Our Carbon Footprint

As a key step in the journey towards our ambitious carbon reduction target, the Carbon Trust was commissioned to calculate our carbon footprint.

Along with other Surrey authorities we have adopted a baseline year of 2018/19 against which to measure progress.

Our carbon footprint for 2018/19 was calculated as 4,162 tCO2e (tonnes of CO2 equivalent).

Emissions from our own buildings, predominantly from gas and electricity consumption, accounted for approximately 20% of the carbon footprint.

Buildings leased by us to third party operators:

  • Leatherhead Leisure Centre
  • Dorking Sports Centre
  • Meadowbank sports ground

accounted for 42% of emissions.

Emissions from procured good and services, such as waste collections and grounds maintenance, accounted for 32% of emissions.

However, it should be noted that, with the exception of waste collections, the emissions for contracted services were calculated using industry specific emissions models and further work is required to produce more accurate emissions data for the contracts with high emissions.

More information can be found in the Carbon Trust Report or the Accessible Carbon Trust Report.

We now calculate our carbon footprint annually using the tool provided by the Carbon Trust.

The calculated carbon footprint for

  • 2019/20 was 3678 tCO2e
  • 2020/21 was 3271 tCO2e