Green Office
Apart from incorporating green elements into our projects and sewage treatment facilities, we strive to improve the Department’s environmental performance by realising green office concepts at our Headquarters. The implementation of relevant policies and measures helps raise environmental awareness amongst our staff and promote a green culture across DSD.
Potted plants at the meeting room
Waste Paper Collection Point
Green Procurement
DSD has always given its full support to the Government's green procurement policy. In 2015-16, we procured a variety of products complying with green specifications, including electrical appliances e.g. computers, paper shredders, printers, electric fans and refrigerators and office consumables e.g. recycled paper, rechargeable batteries, toilet paper and refuse bags.
Energy Saving
In 2009, the Government set a target for government buildings to reduce electricity consumption by 5% during the five-year period from 2009-10 to 2013-14, with 2007-08 as the base year. Over the years, we have implemented multiple energy-saving measures to reduce energy consumption in our offices, such as setting the room temperature at 25.5°C, reducing non-essential lightings, and using timers to switch off shared office equipment after office hours. We have recorded a progressive drop in electricity consumption over time: In 2015-16, we recorded an approximately 16% reduction in energy consumption compared to that in 2010-11, demonstrating our colleagues’ dedication towards saving energy.
Electricity consumption by DSD offices
Waste Management
We strive to run a greener office by reducing waste and conserving resources. In addition to releasing guidelines on reducing paper usage, we encourage colleagues to reuse envelopes and set up recycling stations for printer toner cartridges, rechargeable batteries, paper, plastic, metal containers and so on. We also disseminate green information and conduct office inspection regularly to raise our employees’ environmental awareness.
In general, office operations tend to generate quite a lot of paper waste. In view of this, we have established paper saving guidelines encouraging colleagues to print on both sides, reuse envelopes and cut down on waste. We have also actively promoted "paperless meetings" to reduce paper consumption by using electronic devices such as tablets and laptop computers for briefings and discussions in day-to-day meetings.
- held about 265 paperless meetings and circulated over 2,113 relevant documents electronically
- used about 9,608 reams of paper, a decrease of approximately 31% compared to 2009-10
Promoting “paperless meetings” to reduce paper usage
Total paper consumption (ream)
Paper consumption per member of staff (ream)
