Reducing carbon emissions has become a labour of love for us over the past year and a half. Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council joined the Carbon Trust’s Local Authority Carbon Management (LACM) programme, and over the space of about eight months, developed our Carbon Management Plan.

Our target is to reduce our carbon emissions by a massive 40% over the next five years. We’ll do this by implementing over 150 projects – and the list is still growing! We’ve also committed £3.5m capital funding over the next 5 years to make it happen.

Rising to the challenge

Joining 10:10 provides us with a fantastic springboard to start our programme – to raise awareness amongst our staff and the wider community – and if we can save 10% of our emissions in one year that’s a quarter of our target achieved! 

Joining 10:10 provides us with a fantastic springboard to start our programme ... if we can save 10% of our emissions in one year that’s a quarter of our target achieved!

The programme is very challenging but provided an excellent base to establish our baseline carbon emissions and get our structure and governance arrangements just right. It took so much work from a whole range of people across the organisation to get everything in place, but eventually we put together a cracking plan – and now we’re getting on with implementing it!

First steps include awareness raising campaigns, building and technical improvements such as insulation, lighting improvements and controls, and voltage optimisation, as well as street lighting and vehicle fleet replacements, and major IT projects. We have a lot to do!

So far so good

 And we’ve started really well. Since the plan was approved in March 2010 we have:

• Taken delivery of an electric vehicle, available for staff and members to use in their daily work activities.

• Launched the first section of our staff awareness campaign “Switch it off”, which prompted a 7% drop in electricity usage in the main council building in the first two months.
• Launched an online energy efficiency staff training tool.
• Recruited our first carbon champions.
• Held an awareness session for our councillors.
• Developed a suite of environmental policies, including climate change, energy and carbon management.
• Completed boiler replacement schemes at two of our schools and our literacy centre.
• Completed the installation of cavity wall insulation to 3 schools.
• Completed the installation of voltage optimisation equipment to a Museum and a secondary school, and carried out logging and surveys for similar installations at 4 leisure centres and 1 office.
• Commenced works to replace old gas-fired boiler plant at one of our primary schools with a new biomass boiler plant.
• Placed orders for
  • lighting upgrades and controls to 12 buildings;
  • valve / boilerhouse insulation to 3 buildings;
  • replacement of sterilising sinks with dishwashers in 26 schools
• We have now also replaced 95% of our light vehicle fleet and fitted them with speed limiters to reduce fuel consumption.
• We have just appointed our first Energy and Carbon Performance Officer and are also about to appoint our first Climate Change and Renewables Officer.

We’ve also installed photovoltaic solar panels to one of our main offices and plan to carry our further renewable installations across our estate.

Committed and commissioned projects to date will bring CO₂ savings of 519 tonnes, with a further 328 tonnes in pipeline projects. This equates to 42% of our annual target and contributes 8.6% to our overall target.

Employees

Many have used an intranet tool to make their own carbon reduction pledges, including environmental sustainability specialist Paul Taylor, who is cutting his personal CO2 emissions by more than a tonne per year. Paul, pictured, has pledged to car-share two days a week, instead of bringing his own vehicle to work - cutting 2,520 miles a year and putting a spare £414 in his pocket. “I live near Stokesley and drive to work each day,” said Paul. “By making a few changes to my working week and childcare arrangements I can car-share twice a week without it greatly affecting either my work or my family commitments. I’d urge other people to see if they can do something similar.”

Next steps

So far so good – but we have no room for complacency. Our target is a tough one and we must maintain the momentum that we’ve worked so hard to build to ensure that our target is achieved.