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Our plan to reduce emissions

We continue to focus on reducing our emissions in two main areas:

sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆)
office-based emissions

In addition, we aim to provide more information on Transmission Losses, and how the issue relates to carbon emissions.

For SF₆, we remain committed to our Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry for the Environment, which requires emissions to be below 2% of installed nameplate capacity and annual reporting on our SF₆ inventory and emissions. In fact, we are trying to reduce our emissions even further by setting an internal target that emissions from SF₆ should be no more than 1% of our total SF₆ holdings. However, given the significance of lost SF₆ (from a carbon perspective), we recognise that the processes around SF₆ handling and management should be reviewed and improved, and are focussing our efforts in this area.

For office based emissions, we have an emissions reduction target of 20% per FTE from 2005/06 level by 2011/12. Office emissions are increasing rather than decreasing. This is particularly due to increases in business travel (domestic flights and staff vehicles) but also some increase in waste to landfill (although this figure is based on historical data which may now be inaccurate). This makes achieving this goal quite a challenge, however we are still working towards it.

Our plan to reduce office-based emissions continues to focus on emissions from:

electricity consumption in Transpower offices
domestic and international flights
rental cars, staff vehicles and taxis
waste.

Some of the changes we have recently made, and that we intend to implement in the next year include:

undertaking a national audit of our SF6 gas handling procedures and practices
improving our organic waste (e.g. food scraps) collection in all offices
implementing other recommendations from the national waste audit undertaken in October 2009
specifically reviewing electricity use in our Hamilton office, which has unusually high consumption levels
continuing to improve vid-con technology to provide an alternative to flying to other offices for meetings

Definitions of terms