Our climate change work

Since declaring a Climate Emergency, the Council has taken a number of actions:

• A Climate Change Sub Committee and Working Groups have been established
• The collation of 'in-house' data commenced to establish a baseline from which to work going forward
• Our Climate Change Action Plan focused on the Council's own CO2 emissions, and you can read it here. (PDF, 753 KB)
• We've published Part 2 action plan focusing on what we can all do to help improve our environment which you can read here. (PDF, 2 MB)
• Housing - the Council is a partner in the Staffordshire Warmer Homes project which successfully secured Green Homes Grant Local GHG LAD (round 1 funding) and will deliver the Council's allocation of over £600,000 GHG LAD round 2 funding in Staffordshire Moorlands. The partnership has also continued to deliver energy saving measures through other schemes and the Council continued to fund Beat the Cold as our key local partner in affordable warmth/fuel poverty.
• Leisure Centres - Parkwood Leisure has replaced many of the lights with LED lights in all the leisure centres to save energy and reduce carbon emissions
• Council fleet vehicles - AES the Council's direct services company is currently trialling an electric light goods vehicle and an electric refuse vehicle
• The response to Covid-19 has accelerated the Councils move to new ways of working - staff home working and increased use of virtual meetings have reduced staff business miles by over 60%
• The Council has joined the UK100 group of local authorities with ambitious climate change targets
• Waste recycling - the Council continues to be a high performer achieving a 56.4% recycling rate, which is the highest in Staffordshire and in the top 30 in the country
• The Council is engaged with a number of key agencies to assist with the development of our plans including The Midlands Energy Hub, the Energy Saving Trust and Keele University. Keele University has agreed to deliver the 'train the trainer' Carbon Literacy programme to Council staff.
• The Council partnered with and funded Staffordshire Wildlife Trust to assist in the development of the Green Infrastructure Delivery Plan
• The Council has also been involved in the planting of seven orchards as the start of a much wider community orchards initiative to plant 100 orchards over the next few years

Annual Reports

Annual climate change report 2022 (PDF, 663 KB)
Annual climate change report 2023 (PDF, 1 MB)
Annual climate change report 2024 (PDF, 1 MB)