Carbon Neutral Public Service programme
What is the Carbon Neutral Public Service?
The Carbon Neutral Public Service programme aims to demonstrate government leadership on sustainability by reducing government’s environmental impact.
It will do this by making the 34 core public service agencies carbon neutral. It will make sure the six lead agencies are carbon neutral by 2012 with the other 28 agencies being on the path to carbon neutrality by 2012.
How does the programme work?
The atrium of DOC's new energy-
efficient head office, Conservation House
The programme involves a three-step process.
- Measuring the greenhouse gas emissions from each agency’s activities.
- Reducing those emissions.
- Offsetting remaining emissions by undertaking projects to remove an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or prevent it being released.
All 34 agencies will complete an annual emissions inventory, develop an emissions reduction plan for their organisation and undertake the actions in their plans. The programme will use New Zealand-based projects to offset the greenhouse gas emissions that cannot be avoided after emissions reduction activities have taken place.
Our emissions inventory and reduction plan
The Department of Conservation is one of the government agencies taking part in the Carbon Neutral Public Service programme.
You can find our emissions inventory and reduction plan for 2006/07 below. They have been verified by the Ministry for the Environment, which runs the Carbon Neutral Public Service programme.
Highlights from our emissions inventory and reduction plan are that:
- at Head Office we have reduced our waste to landfill from 31.37 kg per staff member to 5.24 kg between July 2006 and June 2007
- we will implement a vehicle replacement plan that will reduce our emissions by 1,300 tonnes of CO2e by 2012
- we will reduce fuel oil use consumed by diesel generators by 50% through using renewable energy
- we will implement building energy audits addressing lighting, double-glazing and insulation that will reduce emissions by 150 tonnes of CO2e.