Carbon neutral government programme

If you are a Government agency, then no doubt you are already aware of the Carbon Neutral Government Programme (CNGP). As its name suggests, this is a government program aimed at measuring, reporting and reducing greenhouse gas emissions of government.

By 2022/23 most government organisations will be required to report on their carbon emissions. This includes government departments and crown agents.

The CNGP provides some ideas on where agencies can focus their efforts these include:

  • Phasing out coal-fired boilers
  • Optimising fleets with the aim of reducing the number of vehicles in total
  • Choosing battery electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids
  • Investing in low-emission heating and cooling
  • Requiring NABERSNZ building efficiency ratings from January 2021 for office spaces over 2,000m2
  • Prioritising low carbon designs for new buildings

In addition to these focus areas, Government agencies will be required to report on scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions as part of ISO14064-1:2018 and the Greenhouse Gas protocol.  All scope 1 and 2 emissions and all mandatory and material Scope 3 emissions.  This currently includes the number of staff working from home, but not commuter travel.

The omission of commuter travel is perhaps an oversight because commuter travel can be a significant proportion of an agency’s overall emissions.  Perhaps it hasn’t been included because commuter emissions have traditionally been difficult to measure, but CarbonWise now makes that process easy.  We might expect therefore that commuter travel is added to the reporting requirements in the future.

CarbonWise also calculates the days spent working from home, making it very easy to report. The addition of commuter travel future proofs the organisation, providing a baseline for reporting in the future.

If you need to know more about CarbonWise and how it can easily and cost effectively help you report on working from home and commuter travel then please book a meeting with one of Abley’s sustainability specialists.