Back in November, children's secretary Ed Balls ordered schools to turn lights off and heating down. Part of the government's commitment to reduce harmful CO2 emissions by 40% by 2030?
Perhaps of more immediate concern was the expected £750m such measures would save.
The schools drive highlights the truth of the environmentalists' refrain: sustainability is common sense, and easier on both planet and wallet. The government has its targets – central office estates carbon neutral by 2012, water consumption reduced by 25% and 75% of waste recycled by 2020, and is working towards these aims – but sustainability's case is likely to be made even more forcefully with future budget cuts.
Why aren't more public sector bodies recognising the wisdom of going green to get out of the red?
For many, it's a case of short-termism: green initiatives inch further down the to-do list as outlays increase.
Martin Hunt of environmental thinktank Forum for the Future (FFF) says they need to spend to save, investing in "whole-life payback".
Martin Hunt
"Focusing on capital spend alone is a false economy: budgets may be shrinking, but maintaining the value of assets for the longer term creates savings in the future, especially with buildings that will be here for decades. Factoring in the public spend deficit and coming cuts, we have to get a lot smarter about how we see the financing of our built environment."
With 100 new hospitals to be built in 2010, future-proofing will result in long-term savings. Energy bills can be slashed even before the application of technology: a holistic view of sustainability would see buildings positioned to maximise sunlight and heat, with green spaces providing cooling shade.
In New Jersey, US, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital is making big savings on its annual $20m utilities spend by renting out its roof for solar panels. From April, UK public sector buildings that generate their own wind or solar energy through wind turbines or solar panels will be able to sell excess electricity back to the national grid through feed-in tariffs.
Fit for the future
FFF's 2003 report Fit for the Future details how different climate change scenarios would impact on health service provision going into 2030. Despite the economic and environmental case – the NHS consumes 45m gigajoule of energy and 40m square metres of water a year – and significant policy-drivers, Hunt says uptake of the sustainability agenda among trusts has been "patchy".
There is help out there, however: organisations such as SHINE (the Sustainable Heathcare Network) advise on delivering healthcare sustainability through buildings and procured services, while The Carbon Trust funds not-for-profit social enterprise Salix, providing public sector bodies with loans and grants for environmental and sustainability projects.
It calculates it has made savings of £85m from 4,300 projects since its inception, one of which is Frimley Park Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, in Surrey.
"We lower energy expenditure through efficiency schemes in order to divert money into patient care," says business and performance manager Kwan Cheng.
"We have a programme to fit double-glazed windows, low-energy radiators and lighting, and a rolling programme to replace the roof and improve insulation."
An investment of £100,000, half from Salix, will result in annual savings of £25,000 (251 tonnes of CO2); bigger projects, such as Great Ormond Street's new Children's Medical Centre, complete with green roof, can expect to offset 20,000 tonnes of CO2 annually and cut energy costs still further.
An added proven benefit is that greener buildings can impact positively on, for example, patient recovery rates and teacher satisfaction.
As Martin Hunt says, "Sustainability doesn't just mean carbon or cost savings – there are other criteria by which the efficiency of trusts or education authorities can be measured."
Energy consumption across government IT systems will be carbon neutral by 2012; the Greening Government IT strategy report reveals savings of almost £7m and 12,000 tonnes of CO2, by simple expedients such as delaying how often printers are replaced.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is reducing the number of its servers from 100 to eight, to cut power consumption by two-thirds and waste heat emissions by three-quarters – saving "a significant amount of money in ongoing costs," according to a spokesperson.
As budgets bite further, we can expect sustainability to become a lot more appealing.
