In 2005, the council began calculating the carbon emissions arising from our energy use and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from our estate and operations.  This assessment of energy use in our buildings, operations and staff travel identified the areas where we needed to cut carbon emissions and resulted in a baseline emissions data that formed the basis of our strategy and implementation plan. Over the years the scope of the report has extended to include, for example, emissions from contracted services.  

The council now commissions an annual carbon footprint report that shows its emissions and from where they originarte.  Over the past decade, the council has successfully reduced its carbon emissions by 41% from 5,476 tonnes CO₂e in 2010 to 3,226 tonnes CO₂e in 2021. Our most recent annual carbon footprint reports can be found on the right hand side of this page.

In 2019, Winchester City Council declared a Climate Emergency and in 2020 published its carbon neutrality action plan which sets out how the council is decarbonising its operations and an intention to become carbon neutral by 2024. 

An even greater challenge is to decarbonise the Winchester district. District emissions are calculated using data from the Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and this data is helpfully summarised at district level each year by WinACC.  The most recent reports produced by WinACC can be found on the right hand side of this page.

In 2017, the Winchester district emitted an estimated 834,000 tonnes of CO_2, including emissions from the M3 motorway. This figure represented a 25% decrease since 2005, but further and sustained reduction presents a huge challenge over the years ahead.

The council commissioned a Carbon Neutrality Roadmap for the Winchester District in 2022, which provides a series of recommended interventions for a range of stakeholders across the district that would put us on a trajectory to become a carbon neutral district.