juicy local story, but if your local paper covered the Council Climate Plan Scorecard results they might be up for a short update on the Council Climate Action Scorecards draft methodology. You can use our template social media graphics and text, and press release found in our media pack here.
Take time to read the methodology yourself and get familiar with it. The draft methodology is the culmination of a lot of research on what actions councils can take, and are currently taking to reduce emissions. Take your time to read it and get a good understanding of the wide variety of actions that councils could already be taking for climate action. You could use the council climate actions listed in the methodology to pick a small number of actions that you would want to start campaigning for your council to adopt.
Use the methodology in your campaigning. You might be aware that your council is already doing or not doing some of these actions. Perhaps one of the Scorecard questions is about an action that you have already been pushing your council to start? If so, then this is a great opportunity to continue campaigning for this action, such as a workplace parking levy or a renewable community energy project. Now you have the extra argument that, if the council does this work,it will help them improve their score in the Council Climate Action Scorecards.
We haven’t yet marked all UK councils, but we do know that, for every action we have a question on, there is at least one council in the UK that has done this action. If there is one action you want to see implemented locally, you could start doing some research yourself to find the councils that have done this action. You can then use this evidence base in further lobbying of your own council for climate action.
For further guidance on how to campaign for council climate action, check out our Campaigners’ Guide, parts 2 and 3, which cover how to ask a question in full Council, how to communicate with your Councillor and some event ideas.
Finally, scoring all 409 UK Councils on 90 different questions is a big task. We need people like you to help! You can pre-register to volunteer now, and help us score and create the Council Climate Action Scorecards. If this is something that interests you, sign up here!
Our volunteers work remotely to mark all UK councils on their climate action. Whether you have previous experience of councils and how they work, or this is something totally new to you, we’d love you to help us!
We will be running our Climate Policy Programme – an in depth introduction into local authorities and local climate policy. This is an opportunity to help us mark councils on their climate action as well as learning lots more about local councils and UK Climate policy through online training. Participants of the Climate Policy Programme last year credited this experience as key to them getting jobs in organisations such as Natural England, environmental charities and with local councils in the UK.
We’ll also be running our volunteer marking programme too, and need help managing the FOI requests too. So, if you have less time and just want to get on with Scorecard marking or learning more about FOI requests, join us too!
If you’re not sure if you want to volunteer, here is what Alan, one of our previous volunteers, had to say about volunteering with us.
“I do environmental campaigning stuff locally but felt I wanted to contribute to something bigger that would have a truly national impact, and I have found that with Climate Emergency UK. Not only do I feel greater hope as a result of seeing local authorities taking steps to improve their plans and delivery based on the 2021 scorecard results, but I have learnt so much about how to direct my local campaigning more effectively. It has been helpful to learn what other local authorities are doing (good and bad), be able to point to potential model answers, and I have learned some new skills along the way too. The cherry on the cake has been meeting the team and other like-minded and impassioned volunteers from all over the country, who have been so willing to share their frustrations, experience and learning.”
Alan, one of our previous volunteers
If you have any queries about volunteering with us, please email us at declare@climateemegrency.uk.
