Edinburgh Recognised Globally for Climate Action and Transparency

For the fourth year, Edinburgh has been recognized as an “A List” city by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), indicating leadership in environmental action and transparency. Edinburgh is among the top 15% of 747 cities assessed globally, with only 112 cities achieving the “A List” status. Edinburgh is joined by Dundee, Perth & Kinross and Glasgow as the Local Authorities in Scotland earning “A List” status this year.

The City of Edinburgh Council has also been ranked joint ninth in the Council Climate Action Scorecards by Climate Emergency UK alongside Bristol City Council and Glasgow City Council. The top eight spots all went to London boroughs. The council scored 65%, up from 58% in 2023 while the average for single tier councils was 41%.

These recognitions highlight Edinburgh’s strong leadership and transparency in taking climate action, with the council scoring highly in buildings & heating, planning and land use and waste reduction and food. Edinburgh was ranked top for action on collaboration and engagement with a score of 93%.

Edinburgh declared a climate emergency in 2019 and a nature emergency in 2023. Both need to be tackled with urgency while also ensuring a Just Transition to a greener, fairer and more sustainable city for all who live, work and visit here.

Edinburgh set an ambitious climate target of being a net zero council and city by 2030. Towards this goal the City of Edinburgh Council included climate action as one of the three priorities of the Council Business Plan. To tackle the climate emergency, the Council has three key strategies focusing on reducing city emissions and the council’s own emissions and preparing the city for the impacts of climate change.

Other highlights include:

• reducing city emissions by 48% since 2005 and halving per capita emissions in the same time period
• publishing the Climate Ready Edinburgh Plan in 2024 which sets out the plan for adapting the city to climate change
• making Council houses and buildings more energy efficient and ready for the impacts of climate change including retrofitting over 1,300 homes for energy efficiency
• improving the city’s parks and greenspaces through the One Million Trees initiative and our Nature Network
• improving public transport and active travel routes across the city through projects like Trams to Newhaven and City Centre West to East Link (CCWEL) cycle route
• Approving the Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategy (LHEES) in 2023, setting out a citywide approach to heat decarbonisation and energy efficiency measures.