1. Has your council declared a climate emergency and produced an action plan/strategy or policy that covers carbon sequestration and offsetting? If yes, please attached a copy of the policy/strategy or provide a link to the online copy.
Yes. We have developed a Carbon Reduction Plan 2020 – 2030. https://www.devon.gov.uk/environment/our-environmental-performance/environmental-performance-action-plans/carbon-reduction-plan
2. Have you, within your existing or planned strategies/policies, considered carbon sequestration and offsetting? If yes, please outline those plans not included in question 1 or attach a copy or link to an online copy.
Yes. See Question 1.
3. What forms of carbon sequestration have you considered, and which have you excluded? What was the basis of that decision?
See Section 8 of the report at Question 1.
4. How have you or do you plan to quantify the extent of carbon sequestration required to offset your carbon emissions within the council? Please provide any figures and equations you have used. What was the basis for using those figures/equations?
See Section 8 of the report at Question 1. The basis of using the figures we have developed was a rigorous review of technology options available to us over the next 9 years to 2030 to understand what our residual emissions will be.
5. Do you as a council or your contractors use any of the offsetting schemes ie Woodland Trust to offset your carbon emissions? If yes, please list those used.
There is only one offsetting standard in the UK for woodland, that is the Woodland Carbon Code. The Woodland Trust is one of many organisations/landowners that will develop a woodland project on behalf of a client, certify it to the Woodland Carbon Code standard, and pass the carbon offset to the client. The market for trading Woodland Carbon Units is in its infancy. Devon County Council is currently testing and stimulating this market by procuring £44,000 of carbon through the Woodland Carbon Code to offset a small percentage of our corporate carbon emissions.