Helen Burkhalter, Portfolio Officer Climate Change

Denbighshire County Council

My Role:

My role within DCC is to coordinate, monitor and manage activity in the four programmes which make up the Corporate Carbon Management Portfolio named Project Gaia. I am responsible for the Council's compliance under the Carbon Reduction Commitment and to ensure we perform well and take our responsibility seriously in reducing our carbon emissions annually. This also includes heading up Low Carbon Behaviour Change to help and encourage staff to contribute to a low carbon corporate culture.

The Challenge, Why did you apply?
I applied for the Local Government Challenge because I was excited by the opportunity to be involved in the first challenge based competition to find potential CEO's of the future. I can't wait to get stuck into our first challenge and the opportunity to build and test my skills. The winner will receive the Bruce Lockhart Scholarship and I would love to be able to represent UK Local Government abroad. It'll be great to explore best practice to help to practically improve things back at home.

What would you do with the £10,000 scholarship if you won?

This century throws up many challenges for Local Government but the number one quandary for me is how we deliver and continue to improve well-being for all whilst remaining within genuine environmental limits. Or to put it another way, how Local Government can deliver and facilitate the journey towards 'Sustainable Growth'. This is picked up by nef's 'Happy Planet Index' which offers a measure of wealth and success based on environmental, social as well as economic factors. With the scholarship I would fund a study tour of councils in the USA and Europe who have adopted such a measure and/or are performing well in terms of environmental efficiency. I would then use lessons learnt to develop practical plans for how Local Government Officers, together with Councillors, can realise environmentally efficient well-being in our different localities.