Peterborough City Council has unveiled a new Climate Change Action Plan to help tackle the climate emergency.

The 25 point plan will help the authority meet its commitment of becoming a net-zero council by 2030. This is alongside the council's ambition to help the city become net zero carbon by the same year.

The action plan was drawn up by councillors from different parties in partnership with officers and will now be sent to Full Council to vote on in June.

The 25 commitments include developing a business case for waste management service Aragon to use low carbon fuel, ensuring highways contractor Milestone uses low carbon construction methods and materials, and increasing tree canopy cover on council owned land from 22% to 25% by 2035.


Councillors declared a climate emergency in July 2019 and this latest action plan is the third edition to have been produced since then after it was agreed to update it annually.

A further plan to help Peterborough become a net zero city is due to be released later this year.

The council's carbon footprint in 2020/21 was 14,789 tonnes CO2e – a reduction of 28% compared to 2018/19 using the same measurements from that year.

Successes over the past 12 months include: swapping the use of diesel in the highways services contract to a biodiesel which reduces emissions by 90%; piloting a carbon literacy training course aimed to educate councillors; and developing a new carbon impact assessment to ensure that the impact of council proposals on city-wide emissions is considered by decision makers.