News reaches us that Lib Dem Chesterfield Borough Council has recently joined the elite ranks of local authorities who are EMAS accredited.

EMAS, the Environmental Monitoring and Audit System, is a comprehensive assessment of an organisation’s green credentials. Only 16 local authorities in the country have EMAS accreditation, although more are working towards it. Achieving the accreditation means scouring through the entire council, checking each department for environmental performance, often bringing to light many problems on the way.

A brief look through the 16 authorities listed on the EMAS register, cross referenced with Keith Edkins’ Council Composition Table shows that bringing EMAS to local government is very much a Lib Dem achievement. It’s clearly no co-incidence that the EMAS logo has a bird on it! Over half of the councils who have managed this are either Lib Dem controlled outright or have the Lib Dems in coalition:

LD Control (5)

• Chesterfield Borough Council
• Lewes District Council
• Newcastle City Council
• London Borough of Sutton
• Bristol City Council

Coalitions with Lib Dems in them (4)

• Leicester City Council
• Chester City Council
• Leeds City Council
• High Peak Borough Council

A further six councils are in Tory control and a shocking one single authority – Rotherham – is Labour.