Acting on the message

“We have been sent a very strong signal of the requirement for government departments to achieve carbon neutrality,” says Bruce Simpson, General Manager: Finance and Planning, Police National Headquarters.

“Carbon neutrality is an area we’re moving toward understanding better.”

Following defined methodology, Police has calculated its carbon footprint as 27,433 tonnes of CO2 per annum (unaudited) or 2.6 tonnes per fulltime equivalent staff member each year.

This is similar to the averages of five other government departments which were found to have a per person average of between 2.1 - 2.8 tonnes of CO2 per annum.

On top of this, Police took an estimated 739,200 kg of waste to landfills in 2006.

So what’s being done to reduce the Police carbon footprint?

A study on how to move Police to carbon neutrality by 2012 is being commissioned this financial year.

Landcare Research will provide input and advice, including auditing Police’s carbon footprint tonnage. The Ministries for the Environment and Economic Development are also closely involved as lead agencies.

But on a daily basis, practical efforts to bring about change are already underway.

Meridian Energy, as the long-term Police electricity supplier, is certified carbon neutral.

“This means we’re allowed to treat our electricity supply from that source as carbon neutral,” says Bruce.

Bruce says the latest PNHQ cleaning tender took into account the chemicals being used to do the job.

“The reason for this was very much directed at having, as much as possible, biodegradable and non-pollutant products with a view to making us more conservation-minded.

“Conservation should be something we are all aware of as individuals and as an organisation.”

The Police vehicle contract also takes into account emissions as part of the evaluation criteria. “We’re starting to build conservation clauses into our main national procurement contracts.”

Bruce says little things like printing on both sides of paper can make a big difference in terms of reducing Police’s increasing paper consumption.

“The so-called paperless office is a complete myth.” In the year to December 2006, 154,000 reams of photocopy paper were used by Police - equating to 14.6 reams per person.

The National Procurement Group plans to work with I&T during the next 12 months to default all networked printers to doubled-sided printing in a bid to achieve a 20 percent reduction in paper usage.

Property design is also playing its part in the conservation push.

This includes water recycling and re-use of waste water for watering gardens, sensor lighting and energy efficient light bulbs.

“But we also need to be realistic in the economics of it,” says Bruce.

“Unfortunately, a lot of the real green initiatives don’t appear to have an economic pay-off at the moment. We can’t just keep pouring more and more money into things like solar and wind power.

“We’re at the start of a road toward being more conservation-minded. Recognising you can do something as an organisation is a very good place to be.”