Council climate action and emissions summary 2023-24

As a council we remain committed to leading the way in reducing our direct emissions by our ambitious target for net zero by 2030.

This target includes the energy, water, and refrigerants (for air conditioning) we use in buildings we own, the street lighting in the borough, all vehicles we own or lease and all staff business travel. 

A breakdown of our emissions under the 2030 target is shown in the below list.

We will continue to expand the scope of this 2030 target as we gain better data. For example, for staff business travel mileage by train and bus.
Kingston Council's greenhouse gas emissions 2023/24 were 5,011 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) broken down by:

• 1,908 (38.1%) Gas use - buildings
• 1,023 (20.4%) Council owned fleet
• 1,318 (26.3%) Electricity use - buildings
• 543 (10.8%) Street lighting
• 162 (3.2%) Transmissions and distribution losses
• 46 (0.9%) Business travel
• 6 (0.1%) Water use
• 6 (0.1%) Waste

Comparing like with like, we have already seen a 37% reduction in our emissions since our baseline year of 2017/18. This is primarily due to a higher proportion of national grid energy being produced from renewable sources, but also includes changes to our building use, combined with our efforts to improve the energy efficiency of our buildings, lighting, fleet and travel.

Alongside these efforts to reduce emissions from sources we know and already measure, we have also been working to improve our understanding and measurement of emissions from assets that we directly pay for and/or own. 

Large emission reductions in the next few years are expected from switching to LED street lighting, increased onsite renewable energy generation, replacing existing gas boilers with low carbon alternatives, and further energy efficiency improvements to council buildings.