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  • Agenda
  • Agenda

    Venue: Council Chamber, Sessions House, County Hall, Maidstone. View directions

    Contact: Denise Fitch  03000 416090

    Media

    Items
    No. Item

    1.

    Apologies for Absence

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    2.

    Declarations of Disclosable Pecuniary Interests or Other Significant Interests in items on the agenda

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    3.

    Minutes pdf icon PDF 345 KB

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    4.

    Corporate Parenting Panel - Minutes for noting pdf icon PDF 215 KB

    Minutes of the meeting held on 17 September 2019.

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    5.

    Chairman's Announcements

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    6.

    Questions

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    7.

    Report by Leader of the Council (Oral)

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    8.

    'Kent's Future, Our Priority' - Kent County Council's 5 Year Plan pdf icon PDF 536 KB

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    9.

    Corporate Parenting Annual Report - 2018-2019 pdf icon PDF 124 KB

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    10.

    County Council update on Knife Crime Select Committee and linked work across the Children, Young People and Education Directorate. pdf icon PDF 355 KB

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    11.

    Children Young People and Education Directorate - Top Tier Restructure pdf icon PDF 137 KB

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    12.

    Pay Policy Statement 2020-21 pdf icon PDF 124 KB

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    13.

    Treasury Management 6 Month Review 2019/20 pdf icon PDF 324 KB

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    14.

    Independent Person (Standards) pdf icon PDF 111 KB

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    15.

    Update to Members' Allowances Scheme pdf icon PDF 205 KB

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    16.

    Motion for Time Limited Debate

    Reducing the carbon impact of Kent County Council’s internet-related activity

     

    Proposer: Ida Linfield     Seconder: Antony Hook

     

    “Having been evaluated and approved in principle by the ICT Compliance and Risk Manager, the Council requests the Cabinet Member for Finance Corporate and Traded Services to instruct the relevant Officers to, at the earliest opportunity, set Ecosia as the default search engine on all of Kent County Council’s internet-enabled devices (where technically feasible), including those available in public spaces such as libraries.”

     

    Background information provided by Ida Linfield  and Mr Hook  in support of the motion

     

    Kent County Council passed a motion declaring a climate emergency in May 2019, which included commitments to reducing the impact of its own estate and activities. Internet-related activity is a notable source of carbon emissions within the Council, which has thousands of devices connected to the web. Activities such as conducting web searches can act as a significant source of such emissions (see note 1 below). The Council has a responsibility to mitigate this impact as much as possible.

     

    One such approach which has already been adopted by many Universities worldwide (including the University of Sussex), as well as having a motion recently passed at Brighton and Hove City Council, is to adopt Ecosia as the default search engine. Ecosia not only operates its services on 100% renewable energy, but as a certified ‘benefit corporation’, it uses its revenue to plant trees in locations worldwide with over 85 million trees planted to date (as of March 2020). This means it is carbon-negative (see note 2 below).

     

    Footnotes:

     

    1.    One Google search accounts for an estimated 0.2 to 7g of carbon dioxide emissions. 7 grams is equivalent to boiling a pot of tea: https://climatecare.org/infographic-the-carbon-footprint-of-the-internet/

     

    2.    Every search with Ecosia removes C02 from the atmosphere by funding the planting of trees. If Ecosia were as big as Google, it could fund the absorption of 15% of all global C02 emissions: https://blog.ecosia.org/co2-neutral-seach-engine-ecosia-solar-plant/

     

     

     

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