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As the Scottish Government prepares for a stooshie in the parliament this week over the country's CO2 emissions targets, they've released their annual report (for 2008/09) on the environmental impact of the government itself.
And oh dear, they're in a bit of a mess.
Total emissions from energy use are up 2.5%.
Total emissions from transport have barely changed.
Water consumption has increased.
So what excuses have the government given? Well, they're upgrading the lighting in a fairly new building - Victoria Quay - and so needed to use more energy at night and weekends when the work was taking place. I have to admit I've never set foot in the building but given how new it is, why did they need to upgrade the lighting? I know from my own experience that a simple thing like leaving a computer on has a dramatic influence on my power use, but still, it does sound like a poor excuse.
As for transport, that's the fault of the English. You see, those devious buggers at Westminster changed how to calculate the emissions figures, increasing the amount of CO2 that a flight actually produces to make it more realistic, so that's why there's barely a change. It has absolutely nothing to do with the nearly 5 million miles that government employees flew in the year.
Oh yeah, and please don't notice that car use increased by 6%.
But it's easy to take the piss out of what they've got wrong - what about the things they're getting right? The things they're on target to achieve?
The obvious figure to look out for as far as I'm concerned is the rail usage, which has increased 6%. Waste reduction, too, looks like it will be on target with a current recycling rate of 73%.
You can read the report here in pdf format, but unfortunately for the government the overall feel of it is negative - and it's those total energy use figures and air miles figures which drag the rest of the programme down.
It will be interesting to see next year's figures as the recession bites and government employee numbers fall.
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