The British Embassy in Santiago began its carbon-cutting journey in 2008, when we measured our carbon footprint for the first time using the PAS 2050 standard. We pulled out all the stops for this one, creating a green team, developing a green action plan and establishing third party verification and environmental assessment.

 

We calculated our baseline year emissions at 553 tonnes of CO2, and were immediately concerned with the 139 tonnes produced by staff commutes. Certainly, some behavioural changes could help us bring this figure down. Another area of concern was electricity – we emitted 192 tons of CO2 in 2008-09. Again, we were certain that we could get some quick and easy wins here by mustering staff to really care about their emissions. 

So we got to work – we divided up the green team into four working groups: infrastructure, transport, awareness and recycling, then used our creativity and the small amount of funding we had to make changes that demonstrated clear return on investments for the embassy: light sensors, paper recycling, awareness days, organic catering, eco-friendly toners and commute management were among the most effective. 

 

Results? Yes! 27% reductions in one year. We reduced our baseline from 553.16 tons to 401.28. It wasn't easy, but we made financial gains-a-plenty! Getting energy consumption down, water efficiency measures in place and air conditioning systems reprogrammed to run more efficiently helped us make serious savings on our utilities. Here’s a total of utility savings straight off my excel sheet:

Oh and remember the commuter problem I mentioned earlier? Embassy staff were climate change heroes on that one! We reduced commuting emissions from 139.11 tons of CO2 to 76.26 tons – that’s over 40% just from attitude changes and big efforts to use public transport and bike to work! 

So, we doubled (almost tripled) our 10% reduction target and saved Her Majesty’s Government some 12,000 quid in the process!