Agenda and minutes

To receive any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Blackburn and Councillor Buckley.

To disclose or draw attention to any interests in accordance with Leeds City Council’s ‘Councillor Code of Conduct’.

No formal late items of business were added to the agenda, however Committee Members had received supplementary documents in relation to agenda item 8 Carbon modelling for Waste Management and Kerbside Waste Compositional Analysis Briefing just prior to the meeting.

To note the minutes of the previous meeting held 23^rd June 2022 for information.

RECOMMENDED – That the minutes of the formal meeting held 23^rd June 2022 be noted for information. 

At the discretion of the Chair, a period of up to 15 minutes may be allocated at each ordinary meeting for members of the public to make representations or to ask questions on matters within the terms of reference of the Committee. No member of the public shall speak for more than five minutes in the Open Forum, except by permission of the Chair.

Please note: Members of the public are asked to submit a video of their question or statement to climate.emergency@leeds.gov.uk by 4 p.m. on Monday 18^th July 2022

Members of the public were invited to submit a question / statement in advance of the meeting. 

Clarrie Ramsden – Seacroft Community Hub. The Committee was provided with an overview of the work undertaken by Seacroft Hub across the ward focusing on climate change and food poverty, including a forest garden, community allotment, community composting and seed libraries, noting a 5^th seed library was due to open in the coming week. #GetGrowingSeacroftis on Facebook and twitter. The Hub is looking to utilise land on the derelict site of The Gate Public House, Seacroft for allotment and education space and to support proposed work as a social subscriber and sought Member support for this scheme. 

Andy Goldring - Climate Action Leeds / City Hub Lead. The Committee was advised that although the City Hub had support from partners across the city, it had yet to identify a city centre location to bring all sectors together and create a template for the future city-wide approach. Negotiations to secure a space in a city centre shopping centre were ongoing and Member support for that would be welcomed, along with support to secure a long term location through conversations with LCC Asset Management over use of LCC sites and a discussion on whether the use of Community Infrastructure Levy monies would be permissible to support the Hub. Members noted the offer to provide a detailed presentation on the work of the City Hub to a future CEAC meeting. Members also noted a suggestion that Thwaite Mills could be an ideal location for the City Hub and an offer from Councillor Garthwaite to raise this issue with appropriate officers. Members agreed that if Mr Goldring made his request in writing to the Chief Officer Sustainable Energy and Air Quality, the request, including the Committee’s support, would be forwarded to the appropriate Service. 

Brent Haigh – Hydrogen Energy - The Committee received a video submission on the topic of hydrogen and the development of hydrogen as an alternative energy source and opportunities to draw down funding for the region and increased employment. It was agreed that the Infrastructure, Planning and Buildings Working Group would consider the issues raised and actions currently being taken and give a formal response to the query “What is the Committees view” in due course. 

To receive a verbal update on the progress of the Committees’ working groups to date

The Chairs of the Working Groups (WG) provided an update on the progress of the working groups since the last Committee meeting:  

Community and Business Engagement–Councillor M Shahzad outlined how the WG had set three questions in order to consider how we will communicate with residents and enhance our engagement with the city.  

1)  How can we reach people where they are, rather than where we want them to be? The   right message needs to get out to the right people at right place and time as sometimes the message is not clear, or not tailored to the characteristics of the community. Actions proposed included sending a quarterly email to collect information on planned local events so that the climate engagement team can attend the events and meet local people and have quality climate conversations.  Additionally the engagement team could attend a future Youth Summit meeting. The WG also reviewed the availability of climate change information on the LCC website, and agreed that work would be undertaken to collate the information into a more streamlined offer which will be easier to share.   

2)  How to discuss key climate issues appropriately and make them relevant? It was considered that linking them to the cost of living crisisby showing the benefits that change can offer would resonate with residents, an example being to use trusted local businessto provide key messages, such as the local plumber who invested in an electric vanto save running costs. 

3)  How do we engage a new audience? The WG considered this can be achieved by securing partnerships with internal/external teams on co-issues highlighted by climate action, there was a proposal for the SEAQ team to visit the Community Committees and to take climate action discussions to community spaces and events unrelated to climate action events. 

Infrastructure, Planning and Buildings – Councillor Dye reported on two presentations received by the WG – 

·  Update on the net zero housing plan. Discussions had focussed on key actions to follow up; including the establishment of a ‘Better Homes Hub’, retrofit work, how we view new build development and low carbon homes. Proposals to create a map of retrofit opportunities across the city, to develop an engagement plan, and to review how to develop the skills needed to achieve net zero were also highlighted. 

·  Feasibility study of using Solar energy. The presentation was provided by Arup. 

Noting the detail of the presentations provided to the IPG WG it was agreed that the Chief Officer Sustainable Energy and Air Quality will review the presentations prior to them being shared with the Committee to ensure they contain no commercially sensitive information. 

Discussions noted the following points: 

The Big Bus Chat – Members and residents were invited to take part in the West Yorkshire Mayor led Big Bus Chat, on the themes of bus transport being safe and inclusive,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To receive a verbal update from the Director of Resources

The Committee received a verbal report from Neil Evans, Director of Resources, as part of a programme of visits to the Committee from each of the Directorates. 

The Director outlined examples of how working against climate change is being embedded into the different work activities of the Directorate. He explained how combatting climate change is not optional but is critical to Leeds City Council operations. Some of the activities include; 

·  The 30-strong Sustainable Energy and Air Quality (SEAQ) team is led by a Chief Officer, meaning their remit is represented at the highest level within the Directorate and is one of the biggest departments of its type in the country. The team has attracted £100million investment from the government over the past three years which has gone towards District Heating and decarbonising LCC buildings 

·  The Council continues to invest in climate action, at a time when budgeting issues are leading many other Councils to cut back on this area 

·  HR promote a bike to work scheme, salary sacrifice for Electric Vehicles, public transport discounts and carbon literacy training. One of their big challenges for the future will be supporting staff to move away from petrol and diesel vehicles, without costing staff extra money 

·  Integrated Digital Services have been supporting the transition towards working from home, reducing printing and replacing energy heavy servers with cloud storage   

·  Resources also undertakes a considerable amount of public engagement around Leeds becoming carbon neutral by 2030 

·  Corporate Property Management are investing in Leeds City Council buildings, and will be moving into the SEAQ unit to ensure planned works have regard to climate action 

·  Fleet Management also work with the SEAQ, and their joint work has led Leeds City Council to be the largest user of Electric Vehicles. 

·  Where food is purchased by LCC, such as within schools, Resources has committed to reducing food miles by sourcing within the Yorkshire region 

Discussions focused on the following issues: 

·  Investment in the District Heating Scheme and the PIPES scheme 

·  Investment of HRA and Government Grants to decarbonise housing stock and upgrade old heating systems 

·  An approach to procurement which would seek to ensure that goods and services meet the climate action /zero carbon target for the city 

RECOMMENDED - The Committee thanked Mr Evans for his presentation and noted the discussions.

To consider the report of the Chief Officer Highways and Transportation outlining the service’s current position regarding the issue of embodied carbon and providing details on actions being taken in this area. 

The Committee considered the report of the Chief Officer Highways and Transportation which outlined the current practices undertaken within the department to address the climate emergency, specifically regarding embodied carbon.  

Mr Paul Russell, Civil Engineering Manager, Highways and Transportation attended the meeting to present the report and began by highlighting the services’ commitment to o tackling the climate crisis. However as development and building innately creates carbon the Service had established a Climate Emergency Task Force to support its work looking at how carbon is generated, namely through use of;  

• Asphalt 

• Concrete 

• Steel 

• Other raw materials 

• Materials sent to landfill 

• Construction Vehicles 

The report considered four main topics; 

1. Carbon calculation tools; the carbon cost of maintaining roads also has to be incorporated into carbon calculations. Highways and Transportation (H&T) have been working on capital programmes such as East Leeds Orbital Route (ELOR), and the Leeds Flood Alleviation Scheme Phase 2 (LFAS2). Whilst in development these schemes have created carbon emissions but  in the long run they will prove to be carbon saving as they will reduce  congestion and flood damage. H&T development frameworks included carbon calculation tools and carbon targets embedded within them. However part of the solution towards lower carbon emissions may be the need for less infrastructure to be delivered in the long term. 

The Committee considered how city building carbon calculations could be captured and used to influence future planning conversations with Government, by collaborating with university partners within the city. Councillor Hayden suggested working with Leeds Climate Commission and Yorkshire & Humber Climate Commission to develop this idea. 

2. Procurement; Highways and Transportation is developing a suite of three frameworks internally 

·  Minor Works Contractor Framework for contracts under £2million  

·  Intermediate Works Contractor Framework for contracts between £2million and £7 million 

·  Major Works Contractor Framework for contracts over £7million 

Each of these frameworks was developed within the Leeds Outcomes, Themes and Measurements (TOM’s) in order to build social value into those procurement processes. 

3. Low carbon materials; the pricing for these materials is still a lot higher than conventional materials, which is being exacerbated by the current issues of the rate of inflation and the ongoing situation in Ukraine. Trials of lower carbon materials are being conducted, such as on the A63 in Garforth.  

4. Offsetting; measures include tree planting. ELOR alone included 3,000 trees and 30,000 whips being planted. There is a balance to be had between reducing road use, and reducing congestion, in order to prevent carbon emissions.  

The Committee discussed ways in which the Council could work with various partners regarding the research of embodied carbon within the city, as well as some of the work already being done in the city by external organisations and businesses; particularly involving the universities and the Leeds Climate Commission and the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission.  

 It was noted that this is a quickly developing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

To consider the report of the Director of Communities, Environment and Housing regarding waste services in Leeds.

(to follow)

The Committee received a report of the Chief Officer, Environmental Services, which provided information on two pieces of work commissioned by the Council to assist the development of an updated Leeds Waste Strategy and associated Waste Management Plan. 

The following were in attendance to provide a presentation: 

John Woolmer - Chief Officer, Environmental Services 

Philip Turpin - Senior Business Officer (Technical), Environmental Services. 

In his introduction, Mr Woolmer emphasised the report and presentation contained initial, draft data that is still being verified and worked on and so should not be reported or used as confirmed data/information. However, it was still felt useful to provide an overview of the work being done to better understand the performance of Environmental Services in terms of its carbon footprint across all the services it provides and also in terms of household waste. These will both inform the developing Waste Strategy for Leeds and the accompanying Waste Management Plan, both of which will reference the National Resources and Waste Strategy and the anticipated legal requirements for kerbside food and glass collection by 2025, along with the implications of the new national Deposit Return Scheme (for plastics).  

The Committee received two presentations from Mr Turpin: 

Leeds household kerbside waste compositional analysis:

·  The Council engaged Alfred H Knight consulting services to carry out a statistically representative compositional analysis of kerbside residual (black bin) and dry mixed recyclables (green bin).  

·  Waste collection across the city is predominantly undertaken on alternate weeks of wheel bin collections, the remainder of the city are mainly weekly black bin and four-weekly green bin collections. 

·  The analysis of waste from 250 properties was undertaken in February 2022 and waste was manually sorted into 13 categories with 40 sub categories, the initial outcomes were shared with Members, the highlights being (in terms of content measured by weight): 

o  Residual waste (black bin) – putrescible (food etc) 36% food, paper/card 13% 

o  Dry Mixed Recyclable (green bin) – paper/card 55%, plastic 15% 

o  Waste per household per week in 2022 = residual 10kg; DMR 3kg compared with 2015 = residual 10.9kg, DMR 3.6kg 

·  Referencing NI 192, the National Standard for recyclates, the analysis showed that if all recyclates were recovered from the residual waste (black bin), this would only make a 9% points difference to the citywide Leeds recycling figure. It was also noted that some of those recyclates are not recoverable as they are contaminated. The initial analysis supported the following conclusions: 

o  As the National Waste Strategy focusses on glass and food waste, analysis showed Glass in black bins = c.13,300 tonnes and in green bins = c.1,500 tonnes, therefore in theory there is a total of c.14,800 tonnes that could be recovered through kerbside glass recycling, on top of a similar amount that is currently successfully and efficiently recovered through glass banks and HWRCs. This therefore provides the city with an opportunity to potentially double its glass recycling, however it was noted that it was unlikely that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

To note the date and time of the next meeting as Monday 19^th September 2022 at 1.00pm

RECOMMENDED – To note that the date of the next meeting will be 19^th September 2022, at 1pm.