Article taken from SD Scene (http://sd.defra.gov.uk/2011/05/natural-england%e2%80%99s-carbon-reduction-story/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gov%2Fsdscene+%28SD+Scene%29) by Paul Hinds, 31 May 2011
Paul Hinds, Head of Sustainability at Natural England, describes its progress in reducing its carbon emissions, using mostly simple low cost measures to achieve estimated savings of £1.75 million a year.
Natural England committed in 2006 to reduce its emissions by 50%, achieving this target in February 2011.
The 10:10 campaign provided support, helping to motivate and inspire Natural England's staff towards this achievement.
In 2006 the Natural England Board committed the organisation to reduce the carbon emissions of its business travel and estate by 50% by the end of 2010. Here we set out how we have achieved this target. It contains nothing new or revolutionary. In fact much of our reduction has been achieved through simple low or no-cost measures that can be found in any environmental management manual. What has been different has been the substantial shift in organisational culture towards more sustainable ways of working and integrating carbon into our everyday thinking. We hope that this will inspire others to follow suit.
We have established our carbon baseline for 2007 at just under 7,000 tonnes CO2 made up of one-third business travel and two-thirds estate energy emissions. Our methodology follows Defra's published guidance, uses its emission factors, is accredited to the Carbon Trust Standard and has been audited by PwC. We use utility bill data to calculate and monitor our estate energy carbon emissions, but have begun to move over to real time monitoring of our offices. This not only provides better management information (including examples of inefficiencies in heating and lighting) but has also engendered a sense of ownership in improving our carbon footprint with our staff.
We have developed our own Travel Carbon Footprinting Tool that uses financial data (expense claims, credit card bills etc) to quantify carbon emissions by each mode and report our organisational, team and individual carbon footprints on a monthly basis. Again, this gives our staff a sense of ownership of their individual and team carbon footprints but has also provided evidence on which to prioritise travel and work in more sustainable ways. We continue to report on progress towards our target through monthly reports to our senior executive and also through our Carbon Dashboard on the intranet.
The largest proportion of our 2007 footprint and the biggest opportunity for carbon saving has been through improving the energy performance of our estate. We have worked closely with our landlord, Defra, and our facilities management provider, Interserve, to optimise the office space we occupy. In some cases we have closed and moved from inefficient offices to more sustainable locations. Those buildings that remain have undergone a rigorous energy audit and efficiency measures have been put in place to further reduce carbon emissions.
We have also encouraged our staff to realise the work-life balance benefits of flexible working and touchdown centres rather than commuting to a Natural England office on a daily basis. We have established a system that quantifies the emissions of working at home to ensure that we are not passing on the carbon burden to our staff when working in a flexible way. We are further supporting staff in improving the energy efficiency of their homes by providing advice on insulation, behavioural change and grants and everyone is able to borrow an energy meter to monitor the energy performance of their home and identify potential savings.
Our staff wanted to make their full contribution towards our carbon target but they didn't want to be tied down to restrictive rules around travel. Teams felt they were best placed to make daily decisions around how they travelled to fulfil their responsibilities so they agreed to commit themselves to an annual Team Travel Carbon Reduction Target. Each month we monitor and report on progress and we have built on the targets to create a travel carbon allocation system aligned with our financial budgets. To keep within budget our staff utilise a range of tools including:
Ownership of the carbon target by all our staff has been critical to the success of the programme. To support this we have developed a number of initiatives including:
Natural England already has a rigorous performance management system in place at both the individual and team level. We utilise the data on our Corporate Plan Monitoring System to scrutinise team performance, including meeting carbon targets, on a quarterly basis. This not only enables us to monitor carbon performance but identify and support any specific challenges faced by teams or individuals. Scrutiny at this level also ensures that carbon is continually prioritised.
We have integrated progress towards our carbon target into our Corporate Plan Monitoring System which reported at Board level on a quarterly basis. In addition, we also produce a series of reports and management information as follows:
Leadership has played a critical role, not only from our senior executive who have significantly reduced their individual travel footprints but from all levels of the organisation who have championed carbon reduction and been exemplars of sustainable travel to others. As a result there is a feeling that we now have a more joinedup organisation that works across all levels to achieve our objectives.
Our inclusion of staff in decision making around sustainability and the focus on delivery at the team and individual level has created an informal contract between the organisation and its people: one where staff agree to deliver in return for the support and information they require. We are now looking at developing a similar approach across our other sustainability targets.
We estimate that our office energy efficiency programme and reduced travel expenditure saves around £1.75M a year. Furthermore, ad hoc information suggests that our people are being more productive as a result of travelling less or using more sustainable modes and many are also reporting a better work-life balance through less travel. Our early estimates suggest that the productivity benefits of not travelling or using public transport are in excess of £600,000 per year.
For more information, please contact: Paul Hinds Head of Sustainability on 0300 060 1193 or paul.hinds@naturalengland.org.uk