Race for the One Planet Standard
Swansea Council is seeking to be the first Welsh council to receive accreditation for the work it's doing to reduce its overall ecological footprint.
As well as decarbonisation, this covers buildings, travel, land use and waste as well as biodiversity and the impact on natural resources.
Alongside other councils, the race is on to be assessed for the new Welsh Government-endorsed One Planet Standard.
This helps organisations create a road map towards net zero carbon with necessary targets and metrics to keep them on their journey.
Andrea Lewis, Swansea Council's joint deputy leader and cabinet member for climate change and service transformation, is due to speak at COP26 today (Thu, Nov 11).
She will be on an expert panel alongside: Sophie Howe, Future Generations Commissioner; Jaco Marais from the Good Governance Institute; Paul Bridle, CEO of Assessment Services; Seb Wood, managing director of Whitby Wood; plus David Thorpe and Virginia Isaac, from the One Planet Centre.
The session is being live streamed from Glasgow and can be viewed on the COP26 You Tube channel - https://youtu.be/eSDnAnpaGHs. Questions can be submitted via https://app.sli.do/event/at8rkshh.
Cllr Lewis said: "It's important to have measurable standards and an independent set of eyes making sure that we don't have gaps in things that we should be focusing on.
"We've made a commitment to reach net zero as a council by 2030. We hope that across Swansea we reach net zero by 2050. But this is about changing behaviours, winning hearts and minds, bringing businesses, bringing the public along with us and of course engaging our staff."
The Standard's developer, and One Planet Centre CIC founder-director,David Thorpe, will say:"The One Planet Standard helps organisations of all types combat climate change and improve biodiversity by adjusting the complete impacts of their activities.
"The One Planet Standard will assist organisations to use integrated reporting to account for the progress they are making towards achieving the 17 UN sustainability goals."
The One Planet Standard is supported by many of the top environmentalists in Wales, a nation recognised as a world leader in this field, and by the Welsh Future Generations Commissioner,Sophie Howe, who said: "The Standard aligns and builds on my existing advice in the area of decarbonisation and enhancing nature resilience, and it can help not only the public sector but all organisations in Wales with practical actions towards meeting carbon emission and biodiversity targets.
"The Standard centres around the five ways of working and promotes long-term thinking; it is an easy-to-understand and useful tool that can help address the climate and nature emergencies, prevent the disaster we are currently heading towards and help ensure the well-being of our future generations and the planet."
Downloading the Standard is free. For more information visit: https://oneplanetstandard.org/.