Powys Green Guide Powys Green Guide Blog

04 September 2025

Powys publishes its first 'Climate and Nature Annual Report'

This details all the activity and actions being undertaken to work towards reaching the Net-Zero 2030 target imposed by Welsh Government.

This first report covers all the activity undertaken across the last couple of years, but the intention is that this will become an annual review.

One section of the document reports on the declared carbon footprint of the council. The council has been required to calculate and report this footprint for the last 4 years using a methodology provided by Welsh Government. This is an incredibly complex calculation which is being gradually improved and refined, but a consequence of this is that it is not easy to compare one year against the next because the methodology will have evolved in the meantime.

Over 3,500 LED street lights have been installed, £635,000 spent on electric car infrastructure, Energy efficiency improvements made in over 1,800 properties,

Key Actions and Future Plans for Emissions Reduction include more EV charging infrastructure and renewable energy assessments, are underway.

A Local Area Energy Plan has been finalized to outline pathways for decarbonization by 2050. The supply chain sustainability portal has been expanded to improve reporting and integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria into tenders

Powys is looking to unlock opportunities in Green Economy. Cabinet is considering the feasibility of the 2030 net-zero target and improved data collating and management of Carbon Management Plan for buildings. Contracts will include qualitative KPIs to hold suppliers accountable for sustainability measures.

One fact that emerges is that about 74% of our footprint is from our supply chain (i.e. the services that we buy in, such as social care and food) rather than our direct emissions. Key factors for the emissions increase include the inclusion of school transport data. In the most part, the calculation methodology used is just to estimate this from the money spent on the service, not the actual carbon footprint of the supplier. The council is working hard to improve this, this is an example of how the methodology is evolving.

These headline figures are however worrying. To within the accuracy of the methodology, the council’s footprint does appear to have risen slightly over the last 4 years, and currently stands at around 90,000 tonnes.

The full report can be found here Powys Net Zero Annual Report 2024

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