Whitehall departments have made good progress in cutting their carbon emissions: civil servants exceeded David Cameron’s goal of a 10 per cent reduction in twelve months, cutting emissions by 14 per cent on average across central government in the year to May 2011.

Energy minister Greg Clarke has allowed departments no time to rest on their laurels, however. Last year he set a new target calling for a reduction of 25 per cent over three years. Civil Service World, together with green energy experts Active Energy, brought together experts from across Whitehall to discuss ideas for how departments can continue to cut carbon while at the same time cutting costs.

Better building management

One of the most obvious avenues for cutting energy usage and emissions is making changes to the way government utilises its property. “The starting point is getting systems in place so you automatically turn things off,” suggested Richard Fawssett, associate director of procurement at Ofgem. “You can’t expect people to turn every light off. If there are systems that prevent the heating from coming on at one o’ clock in the morning or the fans or cooling from switching on [at the wrong time of year] then you can make a big saving at virtually no cost.”

Even in new buildings with state of the art building management systems there is often room for improvement, said Active Energy’s business development director John Tarbet. “The more complex the system the more likely they are to be running at 60-80 per cent of maximum efficiency. You can have some immediate gains just from tweaking the system settings.”

Paul Woods head of support services and information policy at the Treasury Solicitor’s Department argued that the Government Property Unit (GPU), which is undertaking the rationalisation of the public sector estate could play an increasing role in reducing carbon emissions by using its bargaining power to make landlords sign up to the green agenda.

Suppliers and supplier contracts

Since many Whitehall departments use external companies to manage their buildings, discussion moved on to how contracts and relationships with these suppliers could affect carbon reduction. John Cole, head of estate strategy, efficiency and sustainability at the Home Office complained that few building management contracts are fit for purpose: “They were rubbish 15 years ago and they are rubbish now. We have learnt nothing.”

Active Energy managing director Lawrence Unwin said that better supplier agreements can make a difference: “A lot of private sector companies have contracts that encourage service providers to cut costs while getting some advantage in doing that. With local authorities and government buildings these clauses are not common practice.”

Coles’ department has had some success, however, in introducing energy performance contracts. These incentivise facilities mangers to cut energy usage by allowing them to keep a proportion of the money that they save. He claimed that one such contract with public services provider Amey had saved £300,000 and contributed a third of the department’s carbon reductions. Ian Thompson, sustainability manager at the Highways Agency said his organisation is also including a sustainability requirement in its new contracts.

The Government Procurement Service, which is overseeing centralised procurement in a number of key categories “wholeheartedly supports energy performance contracts said the service’s head of energy operations Claire Manning. She warned, however, that the contracts must link in with the work of the GPU which is examining facilities management contracts across all government premises and added that such agreements would not provide a “golden solution” across the board.

Departments should not just consider sustainability when procuring building management contracts, suggested Sarah Eppel, deputy director of sustainable products and consumers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. She pointed out that government research into its carbon footprint shows that 75 per cent of its impact is in the supply chain, and argued that procurement is a more critical area than operations when it comes to carbon cutting. She suggested that government should be using furniture and equipment for longer rather than replacing it, cutting costs and the amount of waste going to landfill. However, she also emphasized the difficulty of obtaining accurate information from the many tiers of companies involved in a long supply chain.

Leadership

All delegates agreed that strong leadership will be important in maintaining progress towards carbon reduction targets. “You have to have a person right up there [in senior management] to champion your cause,” said Rubi Kaur, green IT lead at HMRC. “Our chief finance officer is also the environmental champion. He will see all the programmes and be a passionate person about the green agenda, so that is who we target to get things through.”

Eppel worried that the new three year target would not succeed in catalysing departments’ efforts as effectively as the one-year goal. “With the one year requirement everybody had to have it on their list because if you were at the bottom of that [league table] it mattered,” she said.

Thompson recommended building “quick wins” that pay off in the first year in terms of carbon reductions and cost savings into a longer-term strategic plan to ensure that senior decision-makers maintain their focus on the green agenda. He added that as the environmentally conscious younger generation are promoted to senior positions they may look more favourably at investment in green measures.

Innovation

CSW publisher Kevin Sorkin, chairing the meeting, asked if there was a joined-up approach across government departments. Kaur said best practice in green IT is shared effectively, but departments are less able to co-operate when it comes to innovation, since there is no forum or collaborative process to share new ideas.

Eppell admitted that the introduction of competition into carbon cutting targets may also have inhibited collaboration. “You do get some departments keeping things close to their chest because there is a league table,” she said. “With [the new] three year target there may be more chance for sharing.” She added that innovation can be difficult when there are 35,000 civil servants procuring across government, many of whom lack the time, inclination or expertise to understand new technologies and techniques.

Cole, however, questioned whether government should be innovating at all: “Is it the role of government to push for innovation and bear the cost of things not working?” he asked.

Cole questioned whether government should be innovating at all: “Is it the role of government to push for innovation and bear the cost of things not working?” he asked. However, Nick Geddes, policy adviser on neighbourhood planning at the Department for Communities and Local Government responded that with senior level backing greater risk-taking in procurement could lead to the development of more effective green technologies. "Don't be scared to be innovative," he pleaded.
 
He suggested that utilising small and medium sized enterprises, rather than large suppliers which may be insufficiently interested in innovating, can help to develop new ideas. “If you procure through smaller companies then it is a big contract for them and they will look at ways of driving costs down,” he argued.

Measuring and publicising performance

The panelists concurred that the volume and variety of data coming out of government under the new transparency regime sometimes makes it difficult for the public to identify and interpret key pieces of information on energy efficiency. Cole questioned whether anyone was actually reading data published online on the month-by-month performance of individual buildings.

There was also general agreement on the principle that a consistent set of data should be produced across departments, even if this will be a difficult task, allowing comparison between them and with other organisations. “If you want to influence people you need to bring the information together and make it easier [to understand],” said Eppel.

Getting the right metrics was crucial to pursuing the whole agenda, said Ed Dunn, sustainable operations support officer at the Foreign Office. “We need to work out how we measure the embedded carbon and the social and economic impacts and put that information somewhere where it is clearly linked to finance. We all know that cutting carbon to cut costs works, but when it is proven categorically the rest will fall in behind,” he said.

Future-proofing

The financial case for reducing carbon and energy costs is likely to get more impressive, suggested Manning, who argued that: “Cutting costs and cutting carbon is a long game.” She warned that the projected rise in energy prices would see central government expenditure on electricity and gas rise from £600m now to £3.5bn by 2025, so that consistent attention would have to be paid to the issue if energy costs are not to take up an increasingly large proportion of budgets.

There was general agreement, however, that long-term planning was difficult because of the life cycle of governments and variable ministerial enthusiasm for carbon reduction programmes. Thompson advocated the creation of a cross-party committee to monitor the progress that government is making on sustainable procurement: “You need to get senior level to buy-in and to do that you need to make them accountable to somebody.”


Around the table
John Cole, head of estate strategy, efficiency and sustainability, Home Office
Ed Dunn, sustainable operations support officer, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Sara Eppel, deputy director, sustainable products and consumers, green economy and strategy directorate, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Richard Fawssett, associate director, procurement, Ofgem
Nick Geddes, policy adviser, neighbourhood planning, Department for Communities and Local Government
Rubi Kaur, senior technology architect, green IT lead, HM Revenue & Customs
Claire Manning, head of operations, energy, Government Procurement Service
John Tarbet, business development director, Active Energy
Ian Thompson, sustainability manager, network delivery and development, Highways Agency
Laurence Unwin, managing director, Active Energy
Paul Woods, head of support services centre and information policy, Treasury Solicitor’s Department