Council press release below:
The Council made a commitment to reduce its emissions by 4% each year in the current Reading Climate Change Strategy, but in the last financial year (2011/2012) the Council’s emissions were down by a whopping 7.5%.. That is almost double the Council’s target thanks to reductions found from their buildings, operations, business travel, fleet, schools and some outsourced services.
The Council has received funding to invest in energy efficiency from Salix Finance Ltd, which is an independent, not-for-profit company funded by The Department for Energy and Climate Change, The Welsh Assembly Government and The Scottish Government via The Carbon Trust. Savings in energy bills can be used to make further investment.
With this money, the Council has been able to carry out a number of different projects including pipe-work insulation in some schools to reduce heat loss, replacing boilers with more efficient ones and upgrading lighting to more efficient lamps in a variety of buildings.
Reading Borough Council’s Lead Councillor for Environment and Climate Change, Paul Gittings, said: ‘The Council is absolutely committed to reducing carbon emissions and this shows through this excellent reduction of 7.5%. We have to be more efficient in our use of energy, it’s not only good for the environment, but its also cheaper for the tax payer in the long run. We have been fortunate to be able to access a significant amount of invest-to-save money from Salix finance. We will be working on setting new targets for emissions reductions as part of our contribution to the new Climate Change Strategy for Reading due to be made public later this year.’
Reading Borough Council’s Green House Gas Report can be found at http://www.reading.gov.uk/greenhousegasreport.
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