Climate Change and Air Quality Progress Report 2023 to 2024

As per previous Climate Change and Air Quality Strategy Progress Reports, we have calculated our own emissions respective of quantities produced in the Council’s reporting/financial year (April-March). In line with our reporting criteria, we include our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions -those arising from the Council’s own operations such as the buildings and vehicles we operate or those associated with the transmission and distribution of electricity that the Council uses. Business travel emissions relate to staff and councillors traveling in their own vehicles where a mileage expense claim was made. Emissions from the use of public transport, such as train journeys, for work travel weren’t captured as the data was not available. We have excluded emissions from our operations where our staff do not directly provide the service, for example waste collection vehicles operated around Wycombe, Chiltern and South Buckinghamshire areas. These are referred to as Scope 3 emissions, please see Insight Box #1 for more background on Scope 1, 2 and 3.

For the first time, we also include emissions associated with water consumption as we implement Action 5 (Determine the most practicable means of assessing the Council's Scope 3 emissions) of our Strategy to determine and the most practical ways of reporting on our Scope 3 emissions.

The following Table 2 shows our gross emissions for 2023/24:

Our total gross emissions for the reporting period were 7,965 tCO2e.

Electricity supplied to the council (and other partners supplied under the council’s electricity contract) from 1st October 2022 to 30th September 2024 has a 100% renewable tariff, fully backed by Renewable Electricity Guarantees of Origin (REGO) certificates. This has resulted in a substantial reduction in the emissions associated with electricity use. In line with guidance and our commitment to transparency, we are reporting our “Gross” (shown above) and “Net” (shown below) emissions separately. The following Table 3 shows our net emissions for 2023/24:

For 2023/24, we are reporting net emissions of 4,476 tCO2e. From this point on in the report, we will be referring only to “Net” emissions unless otherwise specified. As we have used 100% renewable electricity for the entirety of the ‘23/’24 reporting year there are zero greenhouse gas emissions associated with building, street lighting and EV fleet electricity consumption.

The pie chart in Figure 4 illustrates the source contributions to our 2023/24 net emissions.

The most significant source of emissions on a net basis is building gas consumption representing over 50% of the total, while the second largest source of emissions is the Council’s non-electrified fleet. Actions 17 and 18 from our Strategy deal with emissions reductions across our estate. By introducing energy efficiency measures to existing buildings we will be able to reduce emissions associated with gas (primarily heating) by both reducing demand and switching to low carbon heat sources in line with the asset lifecycles of our existing assets.

On our journey to Net Zero Carbon by 2050 we have several way markers to ensure that we remain on track. Compared to our 1990 baseline of 20,550 tCO2eq we will:

• Reduce our annual carbon emissions by at least 75% by 2030, to no more than 5,137.5 tCO2eq
• Reduce our annual carbon emissions by at least 90% by 2040, to no more than 2,055 tCO2eq
• Reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050

For 2024 we are reporting a reduction in emissions of 78.2% compared to our 1990 emissions, this is in line with our target of a 75% reduction by 2030.

We also set out a Carbon Budget for the seven year period from 2020-21 to 2026-27, in Table 5 of our Climate Change Strategy, with indicative annual allocations and a total budget of 46,069 tCO2e. The following figure shows our progress annually over the first four years of our first seven-year carbon budget. By procuring renewable energy from October 2022 to September 2024, we have achieved significant reductions in our net emissions allowing us to remain within our indicative annual allocations:

Our total emissions over the first four years amount to 21,678 tCO2e, or 47.1% of our first carbon budget through to 26/27.