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Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council is set to cut carbon emissions and reduce energy bills by joining phase 5 of the Carbon Trust's Local Authority Carbon Management (LACM) programme. Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council is one of 45 new local authorities participating in this phase of the Carbon Trust's programme. In the first four phases of the programme annual savings of more than ?33 million and 500,000 tonnes of CO2 were identified.

The Carbon Trust is now working with 143 of the UK's 468 local authorities ? just under one third ? through the LACM programme, which provides councils with practical advice on cutting their carbon footprint and reducing energy costs. In the last phase of the programme, local authorities on average committed to reduce their identified carbon emissions by 20 per cent over the next five years.

Richard Rugg, Public Sector Programme Manager at the Carbon Trust, said:

?Climate change is the biggest environmental threat currently faced by the UK and the reduction of carbon emissions, the main cause of climate change, should now be a key priority for all organisations, including local authorities. Improving energy efficiency and therefore reducing energy bills is crucial if local authorities are to make best use of tax payer's money.

?Given the success of the first four phases of our local authority programme, we're hugely excited by the prospect of working with forty five more local authorities to establish good carbon management practise. The carbon and energy savings made so far as a result of the programme have been great, and we're looking forward to building on these achievements with the new participants.

?Although we're proud to be working with nearly a third of all local authorities, we would urge other councils to get in touch so they too can play their role in the fight against climate change.?

The Local Authorities Carbon Management programme is designed to deliver improved energy management to reduce emissions under the direct control of the local authority such as buildings, vehicle fleets, street-lighting and landfill sites. It also provides practical support to organisations by helping them identify carbon saving opportunities, providing tools to analyse energy consumption and delivering workshop support for staff and senior managers to enable them to 'embed' carbon management into the day to day business of the council. The programme is supported by a bespoke toolkit ? a web-based manual that gives detailed guidance on the programme's process, technical advice and examples of best practice.

The fifth phase of the Carbon Trust's Local Authorities Carbon Management programme will run until March 2008.