The Public Sector

According to the 2006 UK Climate Change Programme, in 2004 the public sector estate, including the devolved administrations, was responsible for carbon dioxide emissions of 5.7 million tonnes of carbon (MtC) on an end user basis or about 5% of the UK total. Central government departments were responsible for about one-tenth of this share.

The UK Government recognises that demonstrating leadership by reducing carbon dioxide emissions from its own estate is important and can be achieved by reducing energy demand, improving energy efficiency and continuing to source more electricity from renewables.

Measures introduced in the Climate Change Programme 2000 are estimated to save around 0.2 MtC in 2010. Activity undertaken to meet targets in the Central Government estate and NHS, public sector engagement with the Carbon Trust and improvements in the standard of buildings as a result of the Building Regulations are the main contributors, with product policy also playing an important role.

Some of the measures introduced in the UK Climate Change Programme 2006 that are expected to contribute an additional 0.3 MtC of carbon savings in 2010 were:

• A new revolving loan fund of £20 million to finance investment by the public sector in energy efficiency. This will provide support to at least 20 Local Authorities in 2006/07 and 20 other public sector organisations by the end of 2008.
• Provision of £4 million in new funding to create a Local Authority best practice support and improvement programme to be launched in 2006/07 and consideration of how to ensure that the local government performance framework will include an appropriate focus on action on climate change, sufficient to incentivise more authorities to reach the levels of the best.
• Delivering the DfES Building Schools for the Future and other capital programmes to make a substantial improvement in energy efficiency and carbon emissions standards of new and refurbished schools in England.

The UK Government and wider public sector buys £150 billion worth of goods and services each year. In the 2005 Sustainable Development strategy (‘Securing the future’), the Prime Minister committed Government to “lead by example” by spending taxpayers money sustainably. Together, HM Treasury’s Transforming Government Procurement and the 2007 UK Government Sustainable Procurement Action Plan outline the Government response for delivering the step change needed to ensure that Government supply chains and public services will be increasingly low carbon and will deliver Government’s wider sustainable development goals.