Progress

Our Organisation

The baseline year for our Environmental Strategy was 2019/20 with an emissions total of 49,924 tCO2e. This was broken down in the following way:

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We assessed the data against current and planned projects across a range of teams that were likely to help reduce our energy, fuel, and water consumption and therefore, emission. We then projected this in the form of a reduction pathway to quantify our target of 35%.

Our latest full year report for 2022/23 shows the following:

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Explanation for reductions:

• The Estates Strategy has been successful in disposing of several buildings and relocating to shared premises. For example, our Queen Street building in Aberdeen was closed in 2021 with operations moving to the local authority building of Marischal College.
• Continuing upgrade of heating, lighting and ICT infrastructure helped to reduce consumption of gas and electricity across our portfolio.
• Increasing renewable sources for electricity generation has meant a reduction in the carbon intensity of the power we consume.
• Of our total Fleet complement of 3,400 vehicles, approximately one thousand have been replaced by Ultra Low Emission Vehicles (ULEVS). This has reduced our annual diesel consumption by approximately 1.5m litres.
• We have incurred a slight increase in onsite energy generation due to implementation of PV arrays at certain sites during the strategy.
• Whilst Covid lockdowns reduced numbers of building occupants, most of our sites remained open to accommodate functions that needed to be operated from Police buildings. This meant a small decrease in electricity and gas consumption but did not resolve into large scale savings across our portfolio.
• Improvement in provision of waste and recycling bins across estate meaning that more waste is diverted to recycling.

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As can be seen from Figure 3 – after 2 full years of reporting within the period of the Strategy, we are ahead of our emissions reduction pathway.

Our People

Environmental Sustainability Board

In June 2022, we held the inaugural meeting of the Environmental Sustainability Board. This was established as Primary Board within the governance structure of Police Scotland to oversee the implementation of the Strategy and to provide Executive support to the Sustainability Team. The additional purpose of the Board was to inform Members about the issues of Sustainability and how they underpinned the wider aspects of police function across the organisation. The Board is Co-Chaired by roles of Deputy Chief Officer and Deputy Chief Constable for Professionalism. It is convened on a quarterly basis with the next meeting scheduled for 14^th March 2024.

Green Zone

We have redeveloped our intranet pages with a new Green Zone logo and format with space for calendar updates, key events, and latest news. There are also links to other organisations relevant to the sustainability work of Police Scotland. The site was launched in December, and we are continuing to populate the content. For more information, please follow the hyperlink: 

Green Leaders Network Hub

In December 2022 we established the Green Leaders Network (GLN). This group of sustainability champions, consists of 120 volunteers from across the organisation who are interested in our development of environmental projects and programmes. This cohort of staff and officers are highly motivated and bring their own enthusiasm and interests to the wider discussion of sustainability. We have elected 2 GLN representatives to the Environmental Sustainability Board and hold regular meetings with them to understand what the focus of the staff body should be in relation to these issues.

Small Action Big Impact

This site-based awareness campaign focused on reducing consumption of energy and water and consisted of a poster campaign and nationwide events. The project was impacted by Covid and the subsequent change to hybrid working, meaning that office-based processes were stopped or ramped back. Post covid, we have been in contact with Comms to refresh the campaign, beginning with new waste posters that reflect the contract change in Soft FM provision for refuse and catering. We intend to use the Green Leaders Network to help with the refresh of the campaign.

Training

We have been fortunate to negotiate a discounted cost for 1500 licences for the Climate Solutions Accelerator Training from the Royal Scottish Geographic Society at a total cost of £3,000, These licences are valid till June this year. This 2-hour training session provides an overview of the science behind climate change and how organisations, governments and communities can help tackle the problem. We have extended the offer of training to all our Green Leaders and members of the Environmental Sustainability Board and will continue to roll this programme out over the next 3 months to the wider staff body till all licences have been used.
The Sustainability Team actively engages with all requests for specific training and information from other Police Scotland Depts. We have delivered bespoke GLN training, lunch and learn workshops and information on specific environmental topics.

Our Communities

Since the inception of the Environmental Strategy, we have developed a range of partnerships across the public sector that will help us to improve our own sustainability performance and extend the range of our knowledge and influence in the Scottish Public Sector. We have provided a list of partners organisations below that exemplify the range of work in which we are involved.

The above work will range in life span and outcome. The point is to engage effectively with our colleagues across the public sector to ensure that we do not miss opportunities that are mutually beneficial to Police Scotland and our public sector partners.

Beyond the Environmental Strategy

Adaptation Strategy

This ten-year plan will complement our Environment Strategy (which is based on mitigation) by focusing on how The Authority will adapt to a changing climate in the near and medium term. We are required as part of our Public Bodies Duties to undertake this work. We will commence implementation of the Strategy in the coming months. This work will vary in relation to the different Depts involved. For example - Estates will be concerned with retrofit of buildings and local infrastructure to prevent damage due to extreme weather. Our colleagues in Health and Safety will be interest in how to assess risk of expected and future weather events that may impact on officers and staff being able to do their job safely.

Net Zero Plan
This long-term plan will provide an overview of the pathway that Police Scotland will take in achieving Net Zero by the agreed legislative date of 2045. We are required to provide this information to Scottish Government as part of our Public Bodies Duties. It is obvious that we have a better understanding of the carbon reduction work that we can undertake now and in the medium term, but less clear about how this work will be enacted 20 years from now. Therefore, we have created Reduction Horizons Pathway that build into a picture of specific and more general

Waste Plan
We have developed a waste review and procedure document that provides a baseline of how we deal with the main waste streams from the organisation. We will work with our Estates colleagues and FM contractor to build a more detailed picture of waste discard and processing across all Divisions. This will help us in developing a strategy for overall waste reduction. We intend to take this forward in 2024/25.

Biodiversity
We have a Duty under the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 to preserve and enhance the biodiversity of the land that we own and manage. We are also required to provide a report to Scottish Government every three years on this work. The latest report was submitted in January this year. We will use this report as a basis for a long-term plan that will focus on providing natural habitat for flora and fauna to develop and for the wellbeing and benefit of our officers and staff. We will report on this work in coming year.

Energy Performance CertificatesThe Sustainability Team is responsible for the recertification of buildings to this legislative registration scheme. To date we have recertified over two hundred properties and will continue the programme with a further forty buildings to assess and register this year.

Sustainable Hydration
During the summer, we undertook a successful pilot project, to provide reusable water bottles to 1,200 officers to test during the Tall Ships event, Belladrum Music Festival, and the International Cycling Championships in Glasgow. Feedback from this pilot has allowed us to specify requirements for bottles and our aim is to work the Clothing and Equipment Group to take forward a full roll out of this programme in the coming year.