spends more than £10 million a year on energy – so finding ways to cut consumption made financial sense as well as helping to cut carbon emissions.
Working with the Carbon Trust, the two hospitals, which treat 750,000 patients every year, aim to knock a fifth off their carbon emissions, with savings of 14,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide already identified.
Good housekeeping and better energy awareness among the 9,500 staff will help reduce energy use, says David Porter, Head of Estates Management at Guy’s and St Thomas’. But the Trust is also investing in improved technology to boost efficiency.
Staff are encouraged to switch off lights, recycle more and think about energy use as they go about their jobs, with posters around the sites and energy-saving messages on the Trust’s intranet. Staff energy reps meet regularly to come up with new ideas.
A £2 million programme is upgrading lighting controls, improving insulation and fitting thermostatic valves on radiators in the hospitals, with estimated annual savings of £1 million. Maintenance staff are looking at how the hospital buildings can be run more efficiently, ensuring that ventilation systems are turned down when units are not in use. Plans to install combined heat and power on both sites will allow the hospitals to generate some of their own electricity, reducing energy bills and carbon emissions significantly.
David Porter says, ‘Everyone can make a contribution, no matter how small each individual action appears. Small changes can add up to significant amounts, both in terms of financial savings and environmental benefits.’
industry
Industry accounts for a big chunk (18 per cent) of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions; and electricity-generating power stations are responsible for a further 27 per cent. Between these two sectors, nearly half the UK’s emissions are outside the direct control of most of us.
Economic experts at the IPCC say that setting a high price for carbon would make it more attractive for industry to be more efficient. Energy-efficiency measures could create savings of 7-10 per cent without a carbon price, increasing to 23-46 per cent savings if the price of a tonne of carbon rose to US $100.
In the UK the government has so far used a number of financial regulations and incentives to get industry to change. It has sought to encourage action to cut emissions, providing advice and guidance through the Carbon Trust and Envirowise (see p.390). It has introduced a special tax – the Climate Change Levy – on the energy that business and public sector uses. It has also backed emissions trading as a means of encouraging energy efficiency, with the UK part of the Europe-wide Emissions Trading Scheme (see Chapter 6). Originally designed for large energy users, Emissions Trading has subsequently been extended – so that more companies will have to buy the right to pollute.
For more on how we need to clean up the electricity sector, see Chapter 5.
business savings
Chemicals manufacturer Holliday Pigments in Hull found it could save energy by using some of the heat generated by processes in its factory to generate steam, saving some £50,000 from energy bills and reducing its carbon footprint. Broadcaster Sky cut its footprint by 5 per cent in 2005-2006 through steps such as improving energy efficiency in its buildings and vehicle fleet. It also set up a carbon credit card for staff, giving points for carbon-friendly behaviour such as cycling to work. The company switched to renewable electricity supplies and offset its remaining emissions by investing in renewable energy projects in New Zealand and Bulgaria.
offsetting – does it count?
Carbon offsetting has become big business in recent years with companies offering to offset emissions by investing in carbon-saving projects. The idea is that for every tonne of carbon dioxide produced, a tonne is either removed from the atmosphere – by planting trees intended to act as a carbon sink – or avoided, by replacing a polluting activity with a clean alternative, such as renewable energy.
Some offsetting schemes have been criticised on a number of counts. Although trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, they must remain in situ to prevent the carbon being released again, so there would have to be strong guarantees that forests planted this year to offset emissions were not cut down a couple of years later. There are other problems with tree-planting offset schemes, too: large plantations where just one type of tree is grown are bad news for wildlife and can cause problems for people locally.
Offsetting schemes that invest in renewable energy projects can benefit communities in the developing world, and a gold standard has been established for offsetting schemes that deliver genuine benefits. This guarantees that the investment is made in a scheme that would have struggled to find funding in any other way.
However robust an individual offset scheme, Friends of the Earth points out that it is simply a way for the industrialised world to buy the right to continue polluting rather than cutting emissions at source. Offsetting allows companies and individuals to claim that they are tackling carbon emissions when they may not be doing anything to cut emissions at source. Such an approach will do little to reduce the UK’s emissions of carbon dioxide. The spread of carbon offsetting may have helped stimulate awareness of climate change, but many people now argue that it should be a last resort – and that genuine cuts to carbon emissions must come first.
local authorities
The government estimates local authorities can cut their own energy use by 11 per cent. Although local authorities themselves are responsible for a small proportion of UK emissions they have powers beyond their own buildings, land and work force: they also influence suppliers and services through the goods and services they buy; they control local planning and development, and are responsible for green spaces and promoting public transport.
A scattering of local authorities have embraced the need to take action on climate change. More than 220 have signed a commitment to make this a cornerstone of their policies. The year 2000 saw the launch of The ‘Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change’ (updated in 2005), in which all signed up councils were encouraged to develop a climate change action plan and set targets for reducing emissions.
Nottingham City Council, the first authority to sign, has reduced its carbon emissions by 30,000 tonnes by using renewable energy supplies. Its policies have helped stabilise emissions from transport in the city and boosted recycling rates. The council is now looking to become carbon neutral.
schools
Some 6,000 primary and secondary schools across the UK are involved in the Eco-School scheme, which encourages teachers and pupils to work together to come up with ways to save energy, improve recycling and save water at school.
As well as cutting emissions, schools taking part find the scheme has other benefits, including better links to the wider community, improvements in the school ethos and relations between staff and pupils, and reduced bills. Some funding is available from the government to support low-carbon and energy-saving measures, but critics say there is not nearly enough to go round.
transport
Road transport accounts for between a fifth and a quarter of UK emissions. Emissions from transport are on the up: more and more vehicles on the road mean that carbon dioxide emissions have risen by 9 per cent since 1990. With government figures showing carbon dioxide emissions from transport set to soar, can anything be done
