Agenda item

To receive a report that summarises the KCC actions, the rationale for the targets and a summary of progress against the corporate environmental targets set for the period 2011-2015.

1.            The Head of Sustainable Business and Communities, Mrs McKenzie, introduced a report that summarised the actions where KCC was the lead in the implementation plan; the rationale for the targets; and a summary of progress against the corporate environment targets set for the period 2011-2015.  She advised that the action plan was key in allowing flexibility and the ability to deliver strategic outcomes specifically economy, health and wellbeing. The Cabinet Member, Mr Balfour, commented on how this could be incorporated when proposals such as planning proposals for a road scheme were being considered by Members to maximise the benefits for the residents who were going to live there ie open spaces.

2.            Mrs McKenzie and Mr Balfour received comments and responded to questions by Members as follows:

Ÿ  Mr Whybrow made the following comments:

Ø  He considered the report contained too much jargon.

Ø  He would like future reports to include some examples of how the outcome achievements were met.

Ø  He considered that the targets were underwhelming and suggested that they go beyond what was proposed  and gave the suggestion of a target for zero waste to landfill.

Ø  He noted that the target regarding street lighting converting to LED had been exceeded and suggested that there should be a target for street signs which were also lit and needed to be addressed.

Ø There was a lack of target for reuse of recycling.

Ÿ  Mr Balfour and Mrs McKenzie explained that there were issues with the measuring of waste as KCC had a corporate estate and it did not have access to figures on waste.  The Total Facilities Management were operating the scheme.  Improvements had been made on carbon reductions and that was why there was caution with the targets.

Ÿ  Mrs McKenzie advised that ‘reduce water use’ was issued to Kent County Council as a target although it was not able to be measured.  There were 1000 buildings across the estate and were paper based.  Efforts were being made to retrieve data in a simpler way as water companies were now going electronic.

Ÿ  Mrs McKenzie explained that in terms of reducing business miles travelled by car, it was a matter of how people work.  She agreed to discuss this with Human Resources.

Ÿ  A suggestion was made that KCC estate could convert to water metres.

Ÿ  A comment was made that we should not have targets that could not be measured.

Ÿ  Referring to page 74, paragraph 3.4 a comment was made that there were targets listed but it was unclear what they were for. A request was made for this information to be in numerical form.  Mrs McKenzie advised that paragraph 3.3 indicated the progress against the last five-year targets and paragraph 3.4 were the new targets. She added that corporate waste use to be measured by rule of thumb but was now measured by load which was as precise as it was as a target.

Ÿ  A suggestion was made that it would be helpful to have a table in future reports that identified the energy used in previous years for a comparison to identify areas where KCC was least energy efficient.

Ÿ  Mrs McKenzie explained that paragraph 1.3 on page 72 referred to KCC’s 66 actions that were detailed in Appendix 1.    The rest of the report referred to areas where KCC should be playing a role.

3.            RESOLVED that the comments and responses to questions by Members and the Kent Environment Strategy implementation plan and new five year targets, committing KCC resources to deliver them be noted.