March 21, 2013 11.19 am This story is over 131 months old

Lincolnshire County Council cuts carbon emissions by a third

Less CO2, more money: Lincolnshire County Council has slashed its carbon emission by more than 35% in the past year, new figures from the Environment Agency show.

Lincolnshire County Council has slashed its carbon emission by more than 35% in the past year, new figures from the Environment Agency show.

The council was ranked 1,064th last year in the agency’s CO2 performance league table, and this year the county jumped to 170th out of 2,097.

The figures show Lincolnshire County Council emitted 50,166 tonnes of CO2 in 2011/12, compared to 77,561 tonnes of CO2 in 2010/11.

The reduced emissions will also lead to savings for the authority. The council pays £12 in carbon tax for every tonne of CO2 emitted, and this is set to rise to £16 per tonne in 2016.

Last year Lincolnshire County Council paid £930,000 for its CO2 emissions, while for the year 2011/12 it will pay only £600,000, besides reductions in utility bills.

Councillor Eddy Poll, Deputy Leader of Lincolnshire County Council, said: “These changes are significant but we expect to deliver much greater reductions in our carbon emissions over the course of the next few years.

“In the last 12 months we’ve upgraded the street and traffic lighting across the county so they use less energy, we have optimized our boiler so it performs more efficiently, and helped our staff to be more energy-efficient,” he added.

Other Lincolnshire organisations taking part in the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme have not fared as well as the County Council.

Lincolnshire Co-operative is ranked 498th with 14,262 tonnes of CO2 emissions, the University of Lincoln is ranked 1,329th with 7,833 tonnes and United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust ranked 1,965th with 18,054 tonnes of CO2.