Track Edinburgh's progress to net zero

Track Council emissions

As signatories of the Edinburgh Climate Compact we have committed to track and publish Council emissions. We report each year on how we meet the Public Bodies Climate Change Duties (PBCCD). This is under the terms of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. Our latest report on Council emissions covers activity for 2023-24. It shows that in the past year our emissions rose by 1.86% compared to the previous year but are still significantly lower than our 2018 baseline.

Council emissions by source

Source: energy

This covers

  • fuels used to heat and power the Council’s operational buildings
  • street lighting
  • other uses such as
    • flood lighting
    • Christmas lighting.

Emissions per year from energy

  • 2017/2018: 74,967 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2018/2019: 62,657 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2019/2020: 58,297 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2020/2021: 52,663 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2021/2022: 51,552 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2022/2023: 48,222 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2023/2024: 49,901 tonnes of CO2 equivalent

Source: fleet

This covers fuels used by the Council vehicles (including hire vehicles), ranging from small cars to bin lorries.

Emissions per year from fleet

  • 2017/2018: 6,713 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2018/2019: 8,519 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2019/2020: 6,671 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2020/2021: 6,287 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2021/2022: 6,290 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2022/2023: 6,252 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2023/2024: 6,066 tonnes of CO2 equivalent

Staff travel

This covers staff mileage travelled for

  • business travel
  • taxis
  • rail
  • air travel.

Emissions per year from staff travel

  • 2017/2018: 1,247 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2018/2019: 1,462 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2019/2020: 1,956 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2020/2021: 612 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2021/2022: 781 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2022/2023: 871 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2023/2024: 760 tonnes of CO2 equivalent

Waste

This covers all waste collected by the Council including household waste.

  • 2017/2018: 67,842 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2018/2019: 48,050 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2019/2020: 5,843 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2020/2021: 5,949 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2021/2022: 6,725 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2022/2023: 5,539 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2023/2024: 5,271 tonnes of CO2 equivalent

Total emissions from all sources per year

  • 2017/2018: 151,344 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2018/2019: 121,513 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2019/2020: 73,503 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2020/2021: 65,647 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2021/2022: 65,527 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2022/2023: 61,056 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
  • 2023/2024: 62,189 tonnes of CO2 equivalent

You can find more information about this in our Council Emissions Reduction Plan and on the Council’s Public Bodies Climate Change Duties report.