Corby leads the way in cutting carbon

Thursday, 8 March, 2012

Figures now released reveal that Corby is smashing its targets in its bid to become a cleaner, greener Borough!

Corby Borough Council has long been committed to reducing its impact on the environment, but in the last couple of years has stepped up with some impressive improvements. This hard work and commitment has now led to the Borough becoming the leading authority within the international 10:10 campaign to reducing its carbon footprint with a massive 20% reduction in the space of just one year.

10:10 sees businesses and individuals commit to reduce their carbon footprint and Corby set its own target of reducing its 2010 carbon footprint by 10% in 2011. Since signing up to the campaign, councillors and staff have delivered a wide range of energy saving projects which has not only saved the authority money but has also saved twice as much carbon as targeted.

The Council has been taking action to reduce its environmental impact for many years including introducing LPG vehicles to the authority’s fleet, which emit less carbon than petrol or diesel, investment in two low carbon Toyota Prius pool cars and building two state of the art buildings, the Corby Cube and Corby East Midlands International Pool, to high environmentally friendly specifications.

Much of the carbon reduction seen in 2011 has been due to the opening of these new buildings and the work that was put into their environmentally savvy designs has really paid off with lower energy consumption when compared to Grosvenor House and the old swimming pool.

The Cube and Pool haven’t been the only buildings in Corby that have seen investment in energy. We have also invested heavily in energy efficiency projects in Lodge Park Sports Centre through cavity wall insulation, as well as energy efficient lighting and improvement to heating in a number of other council run buildings.

The Council has fully embraced its commitment to cutting carbon and as such staff and councillors have also been doing their bit by introducing a network of environmental champions across the council and launching an in-house energy awareness campaign using posters designed for us by Tresham College HND Graphic Design students.
Corby Borough Council’s Lead Member for Environment, Cllr Peter McEwan, said:

‘We’re very proud of the work that we have done to cut the Council’s carbon footprint and to see that this has resulted in us becoming the best of any council in the country which has signed up to the 10:10 initiative is just fantastic. We are very pleased to be able to share our achievements through the 10:10 network to help others follow in our footsteps but won’t be resting on our laurels.

‘We will now continue to reduce our carbon footprint wherever we can. We have a lot more planned for the coming years including tackling the carbon emitted by our suppliers, improving the energy efficiency of the Borough’s sheltered housing complexes, installing renewable energy sources and ensuring that our vehicle fleet is as low carbon as possible. On top of this we are very excited about the new community interest company that we are setting up called Electric Corby which aims to make Corby the test bed for future technologies’.