Annual Report 2023
The council’s emissions
Progress this year
The council is directly responsible for a relatively small proportion of total emissions in Southwark. While we are working across the borough as a whole, as highlighted in the previous section, we also need to ensure that we are doing everything that we can to lower our emissions.
As a council, we have been working hard to set an example and reduce our emissions, through a range of innovative projects. The Council Delivery Plan has set the target of halving the council’s operational emissions by 2026, and £5 million from the council’s climate capital fund was committed to supporting this in July 2022. In the past year, extensive work has gone into improving the council’s understanding of the emissions profile of its buildings, as well as programmes of improvements at many buildings.
This section highlights how we are doing this with some key projects and other work from the past year. Over the next year, the council will continue to deliver and invest in important projects that are targeted, decisive and positive to ensure they have the biggest impact on tackling council emissions, with the resources and funding that are available.
Our climate action plan details how the council is trying to address its emissions. A full set of actions, their milestones and their progress can be viewed through the climate action plan online dashboard.
You can jump to specific themes in which you are interested in:
- Greener buildings
- Active and sustainable travel
- A thriving natural environment
- Renewable energy
- A circular economy with green jobs
Greener buildings
The council recognises both the impact and opportunity our housing stock has on emissions in the borough. Work has been completed on a landmark project where heat pumps, that use water from the aquifer deep underground, were retrofitted into three housing estates in Southwark. This project moved 2,175 properties away from a dependence on gas. The new estate-wide heat pumps are keeping homes warm, improving air quality while generating renewable energy and saving thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2). The project is estimated to achieve 3,848 tonnes CO2 savings per year, which equates to around 1.77 tonnes of CO2 saved per home.
Carbon-saving projects are currently underway at several locations. Burgess Park Sports Centre is being upgraded with a heat pump and a green roof, while Peckham Library is being improved with high-efficiency boiler controls, an upgraded ventilation system, repairs to windows and insulation and LED lighting. Kingswood Library is also going through a similar set of upgrades, to remove gas as a heating source and improve the efficiency of the building. Double glazing schemes have also been completed at sites, to remove older, inefficient windows. These works total £2.5m and show the council’s ambition to deliver an efficient building stock that provides key services to our residents.
Active and sustainable travel
The council now ensures the way we design, construct and maintain the borough’s roads and footpaths minimises emissions, with the rollout of new processes and software.
We have undertaken many trials of hybrid and electric vehicles over the last year. This is to assess how the current market can provide for our operational requirements, which require a huge range of vehicles across our estate. This includes trialling small hybrid vans, electric mobile platforms, also known as cherry pickers, and electric cargo bikes to transport staff and grounds maintenance tools.
The pest control service has trialled electric vehicles while we have also been understanding the operational use and requirements of electric refuse collection vehicles, which is an area identified for future funding. The council has also installed new electric vehicle charge points at our Copeland Road depot.
A thriving natural environment
We have continued to support the growth of Southwark’s Biodiversity Partnership, which has continued to expand. The partnership shares best practices and information, and delivers the Southwark Nature Action Plan (SNAP) as well as working with voluntary and community groups to encourage and promote biodiversity.
The council also has new specialist rewilding lawnmowers, which will improve the quality of the borough’s meadows whilst also saving time and money. Funding was secured for the lawnmowers from the Mayor of London, with support for the project supplied by the London Wildlife Trust.
Renewable energy
Solar panels have been installed at a range of council buildings including Nunhead Library and Dulwich Library, with further library installations planned for Peckham Library and Kingswood Library. Roof-top solar has been installed at ten sites and further feasibility work is underway for council offices. The council will continue bidding for public funding for its Heat Decarbonisation Plans for eligible schools, which will include solar panel work.
The council has continued work to explore the feasibility of buying renewable energy through a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), both individually and as part of a collaborative approach with other London boroughs. This work will continue through the next year. We have also fast-tracked the installation programmes for LED street lighting. As of March 2023, nearly 8,000 of the council’s lights had been replaced by LEDs, ahead of schedule against a target of 11,000 by 2026. The continued rollout of the LED street lighting programme resulted in a 40% drop in emissions in a year.
A circular economy with green jobs
As of March 2023, there has been a 60% carbon reduction of the council’s pension fund’s carbon footprint. The fund’s active equities portfolio has divested from fossil fuel investments and a restriction has been placed on the portfolio preventing further investments in these companies or their industry peers.
Emissions profile
Since publishing our Climate Change Strategy in 2021, we have calculated annual figures on emissions directly associated with our activity. This includes those emissions associated with heating and powering our buildings and vehicles (scope one and two), but also those associated with the things we purchase through our supply chain (scope three).
Each year we are improving both the accuracy of data and our understanding of where emissions come from. This allows us to focus resources and funding on projects that have the greatest opportunity to reduce emissions. This year we have taken the additional step of leading in analysing our data. Due to the lag in available data, analysis for our emissions this year uses data from the 2021/22 financial year.
As a council, we have reduced our overall emissions for a third year running. The table below shows our progress since publishing our first Climate Change Strategy in 2021.
The council’s scope one and two emissions both showed slight increases overall when compared to data from last year (20/21), increasing to 74kt CO2e. This was particularly prevalent concerning schools and leisure centres, which can be attributed to the re-opening of these buildings to the public following restrictions due to the covid pandemic. Housing remains the council’s biggest source of emissions, accounting for 77% of scope one and two. Housing emissions have however fallen overall for the third year in a row, reducing from 68kt CO2e last year to 59kt CO2e.
Overall, the largest source of reduction in the council’s own emissions this year relates to scope three, and in particular with what we procure as a borough. This has decreased by over 10% in a year. Scope three emissions still make up the majority of the council’s footprint, at 81% of the total, compared to 84% last year. This highlights the opportunity the council has to go further in greening our supply chain and the significant positive impact this can have on our emissions footprint.
Council emissions over the past three years
- 2021 = 432kt CO2e (19/20 data)
- 2022 = 415kt CO2e (20/21 data)
- 2023 = 380kt CO2e (21/22 data)
Total council emissions
- Scope 1 = 62kt CO2e, 16%
- Scope 2 = 12kt CO2e, 3%
- Scope 3 = 306kt CO2e, 81%
Looking ahead to the next year
We have significantly improved the quality of our data collection and analysis this year, relying less on estimated figures.
This will be a continued area of focus in the year ahead. We will also look to bring forward our data analysis, to reduce the lag in reporting.
As well as this, we are also associating specific emissions reductions to actions in the climate action plan. This will allow us to continue to focus our limited resources and funding on those areas that have the most benefit. It will also allow us to highlight the gaps in funding required from the UK Government to help us meet our ambitious and necessary 2030 target, particularly around building retrofit.
Improving the accuracy of how we analyse and reduce scope three emissions will also be a key priority. The data shows the influence the council has through our supply chain, and we will further work with some of our biggest suppliers to reduce the impact of our purchasing decisions. This will include a focus on working more closely with businesses across the borough.
In this section, we have summarised some of the key upcoming work on the following themes
Greener buildings
Leisure centres will be coming back in-house in 2023, with the management of buildings becoming the responsibility of the council. This offers a significant opportunity to improve the efficiency of eight leisure centres and reduce their overall energy use, which has the co-benefit of significant cost savings. While the council was unsuccessful in its bid for Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme funding for leisure centres, the feasibility work that went into this bid will be used to identify and deliver building upgrades as a priority.
Beyond this we will also set a two-year work programme for retrofit upgrades across offices, libraries and youth centres, targeting the highest emitters with a fabric first approach of upgrades. This approach centres on improvement to the building first, such as walls, windows, roofs and doors, before moving the heat source away from gas.
Back to looking ahead to next year
Active and sustainable travel
We are developing a new Fleet Management Strategy, which will be taken to the council’s cabinet for approval in late 2023. This strategy will be looking at ways to reduce vehicle ownership and encourage more sustainable travel, such as cargo bikes. With the vehicles that we still need, we will continue to explore options for moving away from petrol and diesel, building on many successful trials.
For example, we are working with Veolia on options to procure new electric recycling collection vehicles. While fleet emissions remain a comparatively small amount of total emissions for the council, transport remains a significant emitter borough-wide, and the council has an opportunity to show leadership and innovation in this field.
Back to looking ahead to next year
Renewable energy
The rollout of the council’s LED programme will continue for the year ahead and will be extended to parks and green spaces across the borough. A lighting update to the BMX track at Burgess Park is also planned and will be funded via the council’s climate capital fund.
Our focus will also shift to lighting and energy use in estates as tackling this will be essential to achieving our target of a 50% reduction in operational emissions by 2026.
Back to looking ahead to next year
A circular economy with green jobs
We will agree a new facilities management contract, which will have measures to reduce single-use plastics. We will also undertake events and workshops to increase awareness.
Next year, we will continue our work on establishing standards of effective carbon reduction, measurement and management within our contracts and develop proposals around a carbon-neutral aligned procurement policy.
Back to looking ahead to next year
- Go to next section: Barriers to action
- Return to overview
- Go to section 1: Where we are
- Go to section 2: Borough wide picture
- Download and view the pdf
Page last updated: 03 November 2023
