The Emissions Reduction Plan that was prepared for carboNZero certification formalised initiatives to manage and minimise the resources that we use in our office environment.

This section outlines progress in all the areas that we have reported on in the past, and makes comparisons with previous years. Where data collection has changed dramatically (e.g. electricity use), in the interests of making year-on-year comparisons, we have used the data compiled for the 2005/06 carboNZero certification, with the figures for this year.

The biggest step towards making improvements in resource use this year has been the setting up of a company-wide group of Sustainability Champions. This group, made up of volunteers, meets every three weeks to discuss items or issues raised by the Champions themselves or others in the business.

As a result, we now have a group of people located around the business who are continually looking out for areas where we can improve our performance, and who are empowered to instigate changes.

The next step, as part of our Emissions Reduction Plan, is to set targets for all of the resource areas.

Waste audit

For some time now, we have been undertaking waste audits in May/June of each year, with auditors travelling to our offices to sort and measure the waste produced. For the past two audits, the trip to Twizel has had to be undertaken at significant risk to the auditor or postponed due to very bad weather and snow storms at the time.

This was one of the factors that led to the decision to delay the waste audit this year until December, and therefore annualise the waste over the calendar year. We also felt that it would be a better measure of progress against a ‘new year's resolution' target that we set at the beginning of the year. The resolution was to halve the amount of waste (by weight) that our office operations produce.

While it may seem a high target, the last waste audit estimated that 73% of the waste generated could have been recycled.

Recycling volumes

The table below outlines the volume of materials recycled across the company. As the graph below illustrates, we are generally doing well in terms of recycling volumes, with paper and cardboard, confidential paper and mixed recycling up on last year's figures.

The amount of food recycled has dropped which is disappointing. Wellington is the only location where this has become common practice, largely because we have been able to implement an easy system of disposal in the office, and collection of the waste. Our Christchurch collection was cancelled in September 2006 after a combination of lack of involvement and difficult systems to maintain. It is about to be reinstated again, after better processes have been put in place by Sustainability Champions working in that office. Twizel has also just set up a food scraps recycling programme, and we hope that they will contribute to eliminating food waste from our waste stream, to meet our ambitious targets.

In the coming year we will also be doing some more work around our data collection methods. In some cases they rely on estimates from the contractor as to how full the bins are upon collection, which does not allow for very detailed year-on-year analysis.

Resource Use

Electricity consumption

The way that we report electricity consumption has changed since our review of processes for carbon accounting that we did prior to carboNZero certification.

In previous years we have reported on kilowatt hour (KWh) usage for our Wellington, Christchurch and Twizel offices, as well as selected administrative buildings at Manapouri. We have now expanded the scope to include all electricity consumed at the Twizel site, as well as at all other generation sites.

The data for the electricity used in power stations comes from settlement figures from Transpower.

Electricity consumption – comparison with last year

The figures above indicate that there is more work required to ensure that we reduce electricity consumption. To date efforts have focused on energy efficiencies in our three offices. Wellington consumption has increased. This can be attributed to the use of temporary office space in additional buildings as we wait to move into our new building. It has also increased in Christchurch. The Sustainability Champions are developing a series of initiatives to ensure that energy efficiency remains top of mind.

As we have started measuring consumption at power stations now, we will be putting initiatives in place to ensure that this consumption is managed better as well.

Air travel

Emissions from air travel for the Meridian facility show a very small reduction compared with last year. Unfortunately this reduction is due to change in the proportion of domestic versus international travel (domestic travel has a higher emissions factor) rather than any reduction in actual kilometres travelled.

While domestic travel did reduce by 5.7%, the total air travel for the whole company increased by 14% compared with last year, largely due to a 66% increase in international travel.

We can be proud of the domestic reduction, as it shows that technology alternatives such as video conferencing have been successful.

The increase in international travel reflects the increased focus on finding the best international solutions and new technologies for our customers. These international fact-finding trips are important if we are to achieve our goals, and we are confident that the number and distances will not increase dramatically again in further years.

Our subsidiary company Arc Innovations has also increased its amount of international travel considerably, as it has found success with sales of their metering technology in North America.

Vehicle use

Below are summary tables for the three of the separate facilities:

• Meridian (generation and retail of renewable electricity in New Zealand, including DamWatch Services)
• Arc Innovations (advanced metering technology company), and
• Energy for Industry (thermal generation for large scale industrial sites).

The total of these three facilities is comparable with the aggregate totals that were provided in previous years' carbon footprints.

When compared with last year, the total km traveled is significantly higher. This is almost solely due to an increase in the amount of km traveled by diesel vehicles. The reason for this is that during the year about 40 electrical engineers and technicians, previously employed by Transfield, were brought in-house. These staff members are responsible for asset management of our Twizel and Manapouri stations, and drive diesel vehicles to these remote sites.

Aside from the diesel figures, it is pleasing to note that for all other vehicles, we have seen a downward shift in the size of vehicles driven, and an increase in the use of our hybrid vehicle in Christchurch. This was an objective of the fleet management plan that was introduced in 2005/06, which reviewed the number and mix of vehicles.

Total across all facilities

Paper consumption

In real terms the number of reams of paper used has increased by 246 this year, but when you take into account the increase in staff numbers, it has stayed the same at 11 reams of paper per full time equivalent (FTE). Printers remain on duplex as a default, and it is now an exception if documents are printed single sided.

We hope to reduce this plateau in the coming year when we will switch to a proximity print management system. Print jobs will only be printed when a staff member goes to their printer of choice and swipes their access card. Anything not released at the end of the day will be deleted from the queue, thus eliminating unclaimed print jobs, and the paper that they waste.

The volume of paper used in branded stationery, marketing and communications material also decreased this year, from 53,826.7kg to 46,999.73kg. This is a reduction of 12.68%.

In future years we will be splitting this number into corporate, customer and project use, to monitor trends more closely.