Case study: Footprinting and workshops for Defra
Client: Defra
With so much focus on reducing the energy impact of our buildings, ecological footprint analysis also shows how our lifestyle choices, the food we eat and the travel we make have a significant an impact.
Defra (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs) were interested in considering how a One Planet Living approach could be integrated across their department, where over 4,000 staff are directly employed, with another 8,000 indirectly, in around 200 buildings.
After estimating Defra’s baseline impact, BioRegional investigated whether the sustainable operations targets were sufficient to enable Defra to reduce its impacts to a One Planet level. BioRegional ran a workshop with Defra to investigate what a ‘One Planet Living Department’ would look like, and formed targets that were designed to be stretching yet achievable given the environment that Defra operates. The outcomes from this workshop were to help inform the first iteration of targets in Defra’s Sustainable Development Action Plan, and help it deliver environmental best practice is a fashion that encourages other government departments and private companies to follow their lead.
Date of completion: June 2007
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