Government has announced new commitments for Greening Government’s Operations and Procurement. The PM announced on 6 July a new five year commitment to reduce central Government greenhouse gas emissions by 25% for 2014/15 on a 2009/10 baseline.
The new commitment will cover all greenhouse gases, not just carbon dioxide, and business related transport emissions (including owned vehicles and business travel - but excluding staff commuting).
This new commitment covers the widest scope of the Central Government estate, making it more ambitious than the current 10% target, leading to a higher range of lifetime carbon and financial savings. In support of this, there is a new commitment to reduce domestic business travel flights.
A Ministerial steering group will oversee the delivery of these new Greening Government’s Operations and Procurement commitments.
10% target to reduce carbon emissions from central government departments
The Prime Minister announced on 14 May 2010 that this would be the ‘greenest government ever’ and that, as part of this, central government would reduce its carbon emissions by 10% within 12 months. The government has achieved this target, saving a total of 13.8%.
This target spanned 3000 central government office buildings – everything from Whitehall headquarters to Jobcentre Plus Offices, HM Courts and Driving Test Centres. Over 300,000 civil servants played their part, and many made a personal contribution by changing their own behaviour, for example turning off lights and equipment when not needed.
Over the 12 months to 13 May 2011, government reduced carbon emissions from its office estate by 104,532 tonnes on the previous year (from a baseline of 764,141 tonnes CO2). The saving amounts to a reduction of nearly 238 million kilowatt hours in energy consumption, and we estimate that this will reduce government’s energy bills by £13 million this year.
When the data and the baseline are weather corrected, the total reduction is 103,316 tonnes against a baseline of 749,547 tonnes. Weather correction is a data process which eliminates the effect of unusually warm or cold weather. It has been conducted independently of government, by the BRE, and is an accepted industry method for ensuring that energy performance can be evaluated independently of weather fluctuations.
Further details on the 10% programme (including the end of programme report, and information on scope and the weather correction process) are available on the Data.gov website.
Other energy efficiency measures
All government departments are also part of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, regardless of their size.