Government change set to reduce carbon emissions from fleet

Changes to government purchasing rules will help boost New Zealand’s construction sector and reduce carbon emissions from the public sector vehicle fleet.

The government will expect more in these two areas in the future from public spending on goods and services, says economic development minister David Parker.

“Every year, the government spends about $41 billion on buying goods and services from third-party suppliers and providers, and this represents around 18% of gross domestic profit (GDP).”

The government has changed and updated the government rules of sourcing, now renamed the government procurement rules.

“Implementation has started. In April, we established a dashboard to monitor average CO2 emissions from the government light vehicle fleet, so agencies can drive down emissions.”

Parker says the government are looking beyond the price of the purchase, to ensure procurement is contributing to the transition to a low carbon economy, inclusive growth, and prosperity.

Four primary outcome areas are the initial focus of change, with flexibility to add more in the future:

• Transitioning to a net-zero emissions economy and designing waste out of the system (including light vehicles, all-of-government office supplies and industrial heating).
• Construction skills and training (for contracts worth more than $9 million)
• Improving employment starts for cleaning, security and forestry contract workers and health and safety in high risk areas
• Increasing access for small to medium businesses (e.g. in software contracts).