Enigin Update - Public Sector Doubles Emissions Targets
NEW research released by the Carbon Trust reveals that the UK’s public sector has doubled its determination to tackle climate change over the past five years, despite difficult economic times.
Fresh analysis of 472 public sector bodies shows that average carbon reduction targets have almost doubled since 2006, rising from 16 percent to over 28 percent in 2011. This suggests that the UK government’s ambition to cut the carbon emissions from the Central Government estate by 25 percent by 2015 is realistic and achievable.
The research reveals how much can be saved through energy efficiency actions and measures, although this research is positive there still remains much to be done across the UK public sector in overcoming obstacles to improved energy efficiency, despite the financial benefits.
UK public bodies set their energy efficiency targets with projects that will more than pay back the initial investment, which suggests that the Central Government Estate target will save the taxpayer money.
Enigin Distributors across the UK (and globally) are well equipped with cost effective energy efficiency solutions, such as EnergyMaps, from Enigin, which provide an excellent return on investment through the substantial energy and cost savings achieved.
Tim Pryce, Head of Public Sector at Carbon Trust, commented, “The public sector has a vital leadership role to play in helping the UK to meet its carbon targets. Today’s findings are very encouraging.
“The Government has set itself a 25 percent reduction target for its own estate, which is commendable. But it is exciting to see leading organisations elsewhere in the public sector matching that level of ambition, and saving the taxpayer money at the same time.
“Based on this evidence, we believe there is a case for this 25 percent ambition to be taken up by the wider public sector estate to ensure continued delivery on national carbon targets and further cost savings.
“Through our work with public sector customers, the Carbon Trust has identified £2bn of potential savings currently in the pipeline. But this will only be achieved with the right direction, leadership and expert support.”
The University of Bath is one of the organisations being recognised for their carbon management ambition at this year’s event. Since 2005, they have cut their annual electricity bill by half a million pounds by saving energy, and plan to cut their carbon emissions by 43 percent between 2005 and 2020.
According to the Carbon Trust, the public sector’s top six carbon challenges are:
- Senior management not recognising the cost saving potential of setting ambitious carbon targets
- New government means a fast changing policy landscape around carbon reduction
- Human resource - Carbon managers / energy managers undervalued
- Lack of quality monitoring and targeting to track impact of projects - especially behaviour change projects
- Engaging schools can be notoriously complicated yet crucial for local authorities
- New build projects are typically consuming more energy than expected
Picture of University of Bath © Copyright Philip Pankhurst and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
