Nearly half of councils in England do not know their own carbon footprint, new research has revealed.
A freedom of information request by ECA also found 43% of local authorities do not measure all the energy used in their council-owned buildings.
Although 49 of the councils surveyed said they are aiming to be carbon neutral by 2030, 11 of these do not currently know their own carbon footprint.
ECA energy advisor, Luke Osborne, said: ‘It’s highly concerning that almost half of local authorities do not know how much carbon they are responsible for or have a plan in place to reduce this amount moving forward.
‘Unless there is an imminent step change in their approach, it is inconceivable that councils are going to become carbon neutral in less than 30 years. There is a lot of rhetoric out there, but very few action plans.’
The survey also found the average carbon footprint of a council headquarter building was 1,234 tonnes of CO2 a year.
