What we’re doing to help tackle climate change
To reach our 2030 target of becoming carbon neutral within our own operations, we are taking the following action:
Creating a culture of sustainability
- We are providing information and training for staff and councillors on the climate and ecological emergencies.
- We are working to make sure that climate and ecological implications are considered in all decisions and areas of work.
- We buy electricity for the vast majority of our our buildings (such as council offices and our arts centre) that is 100 per cent from renewable energy.
- We have stopped using plastic cups at our council office building in Abingdon. We have installed drinking water fountains for both staff and the public at our office. Staff should use reusable cups, while paper cups are provided for the public.
- We’ve had 62 EV chargers installed at our car parks.
- We promote community and private car clubs.
- We have a bike share scheme, based in Abingdon called Ride revolution.
- We’ve got a programme of installing solar panels and air source heat pumps at our leisure centres.
- We have ordered an electric food truck for the waste collections fleet.
- We have given grants for many community climate projects through our Climate Action Fund (you can read details of these projects here)
- We have been lobbying for climate change action (see our official correspondence page)
- We have been supporting cultural organisations with their climate change ambitions by supporting Green Arts Oxfordshire and its carbon literacy training programme.
Developing policy – climate action is integrated throughout policy work, including in the Corporate Plan and Local Plan. We monitor our carbon emissions and will soon be publishing our updated Carbon Management Plan which will outline how we will manage and reduce our carbon emissions. A Climate Action Plan has been developed for 2022-2024.
Cutting our carbon emissions – we adopted our first Carbon Management Plan in 2009 and have cut our carbon emissions by 43 per cent between 2009/10 – 2021/2022. This is a significant reduction and represents continued and sustained long-term progress in lowering greenhouse gas emissions arising from the council’s operations.
We have published our Climate Action Plan which outlines what we are doing to further reduce our carbon emissions to meet our targets of becoming carbon neutral as a council by 2030, with a 75 per cent reduction in emissions by 2025. We will continue to monitor progress on our carbon emissions, reporting annually on them. See our latest Annual Greenhouse Gas Emissions report for more details.
Contact us - Climate and biodiversity team
Vale of White Horse District Council
Abbey House
Abbey Close
Abingdon
OX14 3JE
