13.36% saving in carbon emissions since 2007.

Nottingham City Council has made significant savings in its CO₂ emissions. By the end of the financial year 2011-12, a overall saving of 8,305 tonnes of CO₂ (13.36%) has been achieved since it's baseline year of 2007-08. A 10% reduction in CO₂ emissions was achieved between 2010-11 and 2011-12. This has resulted in an overall financial saving to the Council of £2.7m.

The Councils Carbon Management Plan monitors CO₂ emissions from energy consumption in the Councils property, business travel, and fuel use from the Councils fleet. The recently published review for 2011-12 reveals that 42% of the savings have been achieved by the Councils Energy Management team via energy reduction projects such as new efficient lighting systems, and heating improvements, 32% from the councils property rationalisation programme, with significant reductions achieved in closing many of the former City Centre offices and moving into Loxley House, 22% has come from reductions in emissions from the Council's fleet, via a reduction in fleet numbers, efficient use of vehicles, and route planning, the remaining 4% has come from reduction in business travel.

The 2011-12 Carbon Management Plan review can be viewed  Carbon Management Plan Review 2011-12 [1Mb]

We report our carbon emissions in two ways:

Carbon Management Plan

Nottingham City Council has undergone many changes since we published our first Carbon Management Plan in March 2009. Because of this we have carried out a review and refresh of our current carbon management plan.

We first published our Carbon Management Plan with the Carbon Trust back in 2009. This plan contained actions to reduce our carbon emissions by 30% by 2016 from a 2007 baseline. A copy of this plan is available here  Carbon Management Plan 2007-2016 [1Mb].

Our Carbon Management Plan contains 22 actions, which could potentially deliver a 52% carbon saving by 2016 which exceeds our 31% reduction target.

To view our revised Carbon Management Plan please view it here -  Carbon Management Plan 2012 - 2016 [1Mb].

This plan has used conversion factors for scope 1 & 2 direct emissions only for CO₂.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report

All local authorities are now requested to provide a greenhouse gas emissions report for our own estate and operations to the Department of Energy and Climate Change. This report should not be compared directly to our Carbon Management Plan as it contains different carbon conversion factors, and we report direct and indirect emissions for CO₂e.

Our CO₂e emissions have fallen by 18.5% from our baseline year of 2007-08 to 68,269 tonnes in 2011-12, and can be attributed to:

• 11.7% fall for our energy, fleet, and business travel
• 41% fall from Waste Disposal activities
• Gas consumption down by 26%
• Result of property rationalisation, and investments in low carbon / renewable energy instalments in our building stock
• Reduction in fuel use by our fleet, via reduction in vehicle numbers, and more efficient ways of working
• 66% reduction in CO₂ from our business travel

To view a copy of our 2011-12 report.  Greenhouse Gas Report 2011-12 [15kb]  

The below table provides our carbon emissions data for the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report:

* August 2011 conversion factors(document will download from the DEFRA website).