Bristol City Council has already recorded a 71% reduction in carbon emissions from its direct activities against a 2005 baseline, surpassing their target to reduce emissions by 65% by 2020.
This is the second year running that the authority exceeded its own carbon targets, the council has led the way with its corporate initiatives, including making buildings more energy efficient, investments in renewable energy infrastructure such as wind turbines and solar panels, electrifying the council’s fleet vehicles and continuous upgrades to street lighting across the city.
Bristol City Council has not remained complacent and continues to look at new technologies and initiatives that will drive the city to become carbon neutral by 2030.
Bristol City Council has teamed up with the Manchester-based energy tech company, EnergiMine, which will see Bristol City Council employees rewarded for their energy efficient behaviour through the EnergiToken (ETK) rewards platform. The initiative is another move in the right direction to help the city achieve its ambitious goal of becoming carbon neutral, with the broader view and plan to take part in future city-wide initiatives.
This partnership comes following Bristol City Council’s “climate emergency” meeting in November 2018, which yielded a unanimous vote to back a highly ambitious 2030 carbon neutral target in response to the worrying IPCC report which stated that the world only has 12 years in which to avoid the apocalyptic and irreversible impacts of climate change.
The council have therefore taken upon themselves to be leaders on this front, storming ahead of targets. Part of their plan will revolve around the adoption of new digital technologies to minimise energy consumption and maximise value generation, so the incorporation of the EnergiToken platform comes as no surprise.
Councillor Kye Dudd, Cabinet Member for Energy and Transport said: “Bristol is a city that is leading the fight against climate change in the UK. We have invested a great deal in renewable energy, low-carbon heat, sustainable transport, improving the energy efficiency of our buildings and developing the City Leap initiative that will bring £1bn of energy investment into the city.
“We’re very excited about this partnership with EnergiMine which represents another method for engaging our city in the very real and pressing issue of climate change. The pilot to deliver rewards to our staff for being more energy efficient will undoubtedly reduce carbon emissions and save the council money on its energy bills, but we hope that some of those positive behaviours will overlap into people’s home lives and in time influence friends and relatives. This behaviour change at a city-level will be key in the coming years as Bristol forges ahead on our journey to carbon neutrality.’’
EnergiToken is a rewards platform which uses blockchain technology to incentivise people with the digital currency, ETK, for exhibiting energy efficient behaviour. This mutually beneficial relationship will seek to promote energy reduction, clean transport and social cause initiatives. Employees of Bristol City Council can then choose to add EnergiTokens (ETK) to their wallet app to claim exclusive offers from approved partnered vendors in the EnergiToken ecosystem or donate the equivalent value (£) to a registered charity.
EnergiMine has already secured partnerships with notable names such as the EMA, ON5 group and nextbike UK, this latest partnership with Bristol City Council will further add to the prestige of the EnergiToken platform, which is rapidly becoming a “must have” addition for those looking to reduce their carbon emissions.
“The first step in the fight against climate change starts with the promotion of energy efficient behaviours,” said Energi Mine CEO, Omar Rahim. “Following the latest IPCC report, we at EnergiMine are proud to have partnered up with Bristol City Council, whose forward-thinking and courageous response to the threat of climate change will surely pave the way for others to follow suit. We really look forward to driving carbon emissions down with the help of the EnergiToken rewards platform. We are leading incentivisation towards a carbon neutral world of tomorrow.”
This is just the first of many exciting initiatives which will take root in Bristol over the coming months, owed to the city’s more radical target than the UK government’s target of an 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This may well be THE spark for an energy revolution at a local level.
Only time will tell.
