Our carbon emissions
We have set challenging targets to become a carbon neutral council by 2024 and for Winchester district to become carbon neutral by 2030. Progress towards these targets is measured each year.
Council carbon emissions
In 2005, the council began calculating the carbon emissions arising from our energy use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from our estate and operations. This assessment of energy use in our buildings, operations and staff travel identified the areas where we needed to cut carbon emissions and resulted in a baseline emissions data that formed the basis of our strategy and implementation plan. Over the years the scope of the report has extended to include, for example, emissions from contracted services.
The council now commissions an annual carbon footprint report that shows its emissions and from where they originarte. Over the past decade, the council has successfully reduced its carbon emissions by 41% from 5,476 tonnes CO2e in 2010 to 3,226 tonnes CO2e in 2021. Our most recent annual carbon footprint reports can be found on the right hand side of this page.
In 2019, Winchester City Council declared a Climate Emergency and in 2020 published its Carbon Neutrality Action Plan which sets out how the council is decarbonising its operations and an intention to become carbon neutral by 2024.
District carbon emissions
An even greater challenge is to decarbonise the Winchester district. District emissions are calculated using data from the Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and this data is helpfully summarised at district level each year by WinACC. The most recent reports produced by WinACC can be found on the right hand side of this page.
In 2017, the Winchester district emitted an estimated 834,000 tonnes of CO2, including emissions from the M3 motorway. This figure represented a 25% decrease since 2005, but further and sustained reduction presents a huge challenge over the years ahead.
