Devon County Council’s (DCC) long-term efforts to reduce its carbon emissions are continuing to pay off after the latest figures show that it is ahead of schedule in its goal of reducing its emissions by 70 per cent by 2030.

The latest report on DCC’s 2023 carbon footprint show that emissions continue to decline.

The total level of emissions produced in 2022/23 was 19,400 tonnes (of carbon dioxide equivalent), a 56 per cent fall when compared to the 43,826 tonnes produced in our baseline year of 2012/13.

They take into account emissions created in areas such as our vehicle fleet, school transport and buildings.

Street lighting is one of DCC’s main sources of emissions and the latest figures show that these emissions fell by almost a quarter in 2022/23 when compared with 2021/22 (4,576 tonnes falling to 3,465 tonnes).

This is largely due to the project to convert all of Devon’s 79,000 streetlights and highways signals to LED lightbulbs and put in better controls so that lights can be dimmed. This project is in its final stages.

The Authority has also completed retrofitting nine council buildings, increased the number of electric vehicles in our fleet while staff are travelling less when compared to pre-Covid and moved to agile working and videoconferencing.

Other contributory factors that have reduced our carbon footprint include the reduced carbon intensity of the grid electricity we use.

More than half of the grid electricity we use in the UK now comes from non-fossil fuel sources.

Councillor Andrea Davis, DCC’s Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Climate Change, Environment and Transport said: “I’m pleased to say that we are continuing to reduce emissions but more needs to be done if we are to achieve our target.

“Climate change is affecting our communities now; last winter was the wettest since records began, so it is therefore more important than ever that we continue to reduce emissions.

“We are updating our 2020 Carbon Reduction Plan with measures to ensure that we meet our ambitious target.”