Housing and buildings will be one of the biggest challenges for Barnet Council’s bid to slash carbon emissions, a council officer has said.

Some 60% of the borough’s carbon emissions come from housing and buildings through the use of utilities and construction of additional homes, according to a briefing by Robert Poole, an environment strategy and project officer at Barnet Council.

Robert said: “Housing and building is one of the areas where there will be the biggest challenge.”

He added: “This is the area where we really rely most on central government for funding, purely for the scale of the change required.”

His comments came as he presented an update on the council’s sustainability strategy to a meeting of the authority’s children’s partnership board on Wednesday. Designed to help the government meet its target of cutting carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, the strategy is due to go out to a public consultation before being brought to a committee for approval next year.

Robert told the meeting the council had used the public sector decarbonisation scheme to install heat pumps and energy-saving measures in council buildings. It had also secured more than £1million to retrofit the borough’s social housing and put in additional grants to expand that further, he added.

The council officer set out a range of other actions already being undertaken by the local authority to improve sustainability, including rolling out hybrid pool cars for staff and installing a cycle lane along the A1000 from Haringey to North Finchley. He added that Barnet was the local authority with the second-highest number of electric vehicles in the country.

Having already gained some feedback on sustainability from Barnet’s youth board, Robert asked the children’s partnership board for advice on how to further engage with young people. Several members came forward with suggestions, which included engaging with faith groups, Transport for London and the private sector.

Chris Munday, the council’s executive director of children’s services, proposed bringing together climate groups already established in schools to provide feedback on the strategy.

The consultation on the sustainability strategy is expected to take place next year.