Leading the way in cutting carbon emissions

Bury Council is leading the way in cutting CO2 emissions by cutting its energy use by 10% in the last 12 months.

New figures show that electricity and gas usage in all the council’s non-domestic buildings (excluding schools) and street lighting produced 12,222 tonnes of CO2, down by 1,395 tonnes compared to 2014/15.

This has contributed to the council making savings of £142,000 on energy bills and Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) carbon allowance payments.

The figures come from the annual CRC Energy Efficiency report for 2015/16.This is part of a Government scheme to improve energy efficiency and cut carbon dioxide emissions by private and public sector organisations that are high energy users.

The reduction in CO2 has been caused by a combination of factors: the mild winter, better use of buildings, installation of energy saving measures such as LED lighting, efficient boilers, improved insulation, encouraging staff to ‘switch off’ and increasing use of renewables.

The council also produces a Greenhouse Gas report each year which looks at a much wider range of energy use including schools and council vehicles. The report can be read here: http://www.bury.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=17257&p=0

Councillor Alan Quinn, cabinet member for the environment, said: “Since 2008/09 we have reduced our carbon emissions by 19% and have implemented more than 100 projects which are calculated to reduce our emissions by 3,500 tonnes per year. These include cavity wall insulation, new boilers, energy management systems, energy efficient lighting, solar electricity generation and voltage optimisation.

“We are running an awareness raising campaign ‘The Carbon Cost Challenge’ and we have a network of 50 ‘green champions’ across our workforce who help to spread the word.”

Cllr Quinn added: “We are planning a major energy efficiency retrofit of five of our main buildings, and we have commissioned a study to look at the feasibility of a heat network to supply heat and electricity to town centre buildings.

“Since 2012 we have installed 5,800 LED streetlights and have a target to install a further 3,700 before the end of 2017/18. We are also working with Greater Manchester colleagues to set up an energy company to harness locally generated energy, in order to provide fairly priced electricity and gas to our residents and to help tackle fuel poverty.”

ENDS

Press release issued: 27 July 2016.