According to the UK Local Government Association, over 300 local authorities have declared a climate emergency. Whilst local authorities don’t have the law making functions of central government, they are the ones who implement local projects on the ground and, through planning powers, cover what gets built where, how people travel, waste and recycling and what the urban realm looks like. Beyond that, they have large estates, large vehicle fleets and control over some social housing.
As transport tends to account for 25-30% of emissions, this is a good place to start to look for carbon reductions, but councils don’t necessarily have the resources to set science-based targets and to know what genuinely cuts emissions and what is greenwash.
Active and public transport as a focus for carbon reduction
So, what are the key areas to focus on? Well, encouraging people to walk and cycle instead of driving would be a way to drastically reduce carbon emissions. This was covered in a previous Maple blog, which showed that the modal share of cycling in the UK was a measly 2%, but that experience from elsewhere showed that this share can be increased significantly with appropriate investment in cycling infrastructure. It should also be recognised that investment in cycling infrastructure has a very high return on investment, not least because of the numerous co-benefits, and especially as the UK battles an obesity epidemic. We might not get to Dutch or Danish levels of cycling any time soon, but targeted interventions could see levels rise considerably.
Some journeys don’t work for cycling, but might for public transport; however, are we making the best use of the public transport system we have, London and maybe Manchester aside? The tram system in and around Cardiff is nearing completion and will be transformational, with contactless tap-in and tap-out and capped fares like London. What it doesn’t do, for the moment at least, is have integrated bus and tram tickets. There should be no competition between buses, trams and trains – the people who use each mode currently will still do so. What an integrated system will do is encourage more people to use the system, creating a bigger pie to share. Not all of this is in the gift of local authorities, but they do have a significant role to play in supporting it.
Local authorities’ vehicle fleets
What local authorities do have full control over is their vehicle fleets, which can be extensive, especially if buses, waste management and highways are operated in-house. Battery cost, size and weight have now reached levels where electrification should be the obvious choice for cars and light vans in most settings. In general, most council vehicles don’t do long distances daily, which makes range anxiety less of a concern than for other sectors. There is a requirement, of course, to have sufficient charging infrastructure for when they return to their base at the end of a shift.
EV Infrastructure
A potential role councils can play in general carbon reduction, whilst potentially generating revenue, is the provision of EV charging infrastructure for residents (and potentially their own vehicles). As an example, Newport City Council has recently signed a deal with Urban Fox to install 120 on-street chargers where residents rely on on-street parking. These will be installed on lampposts, so they will not require standalone infrastructure.
Alternative Fuels
Aside from electrification of the vehicle fleets, what else can councils do for their fleets? There are examples of councils (e.g. Brentwood), switching to hydrotreated vegetable oil as an alternative to diesel, with claimed carbon reductions of 99% and 25% lower nitrous oxides. The advantages are obvious, as it can be used directly in diesel engines and with significant reductions in emissions. This is assuming, of course, that what is being used is indeed a genuine waste product produced from used vegetable oil or waste sludge from palm oil production. Reports this week have cast doubt over its green credentials, suggesting that much of the oil produced is virgin palm oil, which is fraudulently relabelled and therefore has both lower carbon benefits and contributes to deforestation. This is not to suggest that all HVO is not genuine, but to highlight the fact that reliable certification of the source is extremely important.
Next generation biofuels manufactured from non-edible sources such as wood chips and agricultural waste, such as husks and stems, are in development, but not yet at a commercial scale. Algal-based fuels have already been heavily researched and funded, but are some way from production level and economic viability. Synthetic fuels are manufactured using well-understood and proven technology, processing syngas (a mixture of hydrogen monoxide and hydrogen) into a liquid fuel. This process can use gas derived from the anaerobic digestion of biomass, but it is often produced by gasification of coal or shale tar, in which case, there would be no carbon benefits.
An alternative, emerging technology is ‘efuels’, manufactured by using carbon from air and hydrogen from water to produce methanol, which in turn is turned into longer liquid hydrocarbons. This process uses significant quantities of energy, but this can be generated from renewable sources. Whether this is viable as a long-term carbon-neutral fuel is up for debate, given the costs and current production volumes. It could, however, be part of an overall decarbonisation solution and have niche applications in land transport, and for applications that can’t be electrified, such as large passenger jets or steel making.
And what of hydrogen? It’s been trialled on buses and other vehicles, and JCB are now producing hydrogen versions of their plant, which have just been permitted to travel on highways in the UK. On the plus side, there is the advantage of fast refuelling times, with only water exiting the tailpipe. There are some applications in which it will make sense to use hydrogen, but these are likely to be limited for several reasons. Firstly, there are very few hydrogen vehicles manufactured – 26,000 worldwide in 2020, only 2 models to be able to lease or buy in the UK; secondly, there are only 15 hydrogen refuelling stations of which only 6 are open to public, which largely explains why only 300 hydrogen-powered vehicles have been registered in the UK in the last 20 years, compared to 1 million electric vehicles, a number which is rapidly increasing.
Whilst councils do have an advantage that they have fleets and could potentially have a dedicated refuelling station, the cost of this and the cost of hydrogen is likely to be prohibitive. Apart from this, most hydrogen is produced using fossil fuels, although there are plans to dramatically increase the production of green hydrogen. The same criticism could be made of EVs charged from the grid, however, only around 30% of the UK’s electricity is generated from fossil fuels, which will reduce over time.
Should we offset to achieve our goals?
What about tree planting and carbon offsetting? As some of the targets might be difficult to reach, this is surely an approach worth considering. Unfortunately not. Whilst there is certainly merit in looking to generate renewable energy in and around the highway estate as part of an overall green energy strategy, planting trees to offset carbon emissions doesn’t work. Tree planting should be encouraged for biodiversity, to help clean the air and cool urban environments, and just because they look nice, just not as a long-term means of reducing and storing carbon. Aside from the fact that some schemes are not well certified, without a reduction in the demand for timber, schemes to protect woodlands or create new ones might just shift logging elsewhere. Above all, all trees will eventually die or be chopped down and decompose, releasing the carbon captured back into the atmosphere. We simply can’t plant our way out of it.
Recommendations
Local authorities need to play their part in achieving net zero across all the areas in which they operate. For transport, there are some areas in which they have control, and some in which they have influence.
The biggest impact they can make is encouraging active travel, and cycling in particular. This should comprise both the routes on which to travel, facilities such as secure parking, and cycle hire facilities that make cycling the easy and obvious choice for short journeys.
Public transport is an area in which they often have control over buses and occasionally trams. This is an area in which bus, rail, and light rail operators should work together at a regional level to deliver seamless journeys with one ticket. Another area within their control is planning and deciding what to build and where can significantly affect the use or not of public transport. This has been written about in previous blogs by Maple Consulting. There has been a trend in the UK for building low-density and (since the 1970s) car-centric communities, which inhibit public transport use. This is in comparison to cities in Europe with medium-density buildings, which gives more potential patronage for public transport.
Finally, there are ample opportunities to decarbonise local authority fleets, ideally in the form of electrification. Where other alternative liquid fuels are to be used, the origin and source should be subject to rigorous examination.
The net-zero requirements of 2040 and 2050 can seem a long time away, but interim targets must be set and met. For cars and light vans, there are ample opportunities to electrify the fleet and to assist their residents to do the same. For heavier vehicles, it would be worth scanning the horizon, particularly around electrification. Battery technology has progressed to the stage that electric HGVs are now a possibility in a way they weren’t even 5 years ago, and increases in energy density will make them increasingly attractive.
Local authorities are large consumers of products from suppliers of all sizes and sectors. In addition to ensuring the suppliers are providing good value for the public purse, they should also be playing their part in the decarbonisation journey, despite budget constraints. For larger companies in particular, it should be reasonable to expect that they will have science-based targets and programmes to reach net zero.
Above all, there is no silver bullet, and a suite of options likely needs to be developed and adapted over time.
To find out more about how to achieve net zero in the roads, read the report ‘Carbon Neutrality of the Road Sector’ that Maple/ITEN produced for the World Road Association, available as a free download here and our work on Positive Energy Roads here.
For a discussion on how the Maple team and ITEN network can help you in your decarbonisation journey, contact Martin Lamb at [email protected].
