Departmental Energy

Mr. Weir
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps his Department is taking to promote energy efficiency in its operations.

Dan Norris
We are taking the following steps to maximise our energy efficiency:

Interactive building management systems (BMS) linked to visual displays, informing staff of energy efficiency within the building and other sustainability indicators, e.g. CO2 emissions, water use, waste and recycling.

Adoption of the Carbon Trust Standard and Energy Efficiency Accreditation Scheme (EEAS)—both of these measure actual performance in terms of CO2 output.

Sustainability Champions have been appointed as part of the new Sustainable Workplace Management contract. They will work within each site to monitor energy use, identify and implement efficiency measures and report progress towards site energy targets on a quarterly basis.

This is supported by an ongoing programme of installation of energy efficient technologies. Initiatives which have already been implemented include: voltage regulation technologies, energy efficiency lighting, insulation and draught proofing, biomass, combined heat and power plants and automatic metering (AMR) of utilities. Thermal imaging surveys have also been undertaken at a number of sites, the survey results will form a programme of works to improve the thermal efficiency of the buildings.