City of Lincoln Council’s Executive will consider a new Decarbonisation Strategy and Action Plan which aims to make the carbon emissions from the Council’s operations and services net zero by 2030.
At the meeting on 17 March, the council’s Executive will discuss the new Decarbonisation Strategy which sets out how the council intends to achieve some of its climate aspirations over the next ten years.
Government have legislated net zero emissions is a binding target by 2050, but when the city council declared a climate emergency in 2019 it committed to vision of a carbon neutral city by 2030 at the latest.
A climate challenge taskforce representing all areas of the council has been created to deliver the following climate aspirations:
• Let’s ensure our development approach reduces our carbon footprint
• Let’s set the Lincoln standard for sustainable zero carbon development
• Let’s make walking, cycling and the use of public transport the best and favourite way to move around Lincoln
• Let’s ensure the city’s infrastructure is fully adaptable and resilient to the challenges of climate change
• Let’s make our existing housing and business premises energy efficient
Since 2008/9 emissions have already been reduced by 36% across the council, and the Decarbonisation Plan includes work already done or taking place, and timescales for future projects and describes how the city council intends to replace fossil fuel reliant systems with low carbon alternatives. This will be an evolving plan over the next 10 years,
The decarbonisation action plan describes the current state of the council’s energy and focuses on six pathways: electricity (11%), heat (66%), transport (12%), waste(11%) , the natural environment (-2%) and the built environment (N/A).
In some pathways work is already underway. On several of our sites the electricity is supplied from onsite renewables and 42% of the electricity the council purchases from the national grid comes from offsite renewable energy schemes, such as wind and solar. Investments are being made into the energy efficiency of council buildings and our emissions from transport have been reducing year on year for staff business miles and our housing repair service. We have ultra-low emission vehicles in our fleet and will be gradually increasing the number of ULEVs in the future.
The plan also proposes to ensure the Lincoln is electric vehicle ready by identifying more sites to increase the provision of resident EV charge points and city council are working with partners to deliver the Lincoln Transport Strategy. Future projects include the crematorium refurbishment scheduled for 2022 that could see a 25% Co2e reduction from heat waste per annum and new council homes will be ‘zero carbon ready’ with EPC ‘A’ ratings.
To support the natural environment which actively removes emissions from the atmosphere, the plan also proposes to maintain and enhance biodiversity, green spaces, woodlands and wetlands in the city with a City Centre Greening Project and a Lincoln Tree Charter to introduce native wildlife areas into grass areas on key routes into the city.
Cllr Ric Metcalfe, Leader of the Council, said: “When City of Lincoln Council declared a climate emergency, we committed to a vision of a carbon neutral Lincoln by 2030 at the latest, and decarbonising our own footprint supports this ambition.”
Kate Bell, Climate Change Manager, said: “As well are reviewing our own services and operations to meet our carbon targets as council, we are also working closely with the Lincoln Climate Commission to develop a citywide climate strategy and action plan to focus on how we are collectively going to achieve a net zero carbon target for with city by 2030.”