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CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITY 

FOR DECISION 

Title: ORGANISATIONAL GREENING POLICY AND 
INDICATIVE TARGETS FOR ACTION 

Prepared by: David Bale, Head of Natural Heritage Group 


Purpose 

The purpose of this paper is to seek Members’ formal approval for an organisational 
greening policy. This will underpin a co-ordinated approach to increasing the 
environmental sustainability of the Park Authority’s working operations. This policy will 
then be submitted to the Environment Minister and will be published on the CNPA website. 


Recommendations 

That the Board: 

• Agree the Organisational Greening Policy for submission to the Environment 
Minister; 

• Approve the indicative action plan for refinement and finalisation by the 
Management Team. 


Executive Summary 

The Environment Minister is due to write to all public bodies in the very near future to ask 
them to submit a formally agreed greening policy to underpin actions to improve the 
environmental impact of their corporate undertakings. The accompanying action plan is to 
include challenging but realistic and timetabled targets to push forward real progress 
against baseline situations. The agreement of the policy will formalise the basis for delivery 
of a number of existing greening initiatives and provide a challenge to deliver more on a coordinated 
and prioritised manner. The policy and finalised action plan will apply to staff 
and Board, and will be used as a measure against which to monitor and report progress. 
They will also assist our work with others in achieving the four Aims of the Park, and enable 
the CNPA to fulfil its greening responsibilities and act as a positive example to other parties. 


ORGANISATIONAL GREENING POLICY AND INDICATIVE 
ACTION PLAN – FOR DECISION 

Background 

1. The CNPA’s first initiative towards the identification of greening opportunities 
involved the commissioning of a General Environmental Review of the Park’s 
business activities in 2004. The purpose of the review was to identify opportunities 
for improved resource efficiency, potential cost savings and to highlight 
opportunities for further investigation. The review looked at electricity use, oil use, 
water use, and waste for the Grantown and Ballater Offices. The review was 
considered by the Audit Committee who encouraged progression with the initiative. 
A greening committee was established amongst interested staff in spring 2005. 
Informed by the review, the greening committee introduced a number of practical 
measures to help to reduce resource consumption. These have included: 
refurbishment of an outhouse at the Grantown Office to provide a cycle shed for 
those cycling to work; display of Carbon Trust posters in all rooms reminding staff to 
switch off lights and equipment; purchase of telecommunication facilities to allow 
distance meetings between offices; approaches to the office landlords to install water 
meters to help to promote water savings; investigation of tap and cistern attachments 
to reduce water flow rates; web outlook facility to allow access to work e-mails from 
home; recycling of paper and tins; organic waste bins and promotion of home 
composting bins. 

2. While these initiatives are undoubtedly beneficial, they have not had the advantage 
of being guided by a more comprehensive and coherent policy that has been adopted 
and promoted more formally throughout the Park Authority. Furthermore, the 
CNPA will very shortly receive a letter from the Environment Minister requesting 
the submission of a formally agreed Greening Policy. In order to provide the 
Minister with the assurance of a high level of support for the policy and subsequent 
action plans, the draft policy is being submitted to the Board for formal agreement. 
While the agreement of the policy will meet the requirements of the Minister, it will 
also provide a basis for formalising, expanding and prioritising the greening 
initiatives already under way. It will thus give more impetus to the already 
established commitment to improving our environmental performance. 


The Policy 

3. The draft policy for Board approval is attached as Annex 1. It takes an holistic view 
of the work practices of the CNPA including office resource use, travel, procurement, 
performance indicators, assessments, influencing others by example and through our 
operational functions, and encouragement of staff involvement. Some of the policies 
will be easier to deliver than others. For example water use reduction can be 
achieved by the centralised fitting of water saving devices to office water systems. 
Others will require raising awareness to achieve disciplined attention by individuals 
to switching off equipment when not in use. Some will be more challenging such as 
reduction of resource use overall, and reduction of emission production as the result 
of travel. With the active approval of Board, Management Team and staff, the 
policies will enable a set of challenging but realistic priorities for action to be 
developed.. As they apply to all members of the CNPA, they will give each 
individual the confidence that what they are doing will make a real difference when 
added to the actions of colleagues. The commitment of management and staff will 
also ensure that staff time and finances as appropriate are deployed to make things 
happen in practice. 


The Draft Action Plan 

4. Policies without action will make no difference. The draft action plan attached at 
Annex 2 sets out initial thinking on the way ahead. This will need to be refined as 
more baseline information is gathered and performance indicators and timed targets 
are set and agreed. In gaining baseline information, the CNPA will make use of 
Scottish Executive advice and guidance arising from the Sustainable Development 
Branch. We shall also take advantage of consultancies contracted by the Scottish 
Executive who are giving “free to user” advice on waste and energy consumption, 
and this advice will help with the revision and updating of the General 
Environmental Review of CNPA report of October 2004. Once this has been done, 
we shall have baseline information from which to identify improvements that need 
to be made, measures that can be adopted to achieve improvements, the degree of 
improvement that is achievable in practice to be used as a target, and identify how 
improvements can be measured and reported upon. Advice will also be gained from 
sister agencies who have more experience over a longer period of time so that we can 
learn from best practice elsewhere. The CNPA will also consider membership of 
various sustainability forums to keep abreast of new ideas and opportunities for 
action. 

5. It will not be possible to achieve everything immediately, so it will be necessary to 
set realistic targets and priorities over sensible timescales. Some things can be 
started immediately, and other actions will require reinvigoration and reinforcement 
of existing initiatives to gain more effective achievements. The establishment of the 
agreed policy framework will allow the target setting to have coherence and focus, so 
that priorities will be agreed without losing sight of lower priorities which can be 
tackled later. 


Delivery 

6. The delivery of the action plan will depend on active participation of all members of 
the Authority. High level endorsement by Board and Management Team will ensure 
that staff time and other resources can be identified and deployed to make the 
targets happen. The staff greening committee that was established in 2005 will be 
reconvened. Their first task will be to gain the advice available from the Scottish 
Executive consultancies and use this information to refine the action plan and 
identify realistic timetables for delivery of agreed priorities. It will be beneficial to 
identify individuals who will take a special responsibility for pressing forward with 
the deliver of targets. Much will depend on sections within Corporate Services, but 
representatives of all groups will be sought to gain widespread ownership and 
commitment. 

7. In the coming financial year it is anticipated that most of the gains will be delivered 
through changing the way in which we currently do things. This may affect the way 
in which allocated budgets are spent rather than require new finances to be made 
available. In future years, priorities for action may require new budgets to be 
allocated to achieve sound actions and improvements. 


Policy Context 

Delivering Sustainability 

8. The development of a greening policy and action plan for CNPA is clearly a part of 
delivering sustainability. It makes no sense to be promoting sustainable 
development and use of resources through the Park Aims if the Authority is not 
aiming to attain the best environmental impact in our own operations. The Minister 
also requires all public bodies to take this approach and will be holding us to account 
for our progress. 


Delivering a Park for All 

9. The implementation of an organisational greening policy will set a positive example 
for other organisations and individuals within the Park. It will also establish the 
CNPA’s credibility when requiring sustainability to be incorporated in a wide range 
of activities for which we have a responsibility. This will include the finalisation of 
policies in the Park and Local Plans, and the exercising of our planning control 
functions. 


Delivering Economy, Effectiveness and Efficiency 

10. Good environmental efficiency underpins the delivery of economy, effectiveness and 
efficiency as it takes into account the environmental cost of actions as well as 
financial. 


Implications 

Financial Implications 

11. At this stage, it is anticipated that the policy and action plan will have no significant 
additional financial implications for the Authority for the coming financial year 
(2006/07). In the operational plan for 2006/07, there is an allocation of staff time to 
progress the action plan. There could also be changes in how some existing budget 
allocations are spent to improve environmental performance. The analysis of 
baselines for energy use and travel and the establishment of targets to reduce 
resource use in the medium to long term may, however, require new finances to be 
identified in future years. These will be assessed and agreed through normal budget 
and operational planning processes. 


Presentational Implications 

12. The delivery of the policies and action plan will be of interest to a wide variety of 
partners, not just the Minister. Accordingly, we shall need to publicise our policy 
and action plan, initially on the web site. Progress against targets will become a 
regular part of the Management Team agenda (2 or 3 times per annum), with reports 
to the Audit Committee following. Annual progress will be reported as part of the 
CNPA Annual Report with any explanatory text as necessary. 


Implications for Stakeholders 

13. The delivery of our operations to ensure achievement of the four aims will be 
informed by our own greening actions. The CNPA will become a practical example 
to partners and will carry out its operations in a way that encourages and where 
possible, requires others to meet high environmental standards. 


Next Steps 

14. The Board’s endorsement of the Policy, with or without amendments will enable us 
to send the Policy to the Minister in response to his request. The greening committee 
will then be re-established as part of the Support Services Users Group to finalise and 
start to drive forward the action plan against agreed measurable targets. Report on 
progress will be made to the Board on an agreed cycle. 


David Bale 
March 2006 

davidbale@cairngorms.co.uk