Council’s climate action plan

SOUTH Oxfordshire District Council has drawn up a climate action plan.

This outlines how the council will become carbon neutral by 2025, meaning that the carbon produced from the council’s buildings and services will be balanced by the amount removed from the atmosphere.

Staff and councillors will receive training so they are aware of the impacts of carbon emissions and the council will adopt a digital by default approach for council meetings to help cut down on vehicle emissions.

The plan also outlines how the council will support the efforts of other organisations to tackle the climate emergency.

Councillor Sue Cooper, cabinet member for environment, climate change and nature recovery, said: “There are lots of things we can do as a council to reduce our emissions and we could make a real difference by making some relatively small and achievable changes to how we work.

“Continuing advances in technology also present us with some great opportunities to reduce emissions from our buildings and vehicles.

“It’s very important that we have a formal action plan in place which details the worthwhile actions we will take to meet our carbon neutral targets.

“The plan also highlights how we will support our residents and communities. By making sure information and advice is more widely available we can help to empower people to make changes at home so that they can use less heating save money on fuel and make journeys on foot or by bike rather than by car.”

The plan was due to be approved by the council’s cabinet yesterday (Thursday).