Carbon emissions halved by Daventry District Council as it continues fight against climate change

Carbon emissions have been more than halved by Daventry District Council in the last decade, as it continues to try and tackle climate change locally.
Daventry District Council is examining its own carbon footprintDaventry District Council is examining its own carbon footprint
Daventry District Council is examining its own carbon footprint

The council’s strategy group met recently (May 23) to discuss the Climate Local Commitment it signed up to in 2012.

Papers read by councillors stated: “Over the last year public pressure has increased as awareness rises of the threat of climate change. Documentaries such as Blue Planet have helped to raise awareness of issues such as single-use plastics and we have seen both industry and government respond to increased public pressure.

“Most recent reports from the UN suggest we have just 12 years to prevent irreversible damage from climate change and that around one million animal species are now threatened with extinction.

“We recognise that as a local authority we have a role to play in reducing the impacts of a changing climate.”

Among the commitments it has already met is reducing its carbon emissions by 30 per cent on the 2008/09 levels, with the current figure standing at a 54 per cent reduction when excluding outsourced activities.

Since then the council has also installed one chargepoint solely for council electric vehicles, and a further two publicly available chargepoints on Lodge Road both of which are double sockets.

The council’s corporate plan, which is in place from 2017-2020, has also introduced a target for increasing the usage of electric vehicle chargepoints across the district.

The update came just a few days after full council adopted a motion to refer local climate change efforts to the Scrutiny and Improvement panel. It will convene a task panel to investigate whether the district council is doing all it can to minimise impact on the environment.

Councillor Richard Auger said: “This report aims to provide an update on the progress on this. It fits in rather nicely with our colleague Councillor Ken Ritchie’s motion.

“We joined Climate Local in 2012, and it’s a local government initiative which aims to recognise that effort is required to minimise the effects of climate change locally.”

Councillor Ritchie was there to discuss the report just days after his motion was amended and passed. He has previously advocated solar panels being included on new houses within the Daventry area, and on all district council buildings.

He said: “I got the impression that it suggests that Daventry is quite a bit above average in terms of the work it is doing on climate change.”

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