Agenda item

This report provides an update on the emissions (Scope 1, 2 and 3) of the Council for the 2023-2024 financial year.

The Climate Change and Sustainability Officer presented his report updating Members on the emissions (Scope 1, 2 and 3) of the Council for the 2023-2024 financial year. He provided some background to the report reminding Members that in October 2021 the Council adopted its Carbon Neutral Strategy 2022-2030 and the Climate Action and Biodiversity Work Plan 2022-2023 in February 2022.  Written within the Action Plan had been a commitment to continue to monitor the emissions generated by the Council on a yearly basis to ensure that the Council could effectively monitor how its activities were impacting those emissions and to ensure that reductions were taking place in line with the 2030 carbon neutral target.  This included Scopes 1, 2 and 3 as detailed below:

·       Scope 1 – emissions directly attributed to burning of fuels for heating council buildings and running its fleet

·       Scope 2 – indirect emissions from the purchase of electricity and directly controlled by the Council

·       Scope 3 – from the activities of the Council but from sources not owned or directly controlled by the Council, such as purchased goods and services [procurement], staff commuting, business travel and waste generated by the Council.

It was explained that this update report provided the Committee with an overview in terms of where the Council’s emissions were sitting for the 2023-2024 financial year as well as providing a comparison to the current baseline year set for the 2020-2021 financial year.

Members’ attention was drawn to the Appendix figures providing detail for all previous years of monitoring, including the 2023-24 financial year. A brief overview of the results for each of the scopes was provided  and it was explained that all emissions were displayed as tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent or tco2e which was the standard unit for measuring emissions regardless of whether they were from carbon dioxide or another greenhouse gas such as methane allowing all greenhouse gases to be compared using the same unit.

In terms of the results and comparisons to the current baseline year, Scope 1 and 2 had seen a drop from 392 tonnes of co2 equivalent in the baseline year to 137 in the 2023/24 financial year meaning that Scope 1 and 2 were now sitting at roughly 0.83% of the Council’s total emissions in 2023-2024. Scope 3 continued to make up most of the Council’s emissions and sat at roughly 99%, with the largest single emitters remaining the same as previous years being the purchase of goods and services at 91% and the leisure centres at 6%. Scope 3 had seen a reduction in emissions dropping from 27,382 tonnes of co2 equivalent to 16,255. Looking at all three scopes together an overall reduction from 27,774 to 16,118 tonnes could be seen which was positive news. The Council had, and would continue to, undertake work around reducing emissions further and would look at improving data collection for the annual carbon audit. It was highlighted that it was extremely challenging to measure emissions, and this should very much be used to help with the direction of travel and to highlight hotspots rather than being used as an exact science.

The Committee was advised that the Climate Change and Biodiversity Action Plan would be revised in accordance with the updated results along with updates to specific actions. The updated Action Plan would be brought to the Committee’s meeting to be held on 13 March 2025. At that meeting, Councillors would receive information on projects that had been undertaken to assist the Council with its emission reduction and general sustainability.

The Chair then invited questions from Members.  In terms of the figures that had been provided and looking at the 41.4% decrease it was questioned if offsetting would be needed to ensure that the Council’s target would be reached, and as the report had mentioned that dialogue was already underway with West Sussex County Council (WSCC) and other West Sussex District and Boroughs to determine the best offsetting option. The Climate Change and Sustainability Officer was asked to provide further detail on this.  It was explained that conversations had taken place with the South Downs National Park and the Polladium Group and that the Council was working with them to determine what the total price would be for offsetting emissions. The viewpoint of WSCC, Arun and other District and Boroughs was that it was likely that Councils would need to have to bulk buy offset credits due to the minimum purchase requirements. The Climate Change Officer highlighted further that there would also be a possibility to offset some emissions using tree plants on land currently owned by the Council, if it would be certified by the Woodland Trust.  Having received this response, it was queried whether sufficient research had been undertaken regarding the value of offsetting. It was explained that the Council’s approach would be to reduce as many emissions as possible so that the offsetting requirement would then be as low as it could be. With most of the emissions coming from the Council’s purchasing of goods and services, it would be very challenging to reduce these to zero by 2030 as this work would be reliant upon the Council’s suppliers reducing their emissions. The Climate Change and Sustainability Officer confirmed that he was aware of the challenges surrounding offsetting and that if this was relied upon too heavily, it could result in little being progressed. He was asked how the Council was able to influence suppliers to reduce emissions and if any positive results could be seen from such work. He confirmed that the strongest way in which the council could move forward was by incorporating  methods to reduce emissions into new contracts as a requirement, this included reporting Arun’s specific emissions as well as incorporating sustainability. This had been the case in procuring the Council’s Combined Cleansing Services Contract which included strong sustainability aspects within it. He was also liaising with suppliers in terms of what they could and could not report and what sustainability actions they could confirm they were undertaking. 

A query was raised in relation to the 41.4% reduction figure mentioned earlier in that it was not an accurate like for like comparison and that the correct figures was 9.7%, could this be confirmed? It was explained that this was correct when looking at the current baseline for the 20/21 financial year where different methodology had been used. It was more accurate to compare the 2022/23 to the 2023/24 financial years which was why looking the baseline year would be updated to the 2023/24 financial year.