By David Williams
27 November 2009
The public sector must take the lead in reducing carbon emissions if its demands on the rest of the economy are to have any ‘moral authority’, a leading energy agency spokesman warned this week.
Speaking at a conference on the Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme, Tim Pryce, public sector manager at the Carbon Trust, said that government bodies should lead by example on energy efficiency.
‘Unless the public sector is getting a handle on its own emissions, it won’t have the moral authority to lead the rest of the economy down this pathway,’ he told delegates at the November 19 conference, hosted by CIPFA and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.
Pryce argued that the public sector accounted for around 8% of the UK’s total carbon emissions, but also had ‘colossal’ buying power through service procurement, which could boost demand for low-carbon goods and services.
Public bodies could use 30% less energy by adopting simple and proven measures, such as using more insulation and switching on computers, heaters and lights only when they were needed, Pryce said.
A further 10% could be saved by more efficient estates management.
He noted that local government was the largest public sector polluter, but singled out Oxford City Council for its ambitious plans to cut carbon emissions.
The authority has set targets to reduce its carbon footprint by 25% from 2005/06 levels by 2010/11. Its plans will cost £866,000 to implement, but should lead to savings of £1.24m.
Also speaking at the conference was Ben Wielgus, lead adviser on the Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme at consultancy KPMG.
He said the CRC, which begins next year and will cap emissions on around 5,000 of the UK’s worst polluting organisations, did not intrinsically favour private companies at the expense of the public sector.
The scheme will score each body on its carbon emissions, arrange them in a league table and reward the best performers while penalising the worst.
Wielgus said there was a ‘huge scope of opportunity’ for public bodies to bring down their emissions and make money out of the scheme. However, he warned that this would be possible only for organisations that had a culture of emissions reduction across all departments.
‘The public sector is challenged in strategy,’ he said. ‘A lot of people in the public sector have passed management of carbon on to the estates function and left it for them to deal with... organisations aren’t necessarily geared up yet to deal with this,’ he warned.
27 November 2009
The public sector must take the lead in reducing carbon emissions if its demands on the rest of the economy are to have any ‘moral authority’, a leading energy agency spokesman warned this week.
Speaking at a conference on the Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme, Tim Pryce, public sector manager at the Carbon Trust, said that government bodies should lead by example on energy efficiency.
‘Unless the public sector is getting a handle on its own emissions, it won’t have the moral authority to lead the rest of the economy down this pathway,’ he told delegates at the November 19 conference, hosted by CIPFA and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.
Pryce argued that the public sector accounted for around 8% of the UK’s total carbon emissions, but also had ‘colossal’ buying power through service procurement, which could boost demand for low-carbon goods and services.
Public bodies could use 30% less energy by adopting simple and proven measures, such as using more insulation and switching on computers, heaters and lights only when they were needed, Pryce said.
A further 10% could be saved by more efficient estates management.
He noted that local government was the largest public sector polluter, but singled out Oxford City Council for its ambitious plans to cut carbon emissions.
The authority has set targets to reduce its carbon footprint by 25% from 2005/06 levels by 2010/11. Its plans will cost £866,000 to implement, but should lead to savings of £1.24m.
Also speaking at the conference was Ben Wielgus, lead adviser on the Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme at consultancy KPMG.
He said the CRC, which begins next year and will cap emissions on around 5,000 of the UK’s worst polluting organisations, did not intrinsically favour private companies at the expense of the public sector.
The scheme will score each body on its carbon emissions, arrange them in a league table and reward the best performers while penalising the worst.
Wielgus said there was a ‘huge scope of opportunity’ for public bodies to bring down their emissions and make money out of the scheme. However, he warned that this would be possible only for organisations that had a culture of emissions reduction across all departments.
‘The public sector is challenged in strategy,’ he said. ‘A lot of people in the public sector have passed management of carbon on to the estates function and left it for them to deal with... organisations aren’t necessarily geared up yet to deal with this,’ he warned.
