A Clean Bill of Health for Environmentally Friendly Leicester Residents

Leicester is not just a family-friendly place to live: it is an environmentally friendly one too. This is proved by the fact that the latest figures reveal how well the city is doing when it comes to reducing its impact on the planet.

If you want a home city with green credentials to be proud of, then you will be pleased to hear of Leicester’s falling carbon-emissions figures. New data reveals the drop in emissions, leading to predictions that the city will smash through its longer-term carbon reduction targets.

Government statistics show that the city’s carbon levels for 2015 were 1418 kilotons of carbon dioxide (ktCO2), marking a nine per cent drop compared to 2001 and a fall of 41 per cent from 1990.

This means that if emissions carry on falling at a similar rate, the city will manage to cut CO2 levels by 60 per cent by 2025 – beating by ten per cent the 50 per cent aim which has been set.

Leicester’s deputy major for the environment, Adam Clarke, called the government figures ‘really encouraging’, stating that real progress was being made in improving air quality and cutting carbon emissions. He added that the figures were also even more impressive given the population growth seen in the city since 1990.

Domestic emissions – those from electricity and gas consumption – were cited as being at 464.1ktCO2 during 2015. This marked a fall of three per cent compared to the year before and a 30 per cent drop since 2005. Industry emissions, including electricity, gas and other fuels, meanwhile, were recorded as 620.5ktCO2 during 2015. This is a fall of 18 per cent since 2014 and a reduction of 40 per cent since 2005.

Transport emissions also went down by one per cent compared to 2014, and saw a massive 40 per cent fall since 2005. The 2015 figure was 333.5ktCO2. In terms of Leicester City Council itself, the authority’s own carbon footprint, which includes emissions from the likes of buildings and schools, public lighting and travel, is also set to experience a 50 per cent reduction in time for 2025 compared with the levels experienced in 2008/9.

Councillor Clarke said that housing emission reductions were due to less coal being used and the adoption of more renewable energy sources and more efficient heating systems. Coal has also been replaced widely with new cleaner energy sources in Leicester’s industrial sector, while the local authority has invested in low-energy lighting and ultra-low-emission transportation methods.

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