Reducing its energy use and carbon emissions has put Falkirk Council at the top of a new league table published by the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme.

The Environment Agency has published a new league table which ranks organisations according to how they manage their energy use.

Falkirk Council scored joint highest out of all Scottish local authorities, 10th in the UK and was ranked 134th out of approximately 2,100 organisations!

Councillor Charles MacDonald, Convener of the Environment and Community Safety Committee said: “Carbon management is a relatively new field and depends heavily on good quality data to set targets and track progress.

“Falkirk Council’s strong performance in the Public League Table reflects its efforts to track how energy is used and the greenhouse gases that this generates. This will help the council reduce its carbon emissions and work towards meeting its 20% carbon reduction target by 2015 and 42% by 2020, from a 2005/6 baseline.”

CRC is a mandatory emissions trading scheme for the UK that aims to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions through energy efficiency. Both public and private sector organisations using more than 6000MWh of electricity a year are included in the scheme which came into force on April 1, 2010.

The league table is based on the first year of the scheme where credits were available for installing intelligent meters and gaining accreditation to an energy management standard such as the Carbon Trust Standard.

Falkirk obtained 80% of the credits on offer due to successfully gaining accreditation to the Carbon Trust Standard, and rolling out intelligent meters across council buildings and schools. The intelligent meters provide building users with more accurate energy consumption information which allows for better energy management.

The Public League Table can be viewed online at: http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business/topics/pollution/126698.aspx