Greener council

We are committed to being a greener council and to making sure that our day-to-day business practises do not have a negative impact on our environment either now, or in the future. In order to do this, we have developed an environmental management programme which is registered for ISO14001, an international environmental management standard.

Our environmental management plan considers:

• the use of fossil fuels
• waste disposal
• use of raw materials
• pollution and contamination
• protecting and enhancing habitats. See our Conservation page for more
• the built environment

Each item on the plan is set against a national indicator (central government use performance indicators to assess performance of councils) and progress of the plan is reviewed every three months.

We will continue to look at innovative ways of improving our environmental performance. For example, we have piloted the use of renewable energy from air source heat pumps and solar panels in some of our council houses.

More information about our environmental management programme can be found in our Annual Report.

Energy and water use

We are requested by central government to report on our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from our buildings and activities every year. To find out how we are progressing in reducing emissions download the 2011 GHG report below.

Green policies, plans and strategies

To support our greener way of doing business, we have incorporated greener thinking into some of our policies, plans and strategies for the district. These include:

• Core strategy of the Wycombe Development Framework
• Community Plan
• Environmental Policy

A winter 2011/12 review of our environmental activities can be downloaded below, it provides information on how we our aiming to improve our performance in respect of environmental sustainability.