A local carbon footprint is being produced for every ward in Manchester as part of the In Our Nature programme. 

The ambition is that these hyper-local carbon footprints can help Manchester’s residents understand where their climate actions will make the biggest difference, help to shape community-led climate initiatives and, used alongside the In Our Nature Resource Hub, help make Manchester a greener, healthier and more connected city.

HOW THE LOCAL CARBON FOOTRPINTS HAVE BEEN CALCULATED 

With thanks to In Our Nature partner, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, the carbon footprints have been calculated using the most up-to-date energy-use and transport related emissions for each ward. Whilst there are lots of other activities which emit carbon, for example, what we eat and the things we buy and throw away, emissions associated with these activities can’t be calculated at a ward level and so haven’t been included in these carbon footprints.

ELECTRICTY AND GAS DATA

This data comes from the Government’s “Domestic gas consumption by Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA)” and “Electricity consumption by Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA)” datasets which are available here.

An LSOA to administrative ward directory was used to determine which LSOAs were associated with which wards. An ‘emissions factor’ was then applied to the electricity and gas data using the Government’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Conversion Factors available here. Data from the 2021 Census on ‘Central Heating’ to determine other domestic heating fuels was also used, available here.

TRANSPORT BY CAR

This was calculated using car ownership data for each ward, available here and the car mileage average for Manchester available here. An ‘emissions factor’ was then applied to the mileage by vehicle type using the Government’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Conversion Factors available here. Unlike electricity and gas data this is not an exact measurement and is limited by having to assume a share of the mileage travelled by all Manchester residents (reported by the Department of Transport) for each ward based on type of vehicle ownership. The Tyndall Centre recomends that this is the best way to calculate vehicle use from residents themselves as MOT data is less consistently available and there is no more localised data on travel carbon emissions available.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Energy Performance Certificate data was based on the central EPC database available here. The data was grouped to ward level using a postcode to LSOA and administrative ward directory. EPCs are not a perfect measure of how energy efficient and low carbon a home is, however, they do indicate important attributions of homes that generally mean less energy demand to keep warm – e.g., loft insulation, age/type of heating, wall insulation etc. Some homes are difficult to update to make energy efficient (also known as ‘retrofitting’) but getting all homes to the efficiency of at least a ‘C’ rating would help lower each ward’s carbon footprint, and make homes warmer, cheaper to heat and tackle issues like damp.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT ACCESSIBILITY 

Greater Manchester Combined Authority publish a place-based assessment of the availability of public transport services across Greater Manchester. The data is available here and you can look at it in map form through Mapping GM. The Greater Manchester Accessibility Levels are one of the Transport layers you can choose on the map options.

TRAVEL TO WORK

Data from the 2021 Census is used to report how far people in each ward travel to work. The results on home working might be affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, but working from home is continuing in a number of sectors.

Visit the In Our Nature website to view the carbon footprints

In Our Nature is a partnership programme, led by Manchester Climate Change Agency, working alongside Hubbub, Groundwork Greater Manchester, Amity, Tyndall Centre for Climate Research and Manchester City Council, funded by The National Lottery Climate Action Fund with additional funding from the Wates Family Enterprise Trust.