Movements towards a net zero future

Staffordshire County Council has reduced its carbon emissions by a quarter in the first year, after declaring a climate change emergency.

Staffordshire County Council recently released its Climate Change Annual Report that describes the steps the council has taken to reduce its carbon emissions.

The report highlights a significant 25% reduction in the council’s carbon emissions in its first year. This has been achieved mainly by transferring all corporate council buildings, maintained schools, street lights and traffic signals to run on renewable energy.

Staffordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment, Infrastructure and Climate Change, Simon Tagg (pictured) said: “The County Council can be proud of the significant positive steps made last year that are highlighted in the annual report. They have set us in the right direction to achieve our net zero target.

“This is our first report since declaring the emergency and it allows us to share our achievements and our plans for the future. We still have a lot more to do and many challenges to overcome if we are to achieve our target, although I am confident the work over the last year has set a strong foundation for our net zero journey.”

The council also published its draft (2021-2025) Climate Change Action Plan, which will be reviewed by the Corporate Overview & Scrutiny Committee prior to sign off by Cabinet in October 2021. The document outlines how the Council aims to continue to make progress towards the nationally set net zero target of 2050. The plan focuses on five key areas including organisational carbon reduction, air quality, waste, natural environment and changing staff and resident behaviour to be more environmentally friendly.

Amongst some of the changes within the proposed action plan are to increase electric vehicle charging points across the county, improve the energy efficiency of all council owned buildings, to look into carbon offsetting options for areas such as disposal of household waste, which are going to be impossible to eliminate.