Our action on climate change

We operate a wide range of buildings which are heavily reliant on gas to heat and operate. These operate at a range of scales from small buildings with modest needs, to two leisure centres which represent an extremely large space and water heating requirement. This is the single largest impact we can have on reducing our organisational emissions.

We operate a fleet of vehicles to support a range of different services within the borough. These include the road vehicles used to transport staff and equipment, and specialist machinery (such as lawnmowers) used to maintain properties and green space within the borough. Decarbonisation of these vehicles will form a core element of our activities to reach the 2030 target.

Green spaces, particularly woodland, deliver a wide range of benefits to the borough. These include mental health benefits, improvements to air quality and biodiversity, as well as noise, flood, and pollution abatement and carbon storage. The changing climate and need for carbon storage may require some changes in green space land use and should inform our management programme going forward.

While we expect to work primarily on emissions reduction measures, in spite of our best efforts, some emissions are likely to remain unavoidable by the 2030 target. These residual emissions are expected to come from some particularly hard to modify buildings (given their use or listed status for example) and potentially from some vehicles where reliable decarbonised replacements are not available. These emissions will need to be offset by negative emissions from other sources (such as woodland planting).

We can be locally influential in communicating issues surrounding climate change. This may include raising awareness of the risks we all face and how we can work together to mitigate them, while also highlighting action the council is taking to support residents. We can also support community activities aimed at decreasing emissions and increasing local resilience to climate change.

While no statutory obligation exists to report on carbon emissions, the council will need to monitor progression of activity towards the 2030 carbon neutral target to ensure that we are meeting our commitments.

We will work together with partners and suppliers to maximise opportunities to decarbonise activities and adapt to the impacts of climate change.