Warning council close to net zero standstill
BBCA council has warned it is close to "hitting a standstill" on work to reduce carbon emissions, with care homes responsible for producing the most.
Stockton Council has made a 75% reduction since 2010 but a report to the authority said more investment was needed to hit the target of being net zero by 2032.
After elderly residential care, the biggest carbon emitters in the council's supply chain over the last financial year were property construction and waste collection and recycling.
Labour cabinet member for environment and transport Clare Besford said the local authority's progress could grind to a halt, despite some "excellent" work.
"We're ever closer to hitting a standstill in terms of our trajectory," Besford said.
"I was really surprised that actually the highest carbon emitter is our residential care homes."
The council report said it had made progress with measures like solar panels on roofs, but it needed to reduce emissions by the carbon production equivalent of 572 houses per year to hit the net zero target.
It would take the equivalent of a football pitch's worth of solar panels to power all council workers' computers, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.
About 3% of its vehicles are electric, compared with other local authorities which have decarbonised their fleet by 15 to 20%.
Besford said the authority's fleet performance was one of the lowest across the Tees Valley and this did not "sit right" with her despite the "excellent work" already done.
The council agreed an environmental sustainability and carbon reduction strategy in 2022.
Officers are now working on climate change-related schemes and propose using part of a £20m investment fund for transforming services.
Labour council leader Bob Cook said the local authority also needed to work with businesses and "advise them how to reduce their carbon footprint" and ensure they were not "stuck with the carbon taxes going forward".