Media release
North Shore City Council
July 21, 2009

Sustainability initiatives save more than $1.2 million

North Shore City Council’s innovative sustainability initiatives led to savings of more than $1.2m last year, and that figure is likely to increase by half as much again this year.

The savings are the result of a range of measures from contract negotiations and procurement procedures to fleet, waste and energy management.

And while North Shore City Council Sustainability Manager Michael Field says that being ‘green’ is a great by product of every initiative, it is not the main driver.

“Sustainability is primarily about creating efficiencies, which makes good business sense, but has the added bonus of helping protect our environment,” he says.

The biggest chunk of savings to overall operational costs – approximately $200,000, or the equivalent of enough kilowatt hours to power 200 homes for a year – has been as a result of a new city-wide energy and carbon management system.

The first step towards planning for the future and making savings was to work with Genesis Energy to understand what the city’s energy profile was, taking into account all consumption from street and public toilet lighting to council facilities and natural gas use.

The audit led to refunds as a result of incorrect charging, and a new, fully automated online system has given visibility of every site, and bills are now automatically rejected if the rate per kilowatt doesn’t match up.

“We’ve got a city-wide energy bill of $5m a year including gas, so anything we can do to reduce that saves us money and helps us reduce our carbon footprint,” says Mr Field.

Another city-wide sustainability initiative is at North Shore beaches. The council is saving $80,000 a year by having the 800 tonnes of seaweed picked up from beaches each year composted rather than sent to landfill.

North Shore City Council is making major savings in-house as well. The Wastewise Workplace programme has seen an 80 per cent reduction in the amount of waste sent to landfill from the council’s two sites in Takapuna.

Now, 12,000kgs of organic waste a year goes into an industrial-sized worm digester in Devonport, which results in nutrient-rich, natural compost and fertiliser.

A work place energy awareness campaign has also seen the percentage of electrical equipment such as computer monitors turned off go from 80 per cent not switched off a year ago, to 80 per cent consistently switched off now.

“Staff realise that sustainability is not just an add-on, it’s simply how we do business. They’ve been very supportive and keen to get involved in all these initiatives because they realise that inefficiency leads to waste, which costs the organisation money,” says Mr Field

“We’ve also put the policies in place to support these initiatives in the first instance, and it is part of people’s contracts, so they are on board right from the start.”

ends

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