Green Management Policy
Inland Revenue Department is committed to providing a green office environment and to ensuring that its operation is conducted in an environmentally conscious and responsible manner. Consumption of paper and energy in the office remains the Department's green target in view of its office-based operations. We strive to protect and conserve the environment through:
- Ensuring the Department's operations will comply with the relevant environmental protection ordinances;
- Adopting green housekeeping measures, by avoiding, reducing or controlling environmental pollution and wastage arising from its day-to-day work practice;
- Requiring its contractors to implement sound environmental management systems and pollution control measures;
- Ensuring that all staff are aware of its Green Management Policy and providing information about the Policy and initiatives to those who are interested; and
- Providing training courses and workshops on green management for staff to increase their awareness and encouraging them to participate in environmental protection programmes.
Green Management
The Environment and Records Management Committee, meeting every 6 months, is chaired by the Departmental Secretary, the Department's Green Manager, and composed of green executives from various Units and Sections. During the year, the Committee continued to seek staff's suggestions, set directions in our green policies, issue green office guidelines and update staff on new green initiatives adopted. 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 promote environmental awareness amongst staff, including:
- Regular updating and displaying of environmental protection promotional materials on notice boards;
- Posting notices and affixing stickers adjacent to the relevant facilities to remind staff of energy saving;
- Releasing updated environmental protection information in the "Green Corner" of the Department's Intranet; and
- Disseminating useful and practical "Green Tips" via e-mails and / or the Departmental Newsletter to all staff to promote green living and green culture.
The IRD Sports Association also assisted in promoting green awareness and healthy living among staff by organising a variety of activities in the year, including thematic talks, and outings to the countryside.
Environmental Protection Performance
To balance operational needs with environmental care and social responsibility, Inland Revenue Department focused its efforts to provide a healthy working environment with satisfactory indoor air quality, and to achieve energy conservation, reduction of paper consumption and waste minimisation and recovery.
Smoke-free Workplace
The Department continued to adopt the smoke-free workplace policy by designating all indoor areas being smoke-free. Non-smoking signs were displayed at conspicuous locations. Departmental circulars were re-circulated regularly to remind staff about the importance of maintaining a smoke-free working environment and providing green healthy public areas to visitors.
Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)
Our staff spend most of the time in offices and other indoor environment, therefore, we also strive to provide and ensure good indoor air quality for them. Commissioned by the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department, a comprehensive IAQ measurement was conducted in the Department's offices located in the Revenue Tower to measure the twelve parameters indicating IAQ as recommended by the Environmental Protection Department, including the intensity of Carbon Dioxide, Respirable Suspended Particulates, Air-borne Bacteria and Radon. The award of the "Indoor Air Quality Certificate (Good Class)" to Revenue Tower in September 2009 shows that our office fully meets the requirements of the IAQ.
Energy Conservation
The Department is proactive in energy conservation. An overall drop of 27.42% was observed since 2002-03, when the Government's Economy Drive to economise on the use of resources was initiated. During the year, the Department has closely monitored the electricity consumption and adopted various energy saving measures, such as:
- Replacing all T8 fluorescent tubes by T5 types to conserve more energy;
- Reducing lighting to the minimum required amount for illumination;
- Adopting the "last-man-out" arrangement to ensure that lights and electric facilities / appliances would be switched off during lunch hour, after office hours or when not in use;
- Adjusting timers so that the lights in the corridors and lift lobbies could be switched off on both Saturdays and Sundays to reduce electricity consumption; and
- Maintaining air-conditioned room temperature at 25.5ºC during the year.
Adherence to the "3R" PrincipleThe Department continued to adhere to the 3R principle - "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle" in the consumption of materials.
Reduction and Reuse of Paper
The Department continued to adopt the following measures in the year to reduce its paper and envelope consumption:
- Encouraging staff to minimise photocopying and use both sides of recycled paper and / or the clean side of waste paper for printing and photocopying instead of virgin paper;
- Encouraging paperless means of internal and external communication by usinge-mail and floppy diskettes;
- Implementing the "Electronic Leave Application and Processing System" for leave applications and approvals;
- Making 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;
- Circulating and re-circulating Departmental and Unit Circulars / Circular Memoranda / Posting Notices by e-mail;
- Reviewing regularly the need for the preparation of periodical reports, the distribution lists of outgoing correspondence and hard copies required for circulation;
- Promoting the use of multiple screen method in printing on-line enquiries;
- Replacing the pre-printed forms with templates or use overlay printing. The templates of the forms were uploaded onto the Intranet so that the forms can be printed as and when required;
- Continuing to view reports on-line through the Computer Output On-line Retrieval System, thus obviating the need for printing computer reports in hard copies;
- Encouraging the public to file tax returns electronically by eTAX or through other media (for example employers may use diskettes) and use the Department's electronic services under the GovHK web site; and
- Uploading e-Seminars for employers and tax representatives to reduce paper consumption by obviating the need to print invitation letters, tickets and handouts.
We encouraged staff to participate in the recycling programmes. Bags and recycling boxes were placed at various conspicuous locations on all floors of the Department, to facilitate the collection of three recyclable wastes, namely recyclable papers, aluminium cans and plastic bottles. Besides, used printer cartridges were also collected for recycling. The Department collected some 213,007 kg of waste paper, 37.43 kg of aluminium cans, 110.48 kg of plastic bottles and 7,404 used printer cartridges during the year.
New Initiatives and Targets
Inland Revenue Department will strive to enhance its green performance through formulating and taking forward new initiatives and targets for environmental protection. The Intranet and the Departmental Portal will continue to be widely utilised for the enhancement of e-office facilities. Continuous efforts will be made to economise on the consumption of electricity and papers, and to promote the selection of recycled papers and green products in our procurement.