15th December 2007

While world leaders gather in Bali to tackle climate change - Stroud's Green political leaders have pledged to their bit. The town council has revealed its own 'carbon footprint' - how much it contributes towards climate change - and has pledged to reduce it's emissions of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by 20% by 2010.

A study by Green party Cllr Dave Cockroft has shown Stroud Town Council has a relatively modest annual carbon footprint of 20 tonnes of CO2. Because the council buys energy from renewable sources this figure is reduced to 12 tonnes each year. In addition, the town's Christmas lights contribute 1.5 tonnes of CO2 and paper used by the council contributes a further 1.5 tonnes.The national average carbon footprint is 9.4 tonnes of CO2 per person.

The study was presented to members of the council's Recreation and Finance
Committee on Monday. It looked at the energy efficiency of all the council's buildings, includingits office on London Road, as well as its two diesel vehicles used forgrounds maintenance.A carbon footprint is a calculation of the weight of carbon dioxide emittedby energy use and production of resources consumed.

Stroud Town Council used Good Energy - electricity from a green energy
supplier - which provides 100% renewably-generated electricity.

Cllr Cockroft said: "This is our baseline carbon footprint and we should report our carbonfoot print annually. It is something we should do because we are going to ask everyone else to do the same." He proposed the council should set a target of a 20% reduction by 2010 and a 5% reduction each year thereafter.

His proposals received unanimous support from fellow committee members.