A new report shows that the Council has been able to reduce its carbon footprint by a third, around 8,000 tonnes of CO2 last year.
In 2019, the council launched the Sustainability Plan. Back then, the council was creating around 24,000 tonnes of carbon each year and using fossils fuels to power MK’s streetlights, council buildings and its fleet of vehicles.
Since then, MK Council has been working on high-impact carbon reduction schemes.
Some of these schemes include making council homes and other properties more energy efficient, creating electricity from MK’s waste, introducing low energy streetlighting, and replacing gas boilers in schools with clean heat pumps.
This and other work helped the Council to reduce its carbon footprint by a third (around 8,000 tonnes of CO2) last year, and it’s on track to reduce it by two thirds each year (around 16,000 tonnes of CO2) by 2024.
The Cabinet Member responsible for Climate Action and Sustainability, Cllr Jenny Wilson-Marklew, said: “We’ve made strong progress reducing the Council’s carbon footprint even while dealing with the unexpected challenges of the pandemic, and there are some excellent schemes in the pipeline to help us become ever more sustainable.
“As well as taking direct action on our own carbon production, we’re using our influence to reduce the carbon footprint for Milton Keynes as a whole, by setting greener policies for construction and transport and asking local businesses and citizens to cut their emissions.
“We look forward to increased funding being made available by Government to allow us to do more and make progress even more quickly."
