Greening and sustainability in our own work

Why is greening important to SNH?

We view climate change as the single greatest threat to Scotland's nature, our lifestyles, economy and culture. However, action now - like our work to make Scottish Natural Heritage a greener organisation - can help to slow climate change and its impacts on people and nature, so helping us respond to the changes that will occur.

Leading by example

We are working with others to mitigate and manage the impacts of climate change on land and in the sea , safeguarding nature, enjoyment of the outdoors, etc. - and in our own ways of working.

Our Climate Change Action Plan sets out how Scottish Natural Heritage will deliver these results. We aim to show good practice in our operations and encourage others to do the same.

We now have a "Low Carbon Vision  " of what SNH might look like as a low Carbon organisation, to help us shape the changes we need to make to get there.   We want all Strategies, Policies, Procedures etc that we develop to take us towards a low Carbon future. It is also about finding the Carbon benefits of changes that we have less control over and making 'pro-Carbon' ways of working the SNH ways of working.  We believe our staff, customers and partners will expect no less from us.

What are we doing?

We are cutting our greenhouse gas emissions - these are mostly from our offices and travel - by:

• Building greener offices.
• Co-locating with other public bodies.
• Replacing and managing heating systems better.
• Using video conferencing for meetings (instead of travelling). 
• Using the train instead of driving.
• Buying sustainable goods and services.
• Green Office Plans, with local targets for every office.
• Using our Carbon Management Plan to plan and manage priority emissions reductions from properties and work travel.

Our corporate office, Great Glen House in Inverness and other new offices, such as Golspie are designed to have very low carbon dioxide emissions and energy use.

We are committed to cutting out 80% of our CO₂  emissions by  2050 - that's 4% a year, every year. So far, we're on target.

We are using less energy and using it in a smarter way  - saving money, energy, and waste.

We are also considering the impacts of climate change, such as extreme weather events, on how we plan and manage our offices, visitor facilities and staff travel plans.

More information

• Environmental Management Policy  shows our priorities.
• Current corporate priorities   .
• We have published Annual Greening Reports since 1999.  See links to our current report and for previous years: 2010-11  , 2009-10  , 2008-09  , 2007-08  , 2006-07  .  Ask for older reports. 
• The environmental performance of our Great Glen House office (see Carbon Trust case studies 'Low Carbon Headquarters'  and 'In The Bricks'  ).
• Green Office Plans    make our offices Greener places to work.
• Our Carbon Management Plan  , developed with the Carbon Trust   shows our commitment to carbon management, and lists projects that we will do to reduce our CO₂ emissions in a planned and cost-effective way.
• Our sustainable procurement criteria  for all purchases of goods and services.
• Our renewable energy systems  at offices and visitor centres.

What's next?

We work with the Scottish Government and other public bodies to raise standards in environmental performance. The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 and Climate Change Delivery Plan are very important in how we define our delivery of efficient and shared public services - carbon savings are often financial savings.

Find out what we are doing now by contacting:

Sheila Currie, Greening the Workplace Officer, Great Glen House, Leachkin Road, Inverness. IV3 8NW email: greening@snh.gov.uk  01463 725073