As part of our blog series responding to the National Emergency Briefing on Climate and Nature, we are exploring each of its key themes between now and the end of January. The briefing makes clear that responding to the climate and nature emergency requires rapid, coordinated action across many siloes, and we’re here to show you how it can be done.
This blog focusses specifically on the climate and energy themes of the briefing, and the question of delivery: how local government can realistically meet ambitious carbon targets at the pace required.
Meeting carbon targets – how do you deliver an ‘impossible’ task?
I speak to many climate directors, managers and officers in local government, and I am always struck by the fact that they have in effect landed an impossible task. Almost all councils have declared a climate emergency, and many have set a net zero carbon emission target for their region as a whole – a typical target may be 2035.
So far so good, but when you ask how their team of 0.5 to 5 people is going to ensure that the carbon emissions of every household, business and car is zero by 2035, the response is a quite understandable; ‘we don’t know’. For a region to become net zero, all businesses, community groups and other government bodies need to be working towards that same goal – if everyone is collaborating, achieving the target will be hard; separately, it is quite simply impossible.
Yet this impossible task is also essential. So what can a local government do?
The Systems Connector role
Fundamentally, they have to align and connect all the actors in their ecosystem – they have to act as Systems Connectors. Rather than trying to do everything themselves, Systems Connectors create the conditions for collective action, enabling diverse actors to work toward shared goals.
To provide a couple of specific examples:
1. Showing leadership and address their Scope 3 emissions by ensuring that all council decisions are aligned with their carbon target.
2. Enabling collaboration with and between the businesses, community groups and other government bodies that are also trying to achieve their carbon targets.
Addressing Scope 3: Whole council alignment
For most councils, Scope 3 carbon emissions – those from their supply chains, outsourced services, and procurement – account for between 75% and 95% of their carbon emissions. Addressing Scope 3 is therefore less about a single policy and more about changing how decisions are made across the organisation. Every department and every officer needs to understand how their choices affect energy demand and carbon outcomes.
We have been supporting councils to do this using OnePlanet as an enabling infrastructure. By embedding carbon and energy considerations into decision‑making processes, councils can ensure alignment without relying on overstretched climate teams to manually police every project.
Haringey and the London Borough of Merton, for example, want to ensure that all council decisions are aligned with their carbon targets. In Haringey’s case, this is a constitutional commitment. This has involved creating a clear process, supported by training and resources, that ensures that all issues that go to the Council for a decision – all projects, procurements and strategies – have considered how they can be aligned with the council’s carbon target.
This is not a small task. It requires process design, training, capacity-building and change management. But this ensures all the council’s activities are aligned with their carbon target – it is the beginning of a genuine ‘whole government response’.
Beyond the council: Connecting the wider ecosystem
Yet even if every council project and strategy is aligned with net zero, this typically accounts for only 2-5% of the region’s emissions. However, councils can influence at least a third of emissions through their policies, partnerships, and convening power – and to some degree, all emissions in their region.
Horsham District Council have set this as a key part of their strategy using OnePlanet to help community and business action align with the council’s carbon target. All parish councils are collaborating on the same platform, businesses are encouraged to do their part, and even Local Government Reorganisation is seen as an opportunity to align the activity of the county and the district.
The role of tools and training
Digital tools alone do not deliver change. OnePlanet enables organisations to connect internally and collaborate externally, but its impact depends on people stepping into the Systems Connector role.
Our Systems Connector training equips climate leaders with the skills, frameworks and confidence to coordinate complex systems, align energy and carbon decisions, and build momentum across their place. When combined with a dynamic platform like OnePlanet, this approach can transform an ‘impossible’ task into one that is challenging, achievable – and even energising.