Our climate change action plan
We have developed an action plan to decarbonise our own operations and provide a route map to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our own estate and operations.
The key objectives of the plan are:
- Improve and continue to collect data on council emissions to monitor progress on reaching our targets
- Encourage and enable energy saving/low carbon behaviour by all council staff and members and increase awareness of climate change
- Focus our actions on reducing scope 1 and 2 emissions from our most energy intensive buildings which include Phoenix House and Parkside through energy efficiency measures
- Deliver the Housing Revenue Asset (HRA) Business Plan, which sets out the council’s expectations and plans for council homes for the next 30 years, in which climate change is a key part
- New developments by the council should consider climate change mitigation, for example any future leisure facilities.
- All new council policies, procedures and procurement to include impact on climate change as default
- Explore and implement offsetting measures to achieve net zero from our hard to remove emission sources
The full Action Plan can be downloaded and read in full at the bottom of the page. We intend to be review and update this action plan annually.
We worked with Association of Public Service Excellence (APSE) APSE Energy to produce a Baseline Study of the emissions generated by our own operations.
The Baseline Study measures the amount of emissions produced across council services in the period April 2019 to March 2020 (pre-covid). It allows us to have baseline figure to reduce from, which will be the starting point to meeting our net-zero target. The data provided has also been used to inform our action plan.
The key points relating to our carbon emissions are:
- The 2019/20 net carbon footprint from scope 1, 2 & 3 emissions within our operations was 5,812 tCO2e (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent).
- High emitters include:
- Housing stock
- Leased Assets
- Contractor Travel
- Our own gas usage.
- 91.8% of our total emissions are Scope 3 emissions
Recommendations on how we can reduce emissions
Using the baseline as a basis APSE produced a trajectory report. This report outlines various scenarios of how we can reduce our emissions and details short, medium and long term recommendations. These recommendations and cost estimates are only a guide but they have helped inform our Action plan, which is available to view at the bottom of this page.
The key points from Net Zero Carbon Emissions Trajectory include:
- The council has the ability to reduce its emissions by 4,001tCO2e (77%) between 2019 to 2030.
- The other 23% (1,199tCO2e) are from hard to reduce sources that will need to be offset, potentially through a Council led land–based PV and a tree planting scheme.
The full baseline study and trajectory report can be downloaded and read in full at the bottom of the page.
Review of our Carbon Footprint
A review of our carbon footprint was undertaken for the period 2022–2023 using the Local Partnerships/Local Government Association Greenhouse Gas Accounting Tool. This tool uses the best data available at the time and provides a good comparison with the data collected in the baseline study in 2019. The data available demonstrates reduction of emissions over the last three-year period:
The carbon footprint for council operations (including scope 1 and 2 emissions and some scope 3 but not council housing) has fallen by 178 tCO2e (12%) from 1520 tCO2e in 2019/20 to 1342 tCO2e in 2022/2023.
Scope 1 and 2 emissions have decreased by 78 tCO2e (21%) from 364 tCO2e in 2019/20 to 286 tCO2e in 2022/2023. These are emissions from activities the council pays energy/fuel bills:
- Most of this fall is due to less electricity and gas being used at Parkside and Phoenix House most likely associated with remote/agile working practices, with fewer people being in the offices.
- Emissions from Parkside and Phoenix House have decreased by 45 tCO2e (23%) and 4 tCO2e (7%) respectively.
Changes to scope 3 emissions, from sources the Council has less control over, include:
- Emissions from employee commuting have fallen by 128 tCO2e from 257 tCO2e in 2019/20 to 129 tCO2e in 2022/2023 based on the assumption that on average staff are now driving into work 3 days a week as opposed to 5 days a week in 2019/20.
- Emissions from refuse vehicle fleet have decreased slightly by 3.6 tCO2e over the period3, but as housing numbers increase in the Borough carbon emissions are projected to increase if fossil fuelled vehicles are continued to be used.
- Business Travel has increased by 1.08 tCO2e from 2.6tCO2e in 2019/20 to 3.68 tCO2e 2022/202.
- Emissions from Leisure Centres have increased from 497 tCO2e in 2019/20 to 538 tCO2e in 2022/2023