Green Living Fund - Round 2
Perth and Kinross Council · 20 August 2025
Back to Climate Change and Sustainability Committee — 20 August 2025 and its agenda
Text extracted from the council's PDF. Layout and reading order may differ from the original.
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Our vision is a Perth and Kinross where everyone can live life well, free from poverty and inequality ___________________________________________________________________ Committee or Board: Climate Change and Sustainability Date of Meeting: 20 August 2025 Report Title: Green Living Fund – Round 2 Report Number: 25/206 Report Author: Divindy Grant, Team Leader – Climate Change and Sustainable Development Organisational Lead: Fraser Crofts, Strategic Lead - Environment and Infrastructure ___________________________________________________________________ 1. Purpose 1.1 The purpose of this Report is to provide members of the CC&S Committee with the proposed approach for delivery of Round 2 of the Green Living Fund (GLF) for review and approval. 1.2 Sections 1. Purpose 2. Recommendations 3. Background/Context 4. Main Issues 5. Proposals 6. Conclusion 7. Impact Value Assessment 8. Appendices 2. Recommendations It is recommended that the Committee: 2.1 Note the lessons presented from Round 1 of the Green Living Fund 2.2 Approve the approach to Round 2 of the Green Living Fund as outlined in Section 5.
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3. Background/Context 3.1 The Green Living Fund (GLF) has been designed to provide support to community groups with projects that help address both the cost of living and climate crises. It uses a participatory budgeting approach to build community buy-in and deliver local priorities. The Council provided funding for Round 1, which opened for applications in October 2023, with £215,386 in funds awarded to 38 groups as voted on by their communities in March 2024. These 38 projects were selected by over 2,000 voters. 3.2 A community showcase at the Climate Change and Sustainability Committee meeting of 19 February 2025 gave members a flavour of 10 of the 38 awardees. In general, the main outcomes include to biodiversity protection, carbon emissions reduction, reduced fuel and food bills, reduced waste to landfill, increased recycling and improved physical and mental health linked to volunteering and community group involvement. 3.3 Examples of the positive outcomes from Round 1 for Perth and Kinross include many benefits to both the environment and our communities. Biodiversity enhancements and other land use related issues such as seed planting, food growing and soil management (From Soil to Seed: Strathtay) as well as energy capacity increase such as solar panel and battery storage installations at the Madoch Centre, are some of the outcomes resulting from Round 1 projects. Furthermore, bike maintenance workshops, training and bike donations benefited all age groups in Aberfeldy (Draft and Flow Community Cycle Workshop) while over 100 people were taught to upcycle across 20 upcycling workshops ran by the Tayside Upcycling and Craft Centre. In the all-electric hall at Glenfarg Community Centre, 62% of electricity used was generated by the solar panels installed using the GLF award and using this award to leverage other funding streams. 3.4 Green Living Fund projects align with the following themes and must also demonstrate how it will help local residents with the cost of living: Energy - reducing consumption, promoting efficiency, generating renewable Transport - encouraging active travel, decarbonising transport Waste - reduce, reuse, repurpose and recycle Resilience – adapting to changing conditions – including flooding, drought and heat Nature - improving greenspace, increasing biodiversity, local food growing Engagement - increasing public awareness and engaging communities 3.5 Climate Change and Sustainability Committee engagement led to Members allocating £200k of Perth and Kinross Council funding for GLF- Round 2 as part of the budget setting process for 2025/26 (Report 25/36 refers).
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4. Main Issues 4.1 An evaluation of the Round 1 process, was circulated to elected members as a briefing note in May 2024 (EMBN Number: 051-24). It highlighted that there was overall positive feedback and increased community engagement and awareness about what was delivered. It did raise challenges around: age restrictions for young voters – the platform had a minimum sign-up age of 16 effective methods for in-person engagement – standalone in-person events and library drop-ins had limited engagement, with more effective engagement happening as part of joining at other community events. Systems and process – a number of small operational challenges were identified including the length of project summaries and the registration and the application process within the Consul system. 4.2 It should be noted that participatory budgeting has not been popular with all community groups. A few groups have raised concerns about it leading to a popularity contest and generating a spirit of competition rather than collaboration between groups. The level of officer effort to deliver the participatory budgeting approach has also been challenging. 4.3 There is a second community participatory budgeting project planned to be run by the Council this autumn. Fairer Communities for All (FCFA) will combine the process for community consultation and decision making for the Community Investment Fund and Participatory Budgeting funds (Report 25/160 refers). The approach to this fund is to consult communities about their priorities for addressing cost of living issues and to work with community groups to develop collaborative projects which will then be put forward for a public vote. It is the view of officers that there are many groups already trying to engage communities on climate action which we are already aware of. Taking a similar consultation approach to the FCFA would increase the likelihood of consultation fatigue of residents. 4.4 With the Council’s approaches to participatory budgeting, the funds have been distributed based proportionally on population of each area. This is equitable but provides challenges for community groups working across multiple areas or across all of Perth & Kinross to access the funds.
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4.5 Table 1 below summarises the advantages versus disadvantages of participatory budgeting and traditional grant approaches. Table 1 Participatory Budgeting Approach Traditional Grant Approach Advantages Increased community engagement and decision making Community ownership over allocation Equitable distribution of funds Ability to prioritise based on greatest impact Flexibility over local distribution of funds Lower officer resources Disadvantages Increased officer resource (though reduced if run together with the FCFA) Competition rather than collaboration Reduced community engagement and empowerment Officers make decisions on grant funding rather than local people 5. Proposals 5.1 Given the FCFA will be running in parallel with the GLF and community engagement and outreach will already be taking place, it proposed to continue to run the GLF following a participatory budgeting approach. 5.2 It is proposed to run the GLF and FCFA separately, but in parallel to make it easier for residents, there will be a unified public voting process. This will include all engagement events to raise awareness and voting assistance provision cover both funds. When voting, there will be a single link to accessing the voting system, with voters then able to cast their votes for their choice of projects within the two funds separately. There would be no obligation to vote for projects in both categories if the resident was only interested in GLF or FCFA projects. Additional benefits of this aligned approach include engagement of a wider audience of potential community voices and reduced officer engagement time. 5.3 The following modifications are proposed for Round 2 funding: Weighted scoring: It is proposed to evaluate the GLF proposals 50% on technical evaluation by the PKC officers and 50% on community voting. This PKC officer scoring will be based on the following criteria: o Expected climate change impact – 30% o Expected cost of living impact – 30% o Wider community benefits - 20% o Value for Money - 20%
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Allocation of funding by ward: Aligning with the FCFA approach, it is proposed that 50% of the funding will be allocated equally to each ward and 50% of the funding will be allocated based on the population of the ward. The proposed allocation is shown in Table 1. Young people: MS Forms will be used instead of the CONSUL platform. This removes a minimum age requirement for access. Established engagement channels in schools will be used to gather voting. Non-digital: PKC libraries will provide supported access, as well as officers setting up pop-up voting events as part of other community events and in warm spaces. Table 1 5.4 When scoring the expected impact of projects, PKC officers will score these impacts as High, Medium and Low for each project, based on quantified numbers when available. Projects can have either a direct impact (e.g. energy savings from installing solar panels) or an enabling impact (e.g. providing a community EV charging point, which makes it more likely for community members to shift). As part of the application process, groups will be asked to give an indication of their expected impact. The Climate Change and Sustainable Development Team will provide support to applicants to facilitate this process. 5.5 The shift from the CONSUL platform to MS Forms has many advantages around accessibility for young people, no need to register and ease of use. A downside is though, that it is harder to regulate the number of times people vote. To minimise the risk and impact of people voting multiple times, there will be a minimum number of projects that one has to vote for. This means that if someone votes to boost one project, they will be boosting other projects too and it should negate the impact. The minimum number of project votes will be set by officers, following submission of applications using judgement based on the number of applications and value of these application per ward. It is envisioned to be 3-5 required project votes for each fund. Ward Population (Census 22) Equal Split Per Capita allocation Total Funding 1 – Carse of Gowrie 9916 £8333.33 £6568.85 £14,902.18 2 - Strathmore 15,458 £8333.33 £10,240.14 £18,573.47 3 – Blairgowrie & Glens 11,248 £8333.33 £7451.23 £15,784.56 4 - Highland 8927 £8333.33 £5913.68 £14,247.01 5 - Strathtay 12,302 £8333.33 £8149.45 £16,482.78 6 - Strathearn 10,419 £8333.33 £6902.05 £15,235.38 7 - Strathallan 11,727 £8333.33 £7768.54 £16,101.87 8 – Kinross-shire 14,119 £8333.33 £9353.12 £17,686.45 9 – Almond & Earn 10,162 £8333.33 £6731.80 £15,065.13 10 – Perth City South 16,641 £8333.33 £11,023.82 £19,357.15 11 – Perth City North 12,379 £8333.33 £8200.46 £16,533.79 12 – Perth City Centre 17,657 £8333.33 £11,696.86 £20,030.19 Totals 150,953 £99,999.96 £100,000 £199,999.96
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5.6 Monitoring and evaluation - For projects with direct impact, officers will calculate the real impact on carbon emissions in relation to each project by looking at year-on-year consumption data can provide an estimated quantification of impact. This can be achieved by looking at the emissions sources such as energy consumption, transport modes and/or waste management relevant to the project. Estimating the impact on emissions reduction will depend on data availability and accuracy. Annual energy consumption figures from electricity and gas bills for example, can be used to provide an accurate estimate of the impact the funding has on carbon emissions. For projects with an Enabling Impact, we will look for wider data proxies to use. 5.7 The proposed timeline for the GLF Application Process is: 22 August 2025 – GLF call for applications opens 15 September 2025 – FCFA call for applications opens 03 October 2025 – Submission for applications closes 03 October – 27 October 2025 – Screening of applications by Council 27 October –14 November 2025 - Voting open 17 - 21 November 2025 - Final screening 24 - 29 November 2025 - Results evenings 8-12 December 2025 – Target date for disbursing funds to successful applicants. 6. Conclusion 6.1 The Green Living Fund Round 1 was an impactful approach that helped 38 community organisations shape and deliver impactful changes locally. Lessons were learnt from Round 1 and other participatory budgeting approaches that have been incorporated into the proposed approach for Round 2. These should help to further increase the accessibility, engagement and impact of this funding. 7. Impact Value Assessment https://www.pkc.gov.uk/media/54180/Green-Living-Fund-Round- 2/pdf/Green_Living_Fund_-_Round_2.pdf?m=1752479270847 8. Appendices 8.1 None.