Edinburgh emissions fall for the 6th year in a row

Edinburgh Council reports that their greenhouse gas emissions have fallen for the 6th year running. 

The findings, which have been released as part of the latest Public Bodies Climate Change Duties (PBCCD) report, reveal that the council’s emissions have been cut by 11% in the past financial year. 

The reduction is mainly thanks to a fall in electricity consumption, achieved through lighting or other energy efficiency upgrades, property closures during the pandemic and greening of the grid. 

An upgrade in LED street lighting across the city also contributed to a third of the drop in overall electricity use. 

A decrease in the use of the heavy vehicle fleet and a drop in business travel during the lockdown also helped emissions fall. 

In 2020-21, emissions from buildings made up 66% of the Councils carbon footprint. Meanwhile, emissions from waste totalled 9%, fleet 10%, business travel 1% and other energy consumption, such as street and stair lighting, alarms and traffic signals made up 14%.

Leader, Councillor Adam McVey said: ‘It’s fantastic to see our hard work paying off, cut our carbon emissions for the sixth year running. It shows that major programmes of work to support a greener, net-zero council by 2030, such as making Edinburgh’s street lighting more energy efficient, is having a real positive impact on the organisation and the city.

‘While achieving an 11% drop in emissions this year is a significant achievement that we’re looking to build on, we must not become complacent. We know that 2020-21 was a unique year, and some of the changes to how we worked during the pandemic have contributed to this drop.

‘As we transition back into the workplace over the coming months, we need to build on our progress to date and bank some of the progress of changes made during the last year. By continuing to make our buildings more energy-efficient and encouraging colleagues to use more active and sustainable means of travel for work where possible we can recover from the pandemic in the greenest way possible and keep us on the track to net-zero by 2030.’