Dudley's carbon-cutting report comes with 'false accounting' warning
Dudley Council’s latest carbon cutting statistics came with a word of caution on ‘false accounting’ about how improvements were achieved.
December’s meeting of the authority’s cabinet was told carbon emissions were down by 17 percent over the 2024/25 period.
The council was responsible for pumping out 10,978 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the 12 month period which was down from 13,209 in 2023/24.
Dudley’s cabinet member for transformation, Cllr Ed Lawrence, said: “The decrease is a result of rationalising of the council estate and improvements to energy efficiency across or electrical use, street lighting in particular and heating.
“To maintain the momentum we are going to continue to keep costs under review as well as identify new initiatives and opportunities.”
A report from council officers said: “Street lighting annually accounts for 9.5m kWh and 2,100 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
“The programme to replace existing lanterns with LEDs is well under way. The programme is on track to deliver the LED replacement target earlier than planned (by December 2025).
“By the end of July 2025, a total of 19,959 new lanterns have been installed.”
Cllr Kathy Bayton broadly welcomed the improvement but sounded a note of caution about the way in which the cuts had been achieved.
Cllr Bayton said: “When we are talking about rationalising our council estate, what we mean is selling off our buildings which then improves our own carbon footprint and the data that is collected.
“Those buildings then go into private hands and they will choose what to do which is more than likely turning them into accommodation and the carbon footprint is likely to go up.
“While the council’s footprint going down is to be welcomed, it is kind of false accounting because ours is coming down while the private sector is going up.”
