The Council's carbon emissions

Flintshire County Council has, over a number of years, committed to the reduction of carbon emissions through proactive carbon reduction strategies. During this period, approximately 60% of the Council’s carbon emissions from energy sources have been reduced through proactive programmes including conversion of street lighting to LED, utilising energy efficiency measures across its assets, and leading the way with renewable energy schemes such as solar and methane capture. 

Everything we do has an effect on the environment we live in; from burning fossil fuels for heating to collecting kerbside waste and recycling. Flintshire County Council reports its carbon footprint to Welsh Government as tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e) within its organisational and operational boundaries. This plan relates to the Council’s internal operations which are:

• Buildings owned and operated by the Council including offices, depots, schools, community centres, care homes, public conveniences and street lighting. This includes heating, electricity and water use within these facilities.
• Fleet vehicles owned by the Council,
• Business travel for work,
• Employee commuting,
• Procurement of goods and services.

The scope excludes:

• Domestic properties,
• Buildings owned by us that are leased out and operated by third parties,

In order to establish where we are and where we need to be, we first need to look at our baseline figures. In 2018/19 we were able to capture the data set out below. Figure 1 below shows a breakdown of GHG emissions by emission source for 2018/19*.

The Council has identified aims within each of the key objective themes. Each of these objectives has a number of wide-ranging actions. The reduction aims are based on the 2018/19 baselines for each theme.

* It should be noted that the data has been collected using the best available methods at that time, and therefore the expectancy is that data accuracy will improve with emerging methodologies.