A Carbon Management Plan was adopted by Nottingham City Council's Executive Board on 17 March 2009. It aims to reduce CO2 emissions from the Council's own operations by 30% by 2016 from a 2007/08 baseline. That could save £8.1m on energy costs each year. (The council report can be downloaded from the agenda webpage - item 5.)

Most of the reduction will be through energy reduction in buildings, with other savings on street lighting, fuel for vehicles and business mileage.

Nottingham FOE welcomed the adoption of a 30% target by 2016 and a credible action plan to achieve it, but hoped for continuing reductions to achieve at least 40% reduction by 2020. We also expressed scepticism about the City's stated aim of being 'carbon neutral' by 2016. We will be most interested in monitoring reductions in the Council's own emissions, and won't be impressed by dodgy claims about offsetting emissions.

(Anyone who sloganises about carbon offsetting should look at the Cheatneutral website - which allows people who wish to cheat on their partners to offset this by paying other people to stay faithful to their partners.)