Core emissions (Scope 1 & 2)
Scope 1 and 2 emissions are those within the council's greatest control. They relate to emissions from fuels and electricity used in council-operated buildings, vehicles, and other assets.
These have reduced by 21.3% from 2019-2020 to 2023-24.
The largest components of the council's Scope 1 and 2 footprint are the electricity and gas used in our corporate buildings, which together accounted for 89% of our Scope 1 and 2 emissions (electricity – 27%, gas - 62%). These emissions result from how we heat and power corporate buildings such as offices and depots.
The rollout of projects to decarbonise heat across our corporate properties, including the installation of heat pumps, has started to reduce our gas usage, which decreased by 11% between 2019-20 and 2023-24. As our installation of heat pumps scales up in the coming years, we can expect further decreases in gas usage.
All policies and projects that reduce our gas usage will also have a positive impact on air pollution emissions. In addition, all our activity to reduce carbon emissions from our fleet will result in improvements to local air quality.
Emissions from the council's wider value chain (Scope 3)
Scope 3 emissions are those within the council's influence, but with less and varying degrees of control.
The main sources are:
- council homes
- council-owned non-domestic buildings operated by other organisations
- our procured goods and services.
Excluding the council's procurement footprint, Scope 3 emissions have decreased by 18% between 2019-20 and 2023-24.
Estimated emissions from procurement have increased since the baseline year 2019-20 because spend on capital works was low in 2019-20. These are high-level estimates based on spend and are subject to some uncertainty. We're working with our contractors to achieve more accurate estimations of emissions associated with our contracts, and to reduce these.
