Sustainable policies

ISO 14001 Environmental Standard

ISO 14000 is a series of international standards on environmental management.

The aim of the standard is to reduce the environmental impact of an organisation and to decrease the pollution and waste an organisation produces.

Its development came as a result of the Rio Summit on the Environment held in 1992. Technical Services became the 1st department within Wirral Council to achieve the standard in January 2006.

The Finance Department followed Technical Service’s lead by achieving the standard in 2007. Plans are now in place to roll it out to the rest of Wirral Council.

Introduction of Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan. 

On 20th June 2007 Cabinet Members agreed the Council’s Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan supporting a number of local and national sustainability strategies. To assist this process Council approved an energy efficiency capital investment programme, incorporating the following measures.

Phase 1

3 year investment programme in the following energy efficiency measures :

  • Installing Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS) to allow better control of heating and ventilation 
  • Water reduction scheme to reduce water consumption in Council buildings
  • Leisure site heat recovery schemes
  • Boiler replacement programme
  • Street lighting bulk change scheme to make lighting more efficient
  • Utility bill validation scheme to ensure accurate billing

Phase 2

4 year investment in further energy saving measures:

  • Cavity wall insulation project
  • Boiler house insulation scheme
  • Electricity efficiency programme
  • Long term energy awareness raising programme

Phase 3

  • Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) Project
  • Street Lighting/Signage Energy Efficiency Improvements

Phase 4

  • Intelligent Luminaires Policy to utilise occupancy detectors together with ambient light level sensors which provide daylight dimming
  • Bio Fuel Heating Systems Policy - Of all possible renewable heating solutions, biomass has the potential to deliver some of the most significant and cost-effective carbon savings

New national targets for Carbon Emissions

Three climate change related national indicators were introduced by the government to monitor local authority’s performance in reducing carbon emissions in 2008.

NI185 and NI194 measures the Council’s CO2 emissions reduction progress while NI186 measures the whole boroughs emissions performance.

Wirral Council has now set itself a challenging target of 60% reduction in carbon emissions by 2025.

Energy Awareness Officers

Just by practicing good housekeeping an organisation can save at least 10% of its annual costs.

Energy Awareness Officers work promoting low and no cost energy efficiency measures in a wide range of building types from offices to schools and leisure centres.   

10:10 Sign Up

10:10 is an ambitious project to unite every sector of British society behind one simple idea: that by working together we can achieve a 10% cut in the UK’s carbon emissions in 2010. 

Carbon Reduction in the Community

CRed (carbon reduction) is a community, web based programme that allows people who live and work in Wirral to find out how to cut their CO2 emissions, make and track their own carbon reduction pledges.

See how much your actions save CO2 and the total savings from across the CRed Wirral community.