Welsh Government beats 10:10 reduction target

Cuts in the administration’s energy use were announced this morning (November 17).

In total the authority has made a total carbon saving of 1643 tonnes of in the areas covered by 10:10, which it says is equivalent to about 39,400 car journeys from Cardiff to Westminster.

The reductions have been achieved, said the devolved authority, through a ‘rationalisation of our administrative estate’, which means the government made cuts and was able to close a total of 18 buildings.

However, there have been steps including boosting its ‘Low Carbon Management Programme’ and the start of the ‘Managing with Less’ scheme, which has cut wastage.

Other initiatives have included reducing the number of journeys made for meetings by using video conferencing and cutting carbon usage of our ICT infrastructure by reducing the number of servers.

Wales’ first minister, Carwyn Jones said: “As a government which is fully committed to sustainable development, we need to lead the way for others in tackling the causes and consequences of climate change. These results show we are doing just that. But clearly, we can and will do more.

“Whilst the 10:10 campaign was a great way for us to achieve a one-off reduction, we are still committed to achieving at least 3% emissions reduction from 2011 onwards, in line with our Climate Change Strategy.

“This will support our wider efforts to achieve a 40% reduction in emissions by the year 2020 compared to figures from 1990.”

In a separate announcement, the UK Government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency (CRC) Scheme report, published on 08 November 2011, ranked the Welsh Government in the top 6th of participating organisations finishing 320th out of a total of 2103.

Luke Walsh