Energy Efficiency in States Buildings - Environment Division - Submission - 25 May 2009

Progress against a 2007 environmental audit report carried out at the offices of the Environment Division (Planning and Environment Department) based at Howard Davis Farm

A Report to the Environment Scrutiny Panel

Submitted by Dr Louise Magris,

Assistant Director, Environmental Policy and Awareness

25th May 2009

1.0 Executive Summary

A comparison has been made with the recommended resource management initiatives and associated savings identified by an environmental audit of Howard David Farm carried out in 2007 and what was actually achieved in 2008.

The results are as follows:

1. The audit and subsequent recommendations provided a very useful formal opportunity to step back' and assess the position and prioritise areas for improvement;
2. There has been progress against nearly all of the initiatives identified in the 2007 audit although baseline data extraction and monitoring has not been straightforward and new systems have needed to be established and upheld;
3. Reporting, monitoring and recording of data have substantially improved and has helped us to better capture resource use.
4. The building at HDF presents limitations and some substantial improvements would require considerable upgrading of existing systems and this is not considered cost-effective because the long-term future of the Department on this site is not assured;
5. Utility usage has decreased along with expenses, and improvements in line with recommendations from the 2007 Audit Report have been made despite there having been a significant increase in energy prices from 2007 to 2008 and the Environment Division increasing the number of full-time employees based at HDF.
6. In particular, was a 27% reduction in electricity use between 2007 and 2008. However some savings have resulted from one-off' actions such as decommissioning infrastructure and better rationalising office space (staff having have been relocated from three office blocks down to two, enabling the closure of one block and associated savings). Others savings have resulted from behavioural changes. Nevertheless, it was the impetus of the audit' that bought many of these issues to the fore and enabled structured action to be taken and measured.

2.0 Background

An environmental audit was carried out of Howard Davis Farm (HDF) in 2007 with the following objectives:

1. Identify areas of environmental improvement and resources savings that could be made in respect of the Environment Division's main office base and associated operations at Howard Davis Farm, Trinity ;
2. Use the information this information to inform the development of the ECO-ACTIVE BUSINESS accreditation scheme.

HDF is a converted farm and barn building with external facilities such as greenhouses, storage sheds and research facilities. Prior to the audit there were no formal good housekeeping' policies in place: many of the recommendations of the 2007 report were based on a behavioural change by officers.

The audit estimated that there was the potential to save up to £8000 per annum in the first year of implementation of the Audit's action plan, with a predicted cost of between £600 – £1000 (indicative figures only). An actual reduction in expenditure of £6,809 (plus £700 in avoided expenditure) could be quantified with expenditure of £2,400 to achieve this. However these figures should be noted with caution since they do not necessarily represent recurring savings arising as a result of demand management; Section 3 explains the particular circumstances.

0. Progress by resource area

Each area addressed by the 2007 audit will be considered in turn. Firstly progress against the 2007 recommendations will be shown using a red, amber and green coding system

Secondly the impact of the measures on the quantities and costs of the resources will be shown again using the red, amber green coding system as follows:

• Green - on track with progress / improvement;
• Amber - slightly off track with some progress / improvement;
• Red - off track with no progress.

1. Oil

The Department uses oil for central heating. The following table shows progress against the recommendations made in the 2007 report

Oil consumption per FTE decreased slightly in 2008 but due to the considerable increase in oil prices from 2007 to 2008 costs per head almost doubled.

The small reduction in the quantity of oil consumed per FTE between 2007 and 2008 were most likely achieved as a result of simple measures such as a more effective use of office space e.g. moving desks away from radiators etc. In addition other factors such as the weather will have contributed.

A more significant decrease in the consumption of oil can only be expected if the entire heating system (i.e. radiators, boiler and associated pipe work) is updated to current specifications but this would be a considerable investment. Since the long-term location of the Department is not secured at HDF this measure is not scheduled although the pipe work is extremely old and will require replacing in the short-medium term

Summary Table – Oil

*Full Time Equivalent post – i.e. a measure of staff numbers using the building

**N.B. 5,000l of oil were delivered on 28th Dec 2008 into an empty tank and have been discounted since this was stock carried over into 2009

2. Electricity

Electricity is used for lighting and secondary heating. HDF is an old building and not purpose built as offices and as such there were many areas where lighting improvements were identified.

There has been a significant decrease in electricity consumed in 2008 (27% of units) as illustrated in Graph 1 with a saving of £4,551, this is against a backdrop of increasing energy prices. This has been achieved by the following measures:

• Behavioural improvements;
• rationalising office space and closing one external office block;
• A considerable portion of these savings have been achieved by the decommissioning of the Department's research greenhouses between 2007 and 2008 although the precise amount cannot be quantified.

Summary Table - Electricity

Graph 1. Electricity Consumption at HDF (Comparison of 2007 and 2008)

Electricity Consumption at Howard Davis Farm (Comparison of 2007 and 2008)

25000

20000

15000 2007 Units used 2008 Units Used

2007 Cost (£) 10000 2008 Cost (£)

5000

0

Month

3. Water

The operational business of the Department means that there is significant water use compared to conventional office activities e.g. laboratories. Nevertheless, the 2007 audit identified an unexpectedly high water use for the Department over that quarter and recommended a leak survey. This was carried out and immediately and a mains water leak identified and resolved leading to mains water usage

The identification and fixing of the leak as well as additional water saving measures, e.g. installing Hippos,' has led to the reduction of water use by approximately 1/3 between 2007 and 2008 and an associated drop in expenditure of £2,258.

Bottled water use has remained static despite the increase in staff from 45 FTE to 47 FTE. HDF currently has two water stations located on the ground and first floors with staff having the option to use filtered water if preferred. It is convenient to leave a water station in reception for visiting members of the public, but it could be argued that the first floor station is removed. This, however, could cause inconvenience for meetings, which are often held in the first floor Committee Room. The consumables associated with bottled water i.e. plastic cups are undesirable and attempts have been made to remove their availability and offer glasses instead especially for meetings when it is a simple matter to provide glasses.

4. Paper, office consumables and furniture

The Department does a considerable amount of its own printing/ copying publications e.g. the quarterly printing of the Rural Update and the Fisheries & Marine Resources newsletter, borehole registration forms and the annual Countryside Renewal Scheme pack. In addition there is in-house printing of large policy documents such as the draft Island Plan Review and the draft Energy Policy.

Accurate recording of the Department's three main photocopiers' and use of single sheets of paper used by the Department in 2008 compared with 2007 has increased by 20,243 sheets. Despite a business case for a reasonably high level of paper usage, a significant positive shift has been the change from non-recycled to recycled paper.

Summary table – Paper

5. Transport

The Departmental business means that there is considerable necessary on-island travel for example agricultural inspections, many monitoring and survey regimes, responding to pollution incidents, site visits and travel between the Trinity Offices and St Helier.

There are 2 ways that business mileage is carried out – either using an officer's own car with the mileage being recorded and then claimed back at the States of Jersey standard rate or by using a Departmental lease car or vehicles owned by the Department. Unfortunately in the case of the latter two categories, mileages are not recorded over one complete calendar year. For example, the handover in 2007 was in September and in 2008 the end of October. Therefore, valid comparisons can only be made for the purposes of this report for business miles claimed back by officers. In 2007 there were 6,708 miles claimed back' and in 2008 this rose to 7,510.

It is recognised that the business needs of the Department will always mean that mileages are quite high but there is scope to reduce dependency on petrol/diesel options and to more effectively use lease cars to reduce over costs. The Department has purchased an electric scooter with the intention of using this to travel into the town offices although it is not used extensively. Furthermore investigations were made into trialling proto-type electric cars but unfortunately the business case did not represent best value.

A car pooling system was put in place in place at the beginning of 2009 with the intention of getting best value from the vehicle resource. A more rigorous monitoring procedure of mileage etc has been put into place for the calendar year 2009.

6. Waste

Measures to promote recycling and appropriately separate waste at source have been forwarded and measures to reduce paper use by duplexing' have been successful although as we have discussed above, the Department does use a lot of paper in the conduct of its business.

3.5 Biodiversity

HDF is a converted farm building in a rural location, surrounded by extensive grounds with significant biodiversity value. There are red squirrels and a bat colony on site, both protected mammals under the Conservation of Wildlife (Jersey) Law 2000. Opportunities to manage the grounds in a more wildlife friendly manner have been taken up – for example reducing the frequency of grass cutting to improve plant diversity and associated insects. However this management change has required communication to visitors to the offices who previously have seen the grounds maintained more formally.

4.0 Conclusions

Good progress has been made in a number of areas but it has been more challenging in others and a particular issue has been applying resources to baseline the information sufficiently and then implement progress. Additionally current systems make it difficult to extract the relevant management information.

However, the Department is committed to continual improvement and all amber and red sections of the recommendation tables are being prioritised for improvement. The Department is currently becoming accredited to Level 2 of the ECO-ACTIVE BUSINESS scheme and these issues are being addressed as part of the action plan. Continued and more robust monitoring will make it easier to identify cost savings as a result of the measures implemented.

5.0 Reference

Glover, F. Globaltolocal.com. Howard Davis Farm Environmental Audit Report. August 2007.