Enfield Council has confirmed its corporate buildings will use green electricity from October as part of its commitment to slash carbon emissions.
The Council will also be carrying out a review of the way it buys electricity for schools and the common areas in council homes this year.
The local authority has declared a climate emergency, set up a Climate Change Taskforce and committed to become carbon neutral by 2030.
Purchasing green electricity for corporate buildings is estimated to displace 8,239 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, out of the estimated 22,000 tonnes of carbon the Council needs to offset or reduce each year.
This decision marks a significant move towards Enfield Council’s carbon neutrality commitment.
Enfield Council’s Deputy Leader and the Chair of the Climate Change Taskforce, Cllr Ian Barnes, said:
“This is an important step in reducing the amount of carbon the Council generates each year and we have acted as soon as our existing contracts enabled us to after declaring a climate emergency.
“We will be publishing our draft Climate Action Plan in March so that residents and businesses can contribute towards the final strategy and enable us to reduce our carbon emissions in the quickest and most efficient way possible.”
Going beyond purchasing green electricity, the Council is on course to complete the energy retrofit of all 85 of its buildings, including the Grade 1 listed Forty Hall, the Civic Centre and the Dugdale Centre.
Work has included installing LED lighting, solar powered photo-voltaic panels, lighting controls, insulation and optimising the performance of water, heating and cooling pumps in the buildings.
This means they will have better lighting, heating and cooling optimisation and use micro-fuel cell units which produce no toxic emissions and improve local air quality. An example is the 150Kw of solar panels which have been installed on the Civic Centre, providing renewable energy to the building.
Enfield Council has made good progress the last few years, being awarded Council of the Year in the Greater London Energy Efficiency Awards in 2019.
