The Department reduced its overall carbon emissions by 15.4 per cent. between 1999-2000 and 2005-06. This exceeds the target set for departments in 2006, to reduce carbon emissions by 12.5 per cent. by 2010-11. We continue our activities to reduce our emissions further.
All the electricity purchased for our London administrative estate comes from renewable sources. We have been working with the Carbon Trust over the last 18 months to identify energy saving measures, and we have recently appointed a consultant to work with us to implement a Carbon Management Programme throughout our core estate and in our arm’s length bodies.
We continue to expand provision of video conferencing, which helps to reduce the emissions associated with business travel. Over the past 12 months we have introduced a new managed print service where existing printers, photocopiers and fax machines have been replaced by multi-function devices. This has reduced the number of print devices by three-quarters. The ratio of staff to printers has reduced from 3:1 to an average of 10:1.