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Mendip District Council

Declarations & pledges

Climate emergency declaration

This council declared a climate emergency on Feb. 25, 2019.

Whole area pledge for 2030

“Establishing a baseline emissions inventory is the first step in determining how to deliver on the Councils Carbon Emissions Pathway to enable the district to be Net-Zero by 2030.”

Climate documents

Last update: March 16, 2022
District-wide Carbon Management Plan 2021–2023

Action Plan · PDF · Approved · Council Only
Climate Targets | Mendip District Council

Pre-Plan · HTML

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Climate Plan Scorecard

This council’s climate plans as of 20th September 2021 were assessed and scored by trained Climate Emergency UK volunteers, as part of the Council Climate Plan Scorecards project.

Show the full Scorecard Read more about the scoring process

Mendip District Council was a top performer amongst district councils, in two sections including Mitigation and adaptation.

SectionMendip District CouncilAverage district council
Total score71%43%
Section 1 Governance, development and funding
16/21
9.4/21
Section 2 · Top performer Mitigation and adaptation
18/18
8.1/18
Section 3 Commitment and integration
3/7
3.8/7
Section 4 Community, engagement and communications
7/9
4.7/9
Section 5 Measuring and setting emissions targets
4/5
2.6/5
Section 6 Co-benefits
4/4
1.9/4
Section 7 Diversity and inclusion
2/5
0.5/5
Section 8 Education, skills and training
2/5
1.5/5
Section 9 · Top performer Ecological emergency
4/4
1.8/4

Emissions data

542.2 ktCO2

Total 2020 emissions

4.7 tCO2

per person

0.7 ktCO2

per km2

38%

Transport

29%

Domestic

21%

Industry

6%

Agriculture

4%

Commercial

2%

Public Sector

Data from the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy “subset dataset”, representing carbon dioxide emissions within the scope of influence of local authorities.

These councils are the most similar to Mendip District Council in terms of emissions profile, deprivation, rural/urban population density, and geographical nearness. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
Somerset County Council89%No2030Feb. 20, 2019
Herefordshire Council85%Yes2030March 8, 2019
Devon County Council84%Yes2030Feb. 21, 2019
Dorset Council83%No2040May 16, 2019
Malvern Hills District Council82%Yes2030July 23, 2019
South Somerset District Council81%Yes2023May 21, 2019
Sedgemoor District Council81%Yes2030March 20, 2019
Somerset West and Taunton Council81%Yes2030Feb. 21, 2019
Forest of Dean District Council80%Yes2030Dec. 6, 2018
Wychavon District Council79%Yes2050No

These councils are the most similar to Mendip District Council in terms of their emissions profile, based on the latest data from the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
South Somerset District Council88%Yes2023May 21, 2019
Somerset County Council86%No2030Feb. 20, 2019
West Lindsey District Council83%Yes2050No
Herefordshire Council83%Yes2030March 8, 2019
Devon County Council82%Yes2030Feb. 21, 2019
South Holland District Council82%NoNo targetNo
Babergh District Council81%Yes2030July 23, 2019
Tewkesbury Borough Council81%Yes2030Oct. 1, 2019
Breckland District Council81%Yes2035Sept. 19, 2019
Mid Suffolk District Council80%Yes2030July 25, 2019

Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
Bath and North East Somerset Council97%Yes2030March 14, 2019
Somerset County Council97%No2030Feb. 20, 2019
South Somerset District Council96%Yes2023May 21, 2019
North Somerset Council95%Yes2030Feb. 19, 2019
Bristol City Council94%Yes2025Nov. 13, 2018
South Gloucestershire Council94%Yes2030July 17, 2019
Sedgemoor District Council93%Yes2030March 20, 2019
Dorset Council93%No2040May 16, 2019
Newport City Council91%Yes2030Nov. 23, 2021
Stroud District Council90%No2030Dec. 13, 2018

These councils are the most similar to Mendip District Council in terms of the proportion of their population living in high deprivation, medium deprivation, and low deprivation neighbourhoods. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
Shropshire Council - Unitary97%No2030May 16, 2019
Mid Devon District Council97%Yes2030June 26, 2019
West Suffolk Council96%No2030Sept. 19, 2019
Powys County Council95%No2030July 30, 2020
South Somerset District Council94%Yes2023May 21, 2019
Dumfries and Galloway Council94%Yes2025June 27, 2019
Eden District Council93%No2030July 11, 2019
Somerset County Council93%No2030Feb. 20, 2019
Devon County Council92%Yes2030Feb. 21, 2019
Midlothian Council91%No2030Dec. 17, 2019

These councils are the most similar to Mendip District Council in terms of the proportion of their population living in urban, rural, and highly rural neighbourhoods. Read more about how we calculate this.

Council nameSimilarityHas planCarbon Neutral byDeclared emergency
Melton Borough Council98%No2030July 17, 2019
Stirling Council96%YesNo targetOct. 3, 2019
Angus Council92%YesNo targetSept. 5, 2019
Mid and East Antrim Borough Council90%NoNo targetSept. 9, 2019
Carmarthenshire County Council89%Yes2030Feb. 20, 2019
Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council88%NoNo targetNo
Ashford Borough Council87%Yes2030No
Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council87%NoNo targetNo
Somerset County Council87%No2030Feb. 20, 2019
Wiltshire Council87%No2030Feb. 26, 2019

Features

This council’s climate plan has been tagged with the following features:

Comprehensive plan for mitigation Comprehensive plan for adaptation Strong on public health

Powers & Responsibilities

Mendip District Council is a Non-Metropolitan District, with powers over:

Council buildings and staff

Climate actions might include:

  • making council offices more energy efficient
  • incentivising ‘Active Travel’ or public transport use among employees
  • providing carbon literacy training for employees
    Environmental health

    Climate actions might include:

    • reducing industrial emissions through air quality enforcement
    • bringing up insulation and energy efficiency standards through enforcement of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) and Decent Homes Standard 2000, for cold and damp conditions in private rental and social housing

    See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

    Planning and building control

    Climate actions might include:

    • imposing reasonable requirements that new developments comply with energy efficiency standards and get a proportion of their energy from local, renewable sources (Planning and Energy Act, 2008)
    • incorporating additional energy performance standards into their Local Plan, for new works that require planning permission
    • using Area Action Plans to guide development proposals towards lower carbon emissions or more cycling and walking routes, for example
    • enforcing legislation that requires private rental properties to be of Energy Efficiency Rating E or above (Energy Efficiency Regulations, 2015)
    • funding energy efficiency improvements on existing homes, through initiatives such as Green Homes Grants

    See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

    Housing

    Climate actions might include:

    • setting energy standards above building regulations (Planning and Energy Act, 2008)
    • enabling housing associations to improve the energy efficiency of their housing stock through loans
    • where councils operate their own social housing, prioritising energy efficiency – for example, by requiring Passivhaus standard for newly built schemes

    See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

    Spending, procuring, and investing

    Climate actions might include:

    • embedding carbon impact assessment as part of the council’s budgeting and financial accountability process
    • utilising Public Works Loan Board loans or the Business Rates Retention Scheme to invest in emissions-reducing capital projects that otherwise wouldn’t get funded
    • specifying low carbon equipment and practices when procuring for relevant services from suppliers
    • prioritising positive environmental impacts during procurement, through the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012
    Waste collection

    Climate actions might include:

    • establishing ‘Joint Waste Solutions’ with neighbouring councils, to get more value out of waste, recycling, and street cleaning contracts
    • running marketing campaigns to encourage residential recycling, reuse, and waste minimisation

    See more in the Climate Emergency UK checklist.

    Read more about English local authority powers in the UK100 Power Shift report.

    More about this council

    mendip.gov.uk
    Mendip District Council’s official homepage.
    Tyndall Centre Carbon Budget report
    Check Mendip District Council’s ‘carbon budget’ – their share towards meeting the UK’s Paris agreement targets.
    Friends of the Earth ‘Near You’ tool
    Discover climate groups in this area, data about Mendip District Council’s climate performance, and actions you can take.

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    Cite this page

    mySociety, Climate Emergency UK (2023). CAPE: Mendip District Council. Available at: http://cape.mysociety.org/councils/mendip-district-council/ [Accessed 22 Mar 2023].

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