Military boss reinforces support for low carbon future

One of the British military's senior figures has pledged to step up measures to curb the Ministry of Defence's £300m-a-year energy bill as it attempts to meet government targets to cut emissions by 12.5 per cent.

In a speech to the Royal United Services Institute earlier this week, Vice Admiral Tim Laurence, the chief executive of Defence Estates, said he was fully committed to overhauling the military's aging energy infrastructure and delivering deep emission cuts in the process.

"We are a significant contributor to the government's production of carbon emissions, and that means the government will not meet its targets unless the Ministry of Defence plays its role in meeting its commitments," he said. "The government's targets are driving all departments towards improving energy management and they are becoming ever more challenging and legally binding. Therefore we have to do something about it."

Citing the example of new biomass energy systems at RAF Valley in Wales, HM Clyde naval base at Faslane, and Bovington Camp and RM Poole in Dorset, Vice Admiral Laurence said the military was "heading in the right direction".

But he added that more needed to be done to improve energy efficiency across the MOD and said that steps were now being taken to improve energy measurement procedures and roll out green procurement policies.

In particular, he said that a project was now under way to roll out smart meters across the Defence Estate, starting with 220 of the most energy-consuming sites. The real-time monitors will be used to feed energy data into a central system, providing managers with a clear view on where energy efficiency improvements can be delivered.

Speaking in one of the first major speeches on the environment to be given by a senior military figure, Vice Admiral Laurence said the Ministry of Defence could also realise significant cost and strategic benefits by investing in more energy-efficient equipment.

"Our annual total spend on energy is more than £300m, so financially it is a very significant factor in a defence budget that is being squeezed – and is about to be squeezed a lot more," he said. "There is little doubt that the price of traditional fossil-fuelled energy will continue to rise, and therefore we must reduce our consumption as well as investigate alternative sources of energy to help minimise the impact of these rising prices."

His comments came just days before the government issues its long-anticipated departmental carbon budgets, which will require the MoD to cut annual emissions by about 14 per cent between now and 2022.