Senedd Cymru | Welsh Parliament
Pwyllgor Newid Hinsawdd, yr Amgylchedd a Seilwaith | Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee
Datgarboneiddio'r sector cyhoeddus | Decarbonising the public sector
Ymateb gan Chwaraeon Cymru | Evidence from Sport Wales
The five calls for actions are for individual organisations to consider. The Welsh Government will rightly need to consider how these apply to them as an organisation, including where their services, facilities and people are concerned. In terms of their role in supporting public bodies it will vary from supporting collaboration across public bodies, of which we have seen early and positive indications of this taking place. There will be a role in terms of financial support for the changes needed, as well as naturally an accountability process where public bodies are required to report on progress against remit letter expectations to the Welsh Government.
Thus far the support of the Welsh Government in providing expertise and input within the decarbonisation agenda has been positive. We have worked well with Welsh Government on the following key areas: -
• The development and funding of energy efficient renewable energy sources at our national centres via the Welsh Government Energy Service;
• Supporting the decarbonisation of the sport sector through capital investment for sustainability-based capital projects; and
• Annual carbon reporting processes.
Naturally there is a concern with the future public funding challenges how much this level of work can continue, but we remain in positive discussions with the Welsh Government, and colleagues across the public sector to support this need for change.
Public bodies are facing rising costs and reduced funding. This will make it difficult to deliver against some of the Audit Wales recommendations.
Increasing skills and capacity in decarbonisation is likely to be challenging. As noted in the Audit Wales recommendations, these skills are specialist and scarce. Welsh Government could support public bodies through a more co-ordinated and collaborative central approach to identifying and acting upon the skills gaps.
In the context of a real terms budget reduction in the current year, uncertainty around future budgets and a high proportion of fixed costs, it is difficult to dedicate revenue funding to decarbonisation.
Sport Wales is supportive of the ambition and sustainability and decarbonisation is one of our own organisational business plan priorities. The routemap is helpful in outlining high level aspirations. The routemap is also clear that it is not intended to set out the ‘how’, ‘who’ or actions to achieve the milestones but this level of detail and support would be helpful to support public bodies.
Delivery of the aspirations will require a much greater level of collaboration as significant aspects of the routemap are not achievable by organisations in isolation. For example, Sport Wales is supportive of the need to increase the use of public transport when commuting to work (and for spectators when attending events at our national centres) but is reliant upon local transport networks.
There has been little visibility of the procurement guidance, tools, and training (referenced in the moving up a gear stage) that would assist in embedding carbon reductions into procurement. Given that the scope 3 emissions relating to the purchase of goods and services are likely to form a substantial proportion of most public bodies’ emissions, further work to detail the ‘how’ in greater depth would be helpful.
Broadly there has been some positive activity, and it has been noticeable that this has been developed in collaboration with the Welsh Government and other public bodies.
The challenge for Sport Wales, and other public bodies, is not only in making the required change as a public body but also in supporting that to be a sector wide commitment. Some of the commitments we are currently making are to;
• Finalise and launch the Environmental Sustainability Strategy and develop an action plan in response to this.
• Develop or signpost guidance for the sector.
• Continue to prioritise our capital investment for sustainability focussed projects.
• Install the electrical vehicle charging point and further electric vehicle purchases to build on some of the existing energy efficient investments we have made.
• Increase awareness of the individual actions that staff, and the organisation can take, whilst celebrating the success stories of Sport Wales and our partner network through case studies.
• Embed sustainability into our procurement processes.
There is likely to be significant variation in progress against the key themes across the public sector. There are opportunities to share learning, knowledge and experience from those organisations who are more advanced on decarbonisation. There are also likely to be collaborative opportunities in areas such as procurement practice and processes that could be led centrally by Welsh Government and applied consistently across the public sector.
The financial commitment for the capital investment Sport Wales has received from the Welsh Government, both to support our own organisational changes and to instigate those in the sector, has been very welcome. We have also accessed input from expertise within Welsh Government to collaborate on some of the early changes we have been instigating. This has helped progress to date.
There are further opportunities for Welsh Government to support delivery of progress as follows: -
• A centrally led programme to establish sustainable procurement practices within public bodies, embedding low or zero carbon into decision-making (including tools and templates)
• Support to Welsh SMEs to identify / calculate the carbon impact of their goods or services, ensuring that they are competitive when sustainable procurement becomes embedded into public sector processes
• Establishing communities of practice or shared learning opportunities (Wales and beyond) in the key areas of focus
• Supporting the development of business cases for new public sector buildings that place an emphasis on the value of carbon rather than a pure economic business case.
It would be helpful to outline the funding available to support public bodies with climate change actions.
We do believe there is merit in examining the role the public sector could play in carbon offsetting in a responsible manner. This aspect of the sustainability agenda is likely to be an increasingly important requirement in future and if it is developed across partnerships in a forward-thinking way, could lead to improved solutions beyond short-term fixes.