The government will today be issuing four tenders to encourage the implementation of the Civil Service Green Label certification project, said Environment Minister George Pullicino yesterday.
Speaking at a press conference to announce the initiative yesterday, World Environment Day, Mr Pullicino said: “One must remember that the government also allocated Lm10,000 to each ministry in the last budget to help them go green.”
He said that each ministry has been assigned a green leader whose responsibility is to encourage greener practices. “There have been many practices that have already been adopted, such as the installation of photo-voltaic systems, the use of electric cars, installation of solar panelling systems, the recycling of paper and consumables, but there is more to be done,” he explained.
He said that for civil service departments to be accredited with the green label, they had to adopt 50 mandatory practices.
“But it does not end there, there are another 50 practices that can be adopted voluntarily to continue to foster the green attitude,” said Mr Pullicino. He explained that the government was looking at a one-year benchmark to have all departments accredited. “This is an ongoing process however. One does not simply get accreditation and stop there. It must be a change in mentality and a general change in work practices,” he said.
He said that the first tender is for the introduction of energy audit consultancy, with the aim of lowering energy use and getting the best out of power usage.
The second tender is for energy-saving equipment and the third, on similar lines, is to install photo-voltaic equipment on at least one building per ministry. The fourth tender is for office waste separation bins. He said that there were examples of the above already in isolated practice, but the objective now was to make sure that green consciousness and practice permeates through the whole civil service.
Mr Pullicino also announced the setting up of a one-stop free phone number for environment-related issues. “Sometimes, the problem is that people do not know the numbers for different services, so we hope that the introduction of one number for all services should make matters easier,” said Mr Pullicino. In fact, if people call free phone number 8007-2210 they can get in touch with WasteServ, bulky refuse, waste disposal service, pollution response unit and many others.
Meanwhile, Principal Permanent Secretary Godwin Grima said that the Civil Service was a fertile area to implement green initiatives.
Mr Grima said that various green initiatives had already been implemented. He said that from October 2005 to present, some 56 tonnes of separated waste had been collected from 73 government departments.
He also said that the Prime Minister’s Office, in various periods, had managed to cut down on envelope usage by some 68 per cent. “Sometimes it is the smaller things that lead to big changes,” said Mr Grima.
Mr Grima said that in 2005 the Finance Ministry managed to cut its paper use by some 900 reams while during the same period, the Interior Ministry cut it down by half.
The Environment Ministry, pointed out Mr Grima, had managed to cut its lighting costs alone by 48 per cent. He appealed for all green leaders within the civil service to champion the initiatives.
In conclusion, Mr Pullicino said that the government was now also taking seriously the concept of green procurement. “In a nutshell, this means that we do not simply look at the cost effectiveness of items, but also how easy they are to recycle and how much they harm the environment.
“The European Commission is also pushing for this concept to be adopted as much as possible,” said Mr Pullicino.