Carbon Footprint of NICS departments.

Dear Mr Power

I am writing to confirm that the Department has now completed its search for the information regarding carbon footprints which you requested on 21 April. Please accept my apologies for the delay. The Department only holds carbon information for itself.

A copy of the information is below.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. You are free to use it for your own purposes, including any non-commercial research you are doing and for the purposes of news reporting. Any other re-use, for example commercial publication, would require the permission of the copyright holder. The information in this email has been produced by government officials and will be Crown Copyright. You can find details on the arrangements for re-using Crown Copyright from the Office for Public Sector Information at:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/index.htm

I also acknowledge your request for internal review received this morning.

If after such a review you are still unhappy with the response, you have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner who will undertake an independent review.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

Yours etc
Paul McGrory

FOI Co-ordinator
Department of the Environment
10-18 Adelaide Street
Belfast
BT2 8GB

SUMMARY FOR DOE

CO2 emissions

2006/07

Heat & Light Car Travel Air Travel Total
(Kgs) (Kgs) (Kgs) (Kgs)

Total Department 4,722,684 968,000 223,100 5,913,784

April 2007 - March 2008

Car Travel Air Travel Total
(Kgs) (Kgs) (Kgs)

Total Department 937,113 189,514 1,126,627

April 2008 - March 2009

Car Travel Air Travel Total
(Kgs) (Kgs) (Kgs)

Total Department 879,691 169,629 1,049,320

Based on the above data for the year, the CO2 emissions show the following decreases compared to the same period last year.

Overall travel CO2 emissions have decreased by 6.9%.
Car travel has decreased by 6.1%.
Air travel has decreased by 10.4%.

The 3 agencies account for 94.87% of the CO2 produced for car travel.

The 3 agencies account for 72.69% of the CO2 produced for air travel.

Based on the total DOE CO2 emissions for 2006-07, CO2 emissions from car and air travel only account for 20% of the total. The main departmental CO2 emissions (80%) come from buildings (heat, light, power etc).

Heat and Light data is held by the Department for Finance and Personnel Properties Division from 2007-08 onwards

Travel by car assumption:
Based on a typical medium sized car the CO2 emissions would be:
* Diesel 0.30 Kg of CO2 per mile
* Petrol 0.35 Kg of CO2 per mile

Therefore an average for diesel and petrol :- 0.325 Kg of CO2 per mile

* Based on data from Climate Care website

Travel by air assumption:
Based on the main destinations of travel the average CO2 emissions per flight has been calculated as follows:

Belfast - Heathrow 140 Kg of CO2 per Return Flight
Belfast - Gatwick 150 Kg of CO2 per Return Flight
Belfast - Stanstead 140 Kg of CO2 per Return Flight
Belfast - Birmingham 110 Kg of CO2 per Return Flight
Belfast - Bristol 120 Kg of CO2 per Return Flight
Belfast - Manchester 110 Kg of CO2 per Return Flight
Belfast - Edinburgh 80 Kg of CO2 per Return Flight
Belfast - Cardiff 120 Kg of CO2 per Return Flight
Total 970 Kg of CO2 per Return Flight

Average * 121.25 Kg of CO2 per Return Flight

* Based on data from Climate Care website