Carbon Footprint Report shows reduction in emissions across council services
The council’s Carbon Footprint Report for 2022/23 has been published, showing a 12.85% year-on-year reduction in carbon emissions across all internal services.
This means we achieved and exceeded our internal carbon reduction objective of 12.7% for this period.
The report covers electricity, gas and oil usage across corporate buildings (including offices, social care, libraries, park properties, children’s centres and museums), schools and housing.
The report also includes carbon emissions from street lighting and fleet fuel consumption.
Year-on-year reductions
Corporate council buildings achieved a 17.9% year-on-year decrease in emissions, while council housing sites reported a 11.7% reduction and emissions from schools fell 14.7%.
Emissions from street lighting showed a year-on-year reduction of 19.3%. Over the last 10 years, this has fallen 81% thanks to an extensive LED lighting retrofit programme.
Ongoing carbon reduction activities
There are a range of different activities that will help us to continue meeting our carbon reduction targets going forwards, such as:
- Extending our solar PV and LED lighting retrofit programme to ease existing electricity demand
- Developing a Decarbonisation Pathways Study across the operational portfolio to identify opportunities to replace fossil fuel heating systems with low carbon alternatives
- Electrification of the council’s vehicle fleet to reduce reliance on diesel engines
Commitment to reducing emissions
Councillor Trevor Muten, Chair of the Transport and Sustainability Committee, said: “I’m delighted that we’ve achieved our internal carbon reduction goal for 2022/23.
“Since October 2020, all electricity procured through our corporate contracts has been 100% renewable, which highlights our commitment to reducing emissions and using more sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels.
“We will continue this drive to reduce internal carbon emissions across all council services. The council is, however, responsible for less than 2% emissions in the city.
“To realise our aim of becoming a Carbon Neutral city by 2030 we need a whole city approach and will work strategically with our partners to achieve this.”
