Council Emissions
E whakatinana ana te Kaunihera i āna kupu | Council is "walking the talk"
We are committed to reducing our operational emissions under Council’s climate action policy with a target to achieve net zero by 2050 in alignment with The Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019.
Council will be setting more specific targets about emission reduction and creating a plan for our transition in 2025.
Ngā tukunga o te rohe whānui | District wide emissions
Council participated in a combined initiative with Te Tai Tokerau Councils and undertook a district wide emissions inventory report feeding into a reginal report for the 2021-2022 financial year. The report details the Far North Districts Greenhouse Gas emissions resulting from activity and consumption. Read the Far North District Emissions Inventory.
The total gross emissions are 1,130,970 tCO2e. The graph below outlines the results with agriculture and transportation as the most significant contributors. Using information from the inventory, council can promote, monitor and support the community to reduce emissions.
Ā mātou tukunga | Our emissions
In 2024, the Climate Action & Resilience Team is working with Toitu on the carbonreduce programme to audit council emissions for 2023 and 2024. This provide our community with transparency about the emissions we create from Council operations. The results of these audits will be released in mid-2025. Moving forward, an emissions audit will be completed every year.
What is an emissions audit? It’s a very detailed assessment of all the greenhouse gas emissions produced as a result of Council’s operations. It helps us to better understand our environmental impact and opportunities for reducing emissions.
Why do we undergo audits? Our Climate Action Policy requires that we measure and disclose our emissions. Our audit also supports compliance with the National Emissions Reduction Plan (2022) and the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019.
Through this audit, we are able to identify emissions hotspots across Council operations. This guides emissions reduction planning, future decisions and investments that support Council's climate goals. Moving forward, we will be doing emissions audits every year to track our progress.
Next Steps
The next step is for us to develop an emissions reduction programme. The Climate Action Reference Group is developing an Implementation Plan including emissions reduction actions to give effect to the Climate Action Policy.
The Local Emissions Data Platform (LEDP)
To help us hit our decarbonisation goals in step with national policy, Far North District Council has a joint subscription to The Local Emissions Data Platform (LEDP) alongside Northland Regional Council and Whangārei District Council.
The LEDP is a go to greenhouse gas dashboard, built by Kinesis. It puts together suburb level, distict-wide emissions data from transport, land use, waste and energy, and lets the Far North District Council set achievable emissions reduction targets and track our progress in near real time.