Bristol City Council not on track to meet their 2025 net zero targets
It's because many buildings on their estate are still burning large amounts of gas
Last updated 29th Jun 2024
City Hall chiefs are forecasting that Bristol City Council will miss its target of becoming carbon neutral for direct emissions by 2025. The council is expected to still be burning huge amounts of gas for at least five more years, emitting almost 1,700 tonnes of carbon in 2028.
Four years ago councillors declared a “climate emergency” and set an ambitious target of reducing all the greenhouse gases which the council was directly responsible for to net zero. But a new report reveals that target will likely be missed, due to continued high energy use.
While progress is being made on reducing carbon emissions, the latest figures show there is still a long way to go. Council chiefs are expected to sign off plans to renew the council’s gas supply contract for another four years during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, September 5.
The council’s demand for gas is expected to fall as its buildings are gradually connected to the expanding district heat network; boilers are replaced with heat pumps or electric boilers; insulation is upgraded to improve energy efficiency; and some buildings are sold off. These measures could reduce the council’s overall gas use by more than a fifth.
A cabinet report said: “The energy market is stabilising, albeit at twice historic rates, but it remains difficult to forecast future energy costs to any degree of certainty. As such there is a risk that gas prices could be substantially higher or lower than these averages. Prices have been estimated conservatively based on current and recent rates.”
Over a four-year contract, this would mean the amount the council spends on gas falling from £23 million to £19 million. This includes the council spending an extra premium of £546,000 on “green gas”, which is allegedly better for the climate than normal natural gas.
Green gas, also known as biomethane or biogas, is produced from various forms of waste, or by anaerobic digestion of agricultural waste, food waste, or fuel crops. Burning green gas is considered to be a carbon neutral fuel, although it’s not currently widely available.
Despite reducing its demand for gas, the council is forecast to miss a crucial target of becoming carbon neutral on its own estate by 2025. Burning gas, in places like City Hall and crematoriums, is expected to emit 2,212 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the financial year 2025/26, dropping to 1,693 tonnes by 2027/28.
The report added: “It’s proposed that green gas, which is considered to be a carbon neutral fuel, will act as a transitory heat supply for those properties unable to be decarbonised by other means by 2025. There is a risk that there may not be sufficient green gas available to meet all the Bristol City Council demand within scope for the 2025 carbon neutrality target, or that the green gas available might be considered too expensive.”
Writing on the mayor’s blog, Labour Councillor Kye Dudd, cabinet member for climate, said the council’s direct emissions of greenhouse gases had halved over the past eight years. But he added that the programme to get to carbon neutral was now in the “toughest phase”.
Cllr Dudd said: “The programme of decarbonising the council has been ongoing throughout our administration. It involves reducing the carbon footprint of our buildings, primarily through either reducing their energy usage or moving to more sustainable forms of electricity and heat supply. It also includes developing our vehicle fleet to ensure that we’re operating in the cleanest way possible.
“This programme has seen much success to date with the council’s direct emissions being halved since 2015. We’re now into the phase of the programme that we always knew would be the toughest to deliver and have taken the steps necessary, such as the formation of Bristol City Leap, to have the tools available to meet our target of being a carbon neutral council by the end of 2025.
“Our approach to continue the decarbonising of our estate includes prioritising the work to connect council buildings to the city’s heat network, installing alternative low carbon heating sources, moving some buildings onto a green gas supply, and increasing the use of electricity generated by the council’s own renewable energy assets.”