Consumption of paper and energy in the office remain to be the Department’s green targets in view of its office-based operations. The Department has adopted the following principles to ensure that its services to the public as well as its internal operations are conducted in an environmentally responsible manner:

The Environment and Records Management Committee is chaired by the Departmental Secretary and comprised green executives from Units and Sections. During the year, the Committee continued to seek staff suggestions, set directions in our green policies and issued green office guidelines while the appointed floor green ambassadors assisted the Department's Green Manager in promoting green awareness and implementing environmental programmes on a floor basis.

Green Education Various measures were taken during the year to encourage staff to develop a healthy working environment, including: (1)   Regular updating of environmental protection promotional materials displayed on notice boards; (2)   Affixing stickers reminding good environmental practice next to the relevant facilities; (3)   Releasing updated environmental protection information in the "Green Corner" of the Department's Intranet; and (4)   Regular dissemination of "Green Tips" via e-mail to advise staff on constructive and effective measures to make green achievements in their daily living.

The Department also participated in various activities such as "Green Day" which was held by the Community Chest in order to arouse our staff's awareness on environmental protection.

The IRD Sports Association assisted in promoting green awareness and healthy living among staff by organising a variety of activities in the year, including thematic talks, visit to the Fanling Environmental Resource Centre, and outings in the countryside.

To balance operational needs with environmental care and social responsibility, the Department focused its efforts on maintaining a healthy working environment with satisfactory air quality, and on attaining energy saving, reduction of paper consumption and waste minimisation and recovery.

The smoke-free workplace policy was continued in the Department with all indoor areas being smoke-free. Non-smoking signs were displayed at conspicuous locations. Departmental circulars were re-circulated regularly to staff to remind them of the importance of maintaining a smoke-free working environment as well as providing green healthy public areas to visitors. Noisy equipment were relocated to the Document Processing Centre where it would not disturb staff at work.

In 2005, the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department conducted an "Indoor Air Quality Measurement" in the Department's offices located in the Revenue Tower and graded the quality of the air therein as "Good". The results indicated that the Department had complied with the requirements of four key elements used to indicate indoor air quality as recommended by the Environmental Protection Department, namely the intensity of Carbon Dioxide, Air-borne Dust Particulate, Radon and Total Viable Count. Similar exercise is being carried out in the Department in late 2007.

Upon the Department's switching to the five-day week operation mode, timers were adjusted to switch off the lights in the corridors and lift lobbies on both Saturdays and Sunday to reduce electricity consumption. Other measures were also taken during the year to conserve energy, including arranging the last-man-out after office hours to switch off electric facilities, identifying and replacing defective equipment, and turning off lights in storage areas and other electric appliances after use. According to the instruction of Environment, Transport and Works Bureau, the air-conditioned room temperature continued to be set at 25.5^oC during the year. The electricity consumption of the year had dropped by some 233,600 kWh as compared with the previous year.

Waste Minimisation and Recovery The Department continued to collect waste collectively and effectively. Bags and boxes were placed at various conspicuous locations to facilitate the collection of recyclable paper, aluminium cans and plastic bottles. Used printer cartridges were also collected for recycling. The Department collected some 242,879 kg of waste paper, 28.76 kg of aluminium cans, 23.41 kg of plastic bottles and 6,908 used printer cartridges in the year.

• Encourage staff to minimize photocopying and use both sides of paper.
  
  
• Reduce submission of paper forms with the launching of e-Leave System in July 2004.
  
  
• Encourage both internal and external communication by e-mail and floppy diskettes.
  
  
• Make optimum use of the Department's Intranet to enable more environmental friendly, and speedy internal information transmission. Administrative Instructions, Staff Handbooks, training materials, reference materials, guidelines, monthly reports, meeting minutes etc were uploaded onto the Intranet to facilitate updating and retrieval on-line, and dispense with the keeping of personal hard copies.
  
  
• Encourage staff to use recycled paper instead of virgin paper.
  
  
• Circulate and re-circulate Departmental and Unit Circulars / Circular Memoranda / Posting Notices by e-mail.
  
  
• Replace the pre-printed forms with templates or use overlay printing. The templates of the forms are uploaded onto the Intranet so that the forms can be printed as and when required.
  
  
• Promote the use of multiple screen method in printing on-line enquiries.
  
  
• Encourage the public to file tax returns electronically or through other media like diskettes and use the Department's electronic services under the Electronic Service Delivery Scheme.
  
  
• Develop the Computer Output On-line Retrieval System to facilitate on-line report viewing, thus obviating the need for printing computer reports in hard copy. The consumption of computer plain stationery for printing computer reports in this year had dropped by some 58,440 folds as compared with the previous year.
  
  
• Review the need for the preparation of periodical reports, the distribution lists of outgoing correspondence and hard copies required for circulation.
  
  
• Launch e-Seminars for employers and tax representatives to reduce paper consumption by obviating the need to print invitation letters, tickets and handouts.