U.K. Embassy reshapes CO2 landscape

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“The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision,” said Theodore Hesburgh, former president of the University of Notre Dame.

Keeping that in mind in dealing with the environmental challenges of today, leadership has come from the unconventional such as Hollywood stars driving a Prius instead of a Hummer, to the more conventional, such as the British government’s strategy to reduce their carbon footprint.

Here in Seoul the British Embassy has taken the lead by being the first embassy in Korea to purchase a hybrid vehicle and adopt many new regulations to bring down their carbon footprint on this city.

“This is part of a wider scheme,” said British Ambassador Martin Uden. “We needed to realize, what’s our carbon footprint?”

So the embassy conducted a carbon audit covering their general use such as electrical consumption, travel and general usage and found that their carbon footprint reached 508 tons of CO2 emissions in 2007.

The car in question is the Honda Civic Hybrid, which they received not too long ago. If that wasn’t enough the embassy has another on order. Both cars are replacing two cars that were no longer usable.

But why a Japanese car and not a Korean one? The answer is quite simple; the Korean hybrid cars are not yet available to the general public. They are only available to the Korean government.

“So we gave ourselves a target of 12.5 percent reduction, which follows the Kyoto targets by March 2012,” he said.

But the cars are just one factor the embassy is using to lower its carbon emissions.

The other is encouraging their staff to travel by subway or other forms of public transportation.

To assist them in that regard the embassy purchased a stack of T-Money cards. “I have one also,” he said.

“Actually if you need to go to many places it’s much easier to go by subway,” he said.

They will replace the current light bulbs with more energy efficient ones. They are also installing more motion sensors in every part of the embassy.

“We have them now not only in the toilets but the corridors and other places.”

The ambassador added that this policy also applies to their procurement of products by purchasing locally made products instead of imported goods.

“The foreign office is taking it seriously and giving us ideas and guidance on how these might work,” he said.

Other British Embassies around the globe are doing the same.

The ambassador has also applied the same principles to the 118-year-old red brick Victorian style residence by having a professional check the integrity of the windows and having them sealed so that the warmth stays inside.

“The other thing I appreciate about the campaign is that everyone is into it. They are keen and understand why it’s being done and like the fact that we are a bit ahead in this way.”

Embassy personnel are now being energy conscious by turning off the lights and shutting off printers and other appliances.

So has this yielded any results? It’s too early to say. The answer to that question will come next year when the embassy does another audit.

“It should because that’s the idea; if it doesn’t then we haven’t done very well,” he joked.

Climate change is a serious subject for the British Foreign Service; so serious that they are the only Foreign Service to have a climate change office headed by a first secretary and two other senior personnel.

The office has found the Korean government “very receptive” to the embassy’s experiences in dealing with reducing carbon emissions.

“We don’t have all the answers” in dealing with reducing their carbon footprint. “We’ve been dealing with the cap and trade scheme for the last few years; we do have various sorts of carbon taxes and things like that. So please benefit from our experiences and don’t make the mistakes we’ve made,” advises the ambassador.

Their advice has gone further than the appropriate ministries. It has gone to the top, such as to the prime minister’s office and the Blue House.

“London sees this as an important swing state, if you can’t manage to persuade Korea to come over to the side of the angels and adopt stringent targets under the next stage then what hope do you have of persuading other nations?” he said.

Last week, the European Parliament approved a deal on cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

Furthermore, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon also last week called 2009 “the year of climate change.”

“From the British government point of view we would like to share our good practices in terms of what’s worked for us domestically, what are the pitfalls and what to look out for,” said Uden.

By Yoav Cerralbo