Further, Dr McLeod said two large pieces of work would soon come to councillors for their consideration.
She presented councillors with the organisation’s first "annual report" on the implementation and effectiveness of its climate strategy last week.
"It’s only actually been six months since the climate strategy was adopted in December last year, but we think quite a lot of progress has been made in a short time," Dr McLeod said.
Climate change was a strong theme in the council’s work, which "cuts across" all 18 of the council’s strategic directions, she said.
Significant progress had been made on an organisational emissions inventory, which was a "really foundational piece of work" for the council.
That work is due to be presented to councillors before the end of the year and will provide a foundation for the council’s yet to be developed emissions reduction plan.
Secondly, Dr McLeod said a gaps analysis was planned for next year that would involve working with teams across the council, but also with other councils in the region, to look at "what we should be doing or could be doing more of or less of in order to meet the goals of the climate strategy".
That work was due to take "a bit of time", but staff planned to present the analysis to councillors in the first half of next year.
The gaps analysis would start to look at sequestration opportunities across the region "and then what the role is of the regional council in that space".
"There’s quite a bit of interesting work going on at the moment at the national government level where they’re starting to look at whether they should be supporting a voluntary credit system for nature credits," Dr McLeod said.
"And there’s also work going on looking at whether coastal wetlands should be brought into the ETS [Emissions Trading Scheme].
"So that’s actually quite good timing for us.
"Hopefully, by the time we’ve finished the gaps analysis or got some way through the gaps analysis, the national direction on that will be quite clear."
A statement from the council said that most of 53 actions in the council’s climate strategy were "on track".
Forty-three actions were on track, while four actions were "off track", those actions largely awaiting the outcome of central government policy reform, the statement said.
Actions included in the strategy were those that would drive a reduction of the organisation’s carbon emissions, several that would deliver better environmental monitoring and others that would lead to the region adapting to a changing climate, it said. — APL
