 Good morning. Welcome to the 23rd meeting of 2017 of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. Before we move to the first item on the agenda, I want to remind everyone present to switch off mobile phones and electronic devices as they may affect the broadcasting system. The first item on the agenda is for the committee to consider whether to take items 3, 4, 5 and 6 in private. Are we agreed? We are agreed. The second item of business on our agenda today is to hear evidence on the Scottish Parliament's environmental performance. We are joined by Sir Paul Greifs, the chief executive, and Victoria Barby, the environmental manager. As you would expect, members have a series of questions for you. I'll kick those off. Sir Paul, the Scottish Parliament has failed to meet its own reduction targets in the areas of carbon footprint, electricity use and waste generation for 2016-17. Why is that? First of all, I thank you for the opportunity to come and give evidence for you today. We appreciate the support and encouragement and challenge of the committee in hitting aim to hit our targets. You are right. Electricity, in a sense, was a deliberate decision that we took to look at energy mix. We have far exceeded our target in terms of gas. Reduction is down well by about 24 per cent against a target of 15. We found that the price of that was that a lot of people were using electric heaters across the campus. What we have looked at is to try to adopt a more sophisticated approach to our building management system. Although Victoria is much more expert, she could give you more detail. Broadly, by trying to keep the campus at a more even temperature, it is little and often in terms of heating, meaning that we do not have to invest a lot of energy in heating spaces up from coal. We are optimistic. I would certainly hope that it will be before you next year that we are able to report a significant improvement in reducing electricity consumption. That is one area that we are looking at. Waste continues to be a challenge for us. We do very well in terms of recycling and sending things off to composting. The figures are very encouraging. What we are struggling to do is to reduce the amount of waste itself. There are a number of initiatives that you yourself encouraged us about engaging with members to try to encourage a reduction in just the amount of paper that is sent into us. That has had a degree of success, so that is something that we could return to with some help with a committee to encourage more members to do that. We are also working with a couple of suppliers. We found the two that bring in the most cardboard in packaging terms, and essentially we recycle it for them free. We are looking further up the supply chain to see whether we can work with those particular suppliers to reduce the amount of packaging. Of course, there are the famous cardboard cups for coffee, which is also something that we are looking at. We have a number of issues. I am optimistic on electricity. I will be very disappointed if next year I am not able to report to you a significant improvement. We have got some ideas on waste, but realistically that will remain a challenge to reducing the quantity. Others say that we do very well on the amount that we recycle. Perhaps I owe you an apology around my request to look at the amount of paper that was coming in, because I do seem to recall that you were the subject of criticism from within the MSP cohort for some of the measures that you took, but they were nevertheless welcome. Can I move on to business travel? The business travel performance is markedly worse. Is that because we have a problem, or are you simply capturing that better? It is very much the latter convener. This is new territory for us, looking at the so-called scope three emissions. As you know, we published a travel plan, which is about travelling here and business travel, and we wanted to capture an honest baseline. I think that what you see there is a lot to do with the fact that we are recording it much better. What I would hope to do as we go forward, having established a more credible baseline, is to report to you improvements on that. For example, we have an electric car now in the basement, which I know a number of members have used. I have certainly used it to replace, for example, taxi or other travel. Much more encouragement of members and staff on business trips to use the train, not the plane, and just an active travel to work plan, whether it is cycling or walking or using bus. On all of those, I am optimistic. What you see there looks alarming, but it is to do, as you say, with the measurement of the baseline. Again, hopefully, going forward, we can put ourselves in a position to give you a credible and candid assessment of how we are performing against that. We do not measure the travel of witnesses, however, to parliamentary committees, do we? I look to your clerks on that one. I suspect that we do not. It is something that we could do. I am keen to make it as comprehensive as we can. That is something that I would be very happy to look at. I know that the clerks engage with committees well ahead looking at their various other needs. They might need here in the Parliament, for example, where they have disabilities and others, and I think that it would be a perfectly reasonable thing to encourage the clerks to engage with witnesses to advise them on their travel. In doing that, we would be able to capture that information, so I would be more than happy to take that forward with the committee office. Of course, we can also be encouraging witnesses to give evidence by alternative means that do not involve travel wherever that is possible. That allows me, if I may, to commend the committee. As you know, you would normally be meeting, I think, in committee room 1, but, as we speak, the delegated powers and law reform committees in that room, as we speak, are taking evidence by video conference from a witness. I think that Kate Forbes asked me last time about office-to-office engagements. Again, we are rolling out the Skype product to hopefully enable that. Certainly, there has been a trend to committees taking more evidence by video links. I think that that has been a real innovation. I hope that we can do more of that. Apart from that, what other measures is the Parliament looking at to ensure that it gets back on track on some of those areas? It is a range thing. There is no one magic answer. We have continued to invest in technology. Most visibly, members will see that we replaced the chamber lighting over the summer, and that has a very considerable benefit. At least, I think, a 50 per cent reduction ledges to use. It may be better as we understand it. Certainly, in terms of kilowatt hours, it is about 22 compared to 42 for the old system. However, it has much more flexibility in terms of use and different modes. I hope that, as we get a better understanding, we can improve further on that. We continue to put a lot of physical measures in secondary glazing in the Queen'sbury house. I think that behaviour is the key thing. I was really interested to sit in on your previous session and the number of questions and witnesses talked about behavioural change. That is almost an on-going job convenience. It is encouraging all of us to think about how we travel, how we use, whether it is paper. There is nothing wrong with any of that. It is just about thinking about the cost of the resources that we use. It is a whole suite of things. What is really encouraging is both members and staff. I have sensed a real change of the past few years. The expectation among MSPs and staff is that the environment matters. There is not resistance, there is interest in ideas. That change has definitely happened in recent times. The challenge for us is to come up with imaginative and user-friendly ideas to keep pushing that behavioural change forward. Let us move on and look at energy use. John Scott. Thank you very much. Just to pick up at the end of Graham's last question, committee lighting. I noticed that we are very happy with the new lighting in the chamber. Have you similar plans to address the energy use and committee lighting as a supplementary to Graham's question? We do not have immediate plans to adopt the same approach that we have in the chamber. Partly that was driven by obsolescence. We have been cannibalising the system for quite some time. It was a major investment for the time being. I am not sure that we might look at the bulbs and other more intermediate ways to deliver some savings. In time, I suspect that we will move to a different lighting system, but we now have no current plans for that. It would be wise to see how the system in the chamber performs for a year or so, which would give us some good data and help us to look at the business case for committee lighting. Richard Lyle wants a brief supplementary. Yes, in regard to lighting, I know in certain parts of the building if you walk into a room, the light comes on. Is there any way that we are intended to move that to committee meetings all too often in the room next to me? People leave the light on and I continually switch it off. It annoys me intensely. Are we looking at meeting rooms to have the lighting go off when no one is there? In a number of places on the campus, we have motion sensors that turn the lights on and off. I am happy to look with colleagues to see whether there are other areas. Clearly, that is an investment and of itself has a cost. As you say, the cheapest way is for one of us, the last person, to leave the room just to hit the light switch. I think that my preference would be just to continue to encourage people to turn the light off, but I am more than happy to look with my FM colleagues to see whether there are other rooms in the campus where motion sensors would work. Most of us have gotten to habit now of turning the light off when we leave, and that is the cheapest way to achieve it. I understand that we need lighting for the cameras to see where we are, but I have got two lights right in my eyes and there are two, four, six or seven lights over there that I think are totally useless that could be turned off. That would save a wee bit of interest. Over the years, my broadcasting colleagues will know that I often engage with them on the level of lighting in the chamber, but over the years I have come to respect their professional expertise in ensuring that we have adequate lighting. The serious point is that a great number of people engage with the Parliament through YouTube, through social media, and the quality of the broadcast is really important. We had to strike a compromise between this as a working meeting and, in a sense, a studio because we need a good quality. They will back me up on this. I often ask them about lighting levels, but I have learned to understand that they have the minimum necessary to ensure that this is a well-lit good production because, as I say, thousands and thousands of people these days, as you have just witnessed with your session around a minute ago with social media, I guess that was going out live on Facebook, was it? It is really important. Please always feel free to ask the colleagues whether any particular light needs to be on you, but the serious point is that they are not redundant. They are all part of getting the light levels right. I do think that you raised an interesting point about broadcasts. We are, if you look behind you, keeping out the daylight that we are pouring in and then relighting this room to accommodate broadcasts. In terms of energy efficiency, I do not think that that can be efficient. We do exactly the same in the debating chamber and have done for many years now to keep the daylight out and then to relight the chamber, which is not energy efficient in my view. You and I know from your time as Deputy Presiding Officer, we are very much on the same side in terms of my battle to keep the blinds up as long as possible. I assure you that I have continued that into the current session, Mr Scott. The truth is that the great majority of people who witness the proceedings of this institution do so via broadcasts, even with the chamber full. It is really important to get a good quote. People expect these days on Facebook or whether it is the news organisations using clips, and they do expect a high-quality product. I am with you on that, as you know, but I think that we have to respect our colleagues in broadcasting who are trying to get the best quality product. There is a trade-off. You are absolutely right. It is better lit than if we were not broadcasting it. There is no question, but broadcasting in its various forms is the way in which we reach the greatest number of citizens, and I think that most of us would feel that that was an important objective. We will go on to the draft climate change plan, which suggests that emissions from public sector buildings will need to be near zero by 2032 with low carbon heat, meeting 64 per cent of building heat demand by 2020 and 65 per cent by 2025. Is the Scottish Parliament confident that, in line with the draft climate change plan emissions from this building can be near zero by 2023? How would you hope? I beg your pardon, 2032. Thank you. Yes, I am. For a number of reasons. First is the fantastic support that we have had from the parliamentary corporate body and, indeed, this committee. Above all else, what I feel that I have as chief executive is very strong encouragement and support for the necessary investment and the behavioural change. That is why I am optimistic. It is an overused phrase, low-hanging fruit, but we have done a lot of the more obvious things, Mr Scott. We have to now consider substantial investments around energy production and other things if we are going to hit those targets. I have a colleague here from the corporate body who could speak on that, but we had a very good session with the corporate body just a couple of weeks ago looking at this very issue, particularly around energy, where I think there is more that we could do with thoughtful investment, whether it is energy, production or whatever. I said the point that I made before. I think that we have seemed to have crossed a threshold in terms of behaviour. Nowadays, no one, to me at least, says why we are doing this, they are interested in what we do. Not everyone agrees on the actions that we need to take behaviourally, but we have crossed the point where people are asking whether it is necessary. I think that that will only gain momentum and I took a lot of encouragement from the session that you had earlier. I think that we will continue to change our behaviour, we will travel differently, we will continue to invest in technologies. I think that it is important that this institution leads the way. We cannot reasonably expect other people to change the way they operate if we cannot say that we are doing the same. We are both optimistic, but it is a necessity. I think that we have to show the way and we have to aim to hit those targets. Would you like to be more specific? We would not obviously bind you to anything, but what sort of things might you envisage, solar panels or heat source pumps? On the basis of some excellent advice from Victoria, I think that we feel that the most promising in terms of payback would be photovoltaic cells. As you know, we do have some solar panels on Queensbury House, but they are not the ones that actually warm the water up. Actually, because we were successful in having low water usage, actually it turned out to be probably not the right technology. So, we are looking and the corporate bodies asked us to come back with a business case for photovoltaic cells. That would be my, I think that that is the most likely. I think that for the medium term, I think that the common local heating systems offer a lot of possibilities, really quite exciting possibilities. I think that the lead from that is more likely to be with the local authority, but we would be, and again the corporate body encouraged us to engage in dialogue with the city council and other, if you look at this area of the city, there's a number of major users. I know of some very exciting projects elsewhere in the country and in other countries. Now, this is more medium term, but I think that's something we can look at where you can actually look at patterns of energy you spread across a number of users. So, they have two specific ideas. We've agreed that we looked at heat source, you know, ground source heating. On that, we feel that technology is not sufficiently mature at this point, but the corporate body agreed that we should come back in a few years time to see how they can technology. We're looking at all of these things, and it partly depends on how fast the technology moves, but I think that the thing that you might expect to see first would be installation of photovoltaic panels somewhere on the campus. Friday, we can persuade the corporate body that it represents good value for money. Thank you. David Stewart's got something. Can I just ask you that, if you do effectively replace the solar panels, what will you do with them? Good question, convener. I think that, in line with our policy, the first thing to think, could we find a reuse or recycling? The technology is perfectly good, but it works best with very high water use, and it turns out that we don't use much hot water, which is a good thing. For example, there are establishments not too far away from here, hotels and others that might have high water use. I would hope that the first thing we do is to see whether we can find another use for them. I would be very disappointed if they have to be sent off for recycling, but that's what we would do. If we end up replacing those current ones, we would certainly see whether we could find a productive use for them as a first course of action. Thank you. John Scott has stolen some of my thunder on solar panels, but it's just a very brief point. Clearly, the technology has changed dramatically, Sir Paul, that is that there are much more efficient solar panels in the world in the past. The other issue, of course, is that feed-in tariffs are still available from the UK Government on that. I think that companies like Tesla are producing solar panel tiles, which are state-of-the-art. Would you consider utilising perhaps the top of the MSP block, because I'm conscious that you still require planning permission and there might be some visual issues around implementation of solar panels? Can you see just a little bit more about that? Yes, thank you for that. You're right, technology is moving on all the time. There's always a judgment with those areas with fast-moving technology. At what point do you stop the roundabout and buy it? You'll know from the good discussion that we had at the corporate body that we feel in terms of photovoltaic panels that now would be a good time to make that investment if we're going to make it. Planning is an issue, and we will begin in formal engagement with the City of Edinburgh Council. I very much hope that there would be accommodation, especially about putting them on roofscapes. Clearly, we have panels on the Queensbury House roof, and I very much hope that we could persuade them. We would aim to work with them over design and exact location. I would be hopeful that the local authority would be very supportive of giving us planning permission to install reasonably substantial quantity of photovoltaic panels. As a result, back to your point, convener, that would really help us in the medium term to hit our targets on energy consumption. Mark Ruskell. Obviously, the footprint of the Parliament is more than just the Holyrood campus. There must be at least 120-125 constituency offices, depending on whether Lothian is members of offices or not. How does the energy usage and the travel issues around constituency officers get factored into your plans, particularly around energy, transport and the size of things? It's a good question. We don't measure that at present. You're right. There's around about 100, I think, just over 100 at 100 offices, and it's a very good point. It's something, again, I'd be happy to look at. Clearly, we would need the active co-operation of members. I'm always conscious of striking a balance between respecting members should be free to run their local offices in the way that they think best they know what their constituents need. On the other hand, if there are areas where we can help members, guide them in terms of good practice, certainly the travel plan would cover that. It's something I'd be more than happy to look into, maybe come back to the committee and indeed take the committee's guidance and advice as to what members—I'd like to work with members on that. I don't think it's about imposing from here, but you make a very fair point. We have a lot of small officers, all of which have a footprint, and I think it's an area that I'm interested in, but I would very much want to work with members of Parliament and take their ideas on board. It again could be something that I'd be more than happy to come back to the committee on. I would certainly find that useful. We've had security advice, and obviously there's budget available for security improvements for individual constituency officers, but we've had no advice on energy efficiency or indeed just making a more pleasant working environment for staff thinking about my office, which is a wee bit drafty and quite an old office that's been privately rented as well. That might be useful and also extending travel planning. Travel planning is about coming to Parliament as well as coming to constituency offices as well as business travel. If there are tools that are available, that would certainly be useful. Ultimately, that's about improving the experience of people working for the Parliament, working for MSPs as well. I'm happy to do that. Victoria tells me that we do offer members advice on that, but clearly we haven't successfully disseminated it. I think it's a really good point. I'm more than happy to take a fresh look at that, look at what we currently do, could we communicate that better? Clearly we haven't entirely succeeded, but also to take up your wider challenge. I worry in which I would like to use both this committee and the corporate body just to make sure that we've struck that balance right. We're going to get a lot further with this if members feel this is welcome and helpful advice and not me trying to impose something from Holyrood. I'm more than happy to have a look at it and perhaps write back through you, convener, and pick it up from there. Do you have one final small point on this topic? Just as someone who leaves the building quite often between nine and 10 o'clock at night, I know that I walk along the corridor that I habit and close the windows every time I do so at that time of night, because the energy laws through those open windows must be significant, and I presume that it's replicated across other floors other than the one that I'm on. Could we encourage members to close windows when they leave for the day? It's just that there's a lot of energy laws. And indeed to switch lights off in their offices. Given that both you and Mr Lyle have raised the issue, I'll think about the best way to try and encourage. I'm sure that it's not just, by the way, members block. I'm sure that it exists across the campus. It's back to behaviour change, and you make fair points. I think that people are receptive. It's just reminding people in a way that encourages them to do it. I'll take this meeting as a reminder to find a way to reissue guidance or find other ways to encourage people. Thank you for that. Let's look at transport. David Stewart. Thank you. I can feed quite a few of the questions. The transport is ready to be covered, so I'll be brief. We covered the issue—it's a poll—about videoconferencing earlier. I'm quenched if you look at comparisons from other organisations, such as the University of Highlands and Islands in my patch. The norm is for videoconferencing. They do more VC than all universities in the UK put together. You talked earlier about a behaviour change. I've been in a number of committees in my time in the Parliament, and I always have a slight sense or a slight reluctance to use videoconference because it's slightly out of the norm. Do you think that we can change the mindset so that videoconferencing with our excellent facilities and committee room 1 and the mobile facilities are seen as the norm for witnesses, for example? We could do more. I think that the convener actually helped us with an event that we did for Clark earlier in the year to brief them. That was the starting point, so that all committees now have that. I think that we have seen an uptake in videoconferencing, and we'll continue that. Against that, I'll make two points. We've seen that there is still something very powerful in evidence terms about face-to-face contact. My understanding over many years is that many witnesses want to come and see their members of Parliament face-to-face. I think that we just need to recognise that it's a human thing. Even the most sophisticated video technology—and I'm an avid user of video conferencing—even the best technology is hard to replicate this. It's just to do with how we communicate as people. I think that we need to respect that. I'd always absolutely want to back any committee that felt that face-to-face was the way it did it, which, of course, might mean it travelling out to people. Sometimes that can also have benefits in terms of getting witnesses. However, I agree with your fundamental point. I think that we need to, as officials, continue to develop and maintain the technology. I think that we've got past the point where we all worry that it would break. It's pretty reliable these days. There's a lot more of it. I think that we could do more and should, but I say that I'm just slightly cautious about saying that it's the default position, partly because I think that both members and witnesses, if they can, would prefer to face-to-face, and I think that we should respect that. Thank you for that. Let's move on to procurement, Finlay Carson. That's good morning. Last year, Victoria, you stated that you'd started to measure the environmental impact that the supply chain was bringing in. It was touched on a little bit earlier. Can you let us know what progress the Parliament has made with regard to the circular economy and your approach to purchasing decisions and maybe give us some examples over the last 12 months? Pauli also mentioned scope 3 emissions. Has the Parliament made any progress in being able to measure scope 3 emissions associated with procurement? I guess that a good example of an area where we've made more progress than other areas is around our furniture procurement. Previously, we would purchase furniture and then dispose of it once it was at the end of its life or offices were being reconfigured. The new contract with our furniture supplier involves an element of repair and reuse of that furniture. Instead of just the furniture being disposed of at the end of its life, it will hopefully be repaired, refurbished, brought back into the Parliament or sold on or given to other organisations that can make use of it. It's taken quite a long time to get this contract in place, but hopefully this will be the first of many similar contracts and similar processes through procurement where we can look at a more circular economy model. I'm afraid I need to look to you on the measurement of scope 3 emissions through procurement where we've got to on that. Again, it's quite a challenge because we have to wait until contracts are up for renewal before we can put into a specification that the contractor needs to provide us with scope 3 emissions. It's slow progress, but it's definitely something that we're looking to build into contract specifications for the future, so we can start collecting that data. Once we've got the data, we can do more with it and work through different options. There's just another one that came to mind when we were talking about active travelling. Currently, the cycle to work scheme only covers people—you can only buy your bike from Halfords, which doesn't always suit rural communities, so I had to drive to Halfords to get the bike and I had to take it back to get it serviced. Is that something that you consider when you look at suppliers and whatever the impact it would be on members, not actually working in Parliament but in the constituencies? That's partly because I think we've piggybacked on the Scottish Government scheme. Is that right? I think that Halfords was built into that. You'd be pleased to know that the new scheme is not just Halfords, so it will be available to a lot more organisations and, in particular, small and medium-sized enterprise bike companies as well, so that would be good. Come along to the travel fair on Friday in the car park. We've got lots of information about sustainable travel and bikes on that. My electric bike. I should say that there's a discounted service available—I think that £15 to get your bike serviced, so we're a little plug for anyone who fancies it. We're a really top team of mechanics that are going to be in, so anyone who can get their bike here on Friday can take advantage of that. We had the debates of Paul in the Parliament last week on Scotland's food and drink sector and our ambitions to grow that, in which members, including myself, stole the virtues of Scottish produce, but I'm just wondering about the extent to which we as an institution promote the Utahi Scottish products in Parliament, with the obvious food mile and carbon climate change impacts that. One example that comes to mind is that we appear to source the tea in the Parliament from London when we, in fact, have a number of tea suppliers closer at hand. Yes, that's a fair point. I've looked specifically into Brodie's, who would be an obvious example of that. The problem is that they couldn't guarantee it was fair trade tea and, of course, fair trade is one of our underpinning principles. If the likes of Brodie's could guarantee that they sourced the tea from fair trade, then, obviously, I'd be delighted for us to look at stocking it. It's a good idea. More generally, I would assure you that this is something that we're really seized on as far as possible. We like to use Scottish and local produce for lots of reasons, for environmental reasons, but it's also absolutely consistent with the economic and other factors. It was interesting to look into it at your request, which I'm grateful for. It just shows some of the things to balance out, but that's specifically on that. There are other products of all sorts—Scotland is famous for lots of beer and other production, and we aim to do that. I'm always open to ideas genuinely. Members have fantastic intelligence from their constituencies that we don't always have. I would genuinely encourage any member who feels that there's a producer or a product or something interesting in their constituency—a local producer—doing something really interesting. Please get in touch. We can't always achieve it, but we'll always look at it seriously. Many of the great products and ideas that you see in the Parliament originated with members saying, do you know that there's a producer in my area? Or, as you've done, challenge us on issues, because even if we can't solve it now, we won't lose that sight of that idea. Please encourage members—even if we can't, we like those ideas. You have much better knowledge about what's happening locally in Scotland, and we will always look seriously at any proposition from a member, whether it's for a permanent product or whether sometimes we can just showcase things for a period of time as a way to give that producer some publicity and some interest. I would encourage that. I did look at tea specifically, and I was interested to discover that. Maybe that's something that the supplier will address or is able to address, in which case we would obviously be delighted to look at a famous Scottish brand here in the Parliament. Finlay Carson and then John Scott. In the earlier session, we heard about disposable cups, and there might be some desire to bring in a cup charge or whatever. How successful has been the campaign in the Parliament to reduce the use of paper cups? If your opinion hasn't gone far enough, would you consider a more stick approach to stop members or staff using paper cups? I've never used a stick with members, and it doesn't usually work out well for me. The paper cup usage has gone down from 93,000 to 76,000 a year. That's about an 18 per cent reduction, which is really encouraging. Clearly, that's still an awful lot of disposable cups. I think that the best way to do is just to continue. It's more common now, and I've changed it myself. I've found a decent, reusable cup. Everyone's got their own preferences. Again, we can all exemplify that with members and staff, particularly more senior colleagues such as myself. I think that we have a responsibility to show that. I still think that behaviour change. The voluntary fine has raised about £150, which we gave to Holyrood primary school to help them to purchase beef-friendly plants, so that's a definite benefit. I wouldn't like to make that any more formal. My strong sense is that we've got momentum on this, and I think that we'll achieve more by just continuing to encourage. I don't want it to seem onerous. I think that it's far more likely that it will persuade people, but 76,000 cups, even though I should say that they are compostable, which is a positive thing. I would really hope that, when I'm before you next year, we continue that level of reduction. We can really get that down. As I think that was said in your early session, there's almost no need to throw a wake-up in this place. We ought to be able to get that down to a very, very low amount, so there's good progress with more to do. I think that I'd prefer to continue to try to persuade people rather than wave a stick at them. Victoria would take a different approach. Your hand might be forced further down the line by Government action on that. That would be different. If that's the decision across the country, then obviously we would respect that. I think that you can see that, from a high start, we're making good progress. I'd say that's an 18 per cent year-on-year reduction. If that continues, then two or three years from now, I think that we can really look back with some pride that we've actually changed the behaviour. Okay. Thank you. Mark Ruskell. Just to go back to the food supply chain issue again and shortening food miles and encouraging more local procurement. A lot of those objectives are wrapped up in the food for life programme, so I think I'd ask the corporate body previously about what progress we're making towards achieving the silver standard, which obviously ramps up the amount of local produce that's being sold. I just wondered if there's an update on that in terms of how close we are to achieving that standard now? I'll ask Victoria to update you on that. Yeah. We're looking at perhaps a slightly different tact in the fact that we have the carbon trust triple standard for energy, water and waste, and the carbon trust are now in conjunction with the soil association releasing a new standard. I think it's called the green kitchen standard, so we're working with them to try and align all of our certifications through the same body. Instead of going for the silver soil association standard, we'd go for the green kitchen standard, which incorporates a lot of that local and organic produce and also energy efficiency around the cooking of food and procurement of it through transport. So that's the tact that we're taking at the moment. I wonder if it would be helpful to come in and pick up at your point on whether we could come back to you with a more clear-the-haul supply chain, especially around food as an area that you and a number of colleagues have raised it, including Mr Ruskell just now. I mean, I've been more than happy to write the committee a more detailed note, not just about where we are, but where we think we're going on this to give you a better sense. There's some quite technical issues in it, and wherever you're into supply chain or into procurement, there's obviously some limitations to what we can do, and I've been more than happy to give you a more detailed note, trying to wrap up some of the points that colleagues have raised. OK, that would be useful. John Scott. Finally, could it be written into the contract with Sodexil that we would prefer wherever possible Scottish Food and that Scottish Food be showcased, and I have to declare an interest as a Scottish Food producer, of course. In terms of showcasing Scottish Food, could that be part of Sodexil's contract? I think that that is in the contract, but as I've offered Gaminas agreed, I should write back to you. I will check that there is something of that. I like that closing the contract, Mr Scott, but I'm more than happy just to check that out, and when I write back to you, I'll give you a detailed answer on that. Thank you. Could we extend that to look at drink as well? Scotland's budgeting reputation around craft gins and vodka. Is there anything to stop us from having a gin of the month, vodka of the month, whatever, in the bar? I drink neither, so I don't have to declare an interest. No, it's a good point. It's a very important part of the Scottish economy. We know that. The bar certainly does stock Scottish beers and Scottish gins, but I think that you're right. We could probably do more to promote it as a good idea, and I'm happy to come back on that point as well. Okay, thank you. Let's move on to another subject, Claudia Beamish on pension fund investment. Thank you, convener. Good morning to you both. Could I ask you, Sir Paul? Last year, in relation to pensions, you stated that the trustees have a strong legal duty with pensions, which, of course, I recognise and we all respect. Transparency is always of great value in any relation to finance and money, of course. For me, personally, this is an ethical issue, and I know that it is for many other people in this Parliament and in the public sector widely, and people do look to us as leaders, I believe, I hope. Some of the opportunities in low-carbon investments are no longer regarded by some as high risk in spite of more traditional views. There are models of change in the public sector, which you may well have had dialogue with the corporate body about investigating over the past year, but it would be most helpful if you could let us know, has there been further consideration given to the issue of pension divestment from high-carbon stocks in the past year and possibly investment in more local carbon, low-carbon issues like you've highlighted in relation to the Parliament and local authorities? I recognise that this is an issue of concern to many members. Specifically after the last meeting, I wrote to the chair of the pension fund trustees passing on to him your concerns. It's difficult for me to say any more for the simple fact that Ashley is not the corporate body's responsibility. They are not the fund trustees and Mr Stewart is more expert than me on this, having been a trustee. The corporate body, even since who I represent, are de facto the employer. There are no employers, clearly members of Parliament are office holders, they are not employed, but for pension purposes we effectively act as employer and make the contribution. In a sense, that is our only interest in it, in a legal sense. It is entirely a matter for the pension fund trustees. I certainly, as I undertook, wrote to the chair of trustees passing on your concerns. The dialogue that you talk about, I absolutely agree, is an important dialogue to have. I'm not in a habit of coming and saying that it's not an issue for me, but in fact it literally is not an issue for myself or the corporate body. That's a dialogue to have with the pension fund trustees. I do know, obviously, because I take an interest as the representative of the employer in that. The current set-up, as I think I briefed you last time, is that we're part of a managed fund, a Billy Gifford managed fund. It's relatively small, and therefore, at the moment, the judgment, I believe, of the trustees. That would certainly be my understanding, because it's not yet feasible to have an independent pension fund. When you're part of a managed fund, obviously, although you can choose which fund to go with, obviously, you won't accept the investment decisions made on that. I absolutely recognise that as a key issue, and at a personal level, I really understand that. However, the dialogue, I think, has to be with the pension fund trustees, the corporate body. Its duty is to represent your best interest as the proxy for your employer in terms of making adequate contributions to ensure that the pension fund remains viable. Beyond that, the very real issue, which I recognise and what it invests in, is a matter for the fund trustees. I'm certain that they would be willing to engage in a dialogue with you, because, as you rightly say, openness is a key, whatever decisions are made. Knowing all of the trustees, I can't imagine any of them would not be willing to engage in a dialogue and explain to you even how they perhaps see this developing over future years. As the fund continues to grow, it may reach a point where it's feasible to have an independent fund, in which case, of course, you have more latitude as to what you invest in. That's a helpful comment for us to consider as a committee, as to if and how we decide to take that forward. Thank you very much, Paul. Okay, thank you for that. Richard Lyle. Good morning. First of all, I can say that, since coming to this place, I've been thoroughly delighted with the way that I've been treated by staff and the way that staff carry on their duties, and in particular, yourself and your office. I think that I has to be putting the record. During the week, there was a comment in regard to Westminster renovation, but there was also a comment regarding the adaptation and the resilience of this building. Would it last 40 years? Would it last 100 years? How long would it last? Victoria, in September, you referred to five steps to managing your climate risk, a guide to public bodies in Scotland. Can you remind me what your five steps were and what progress has Parliament made in developing an adaptation plan and increasing its resilience to the impacts of climate change? Will this building only last 40 years or 100 years? We may not be around then, but as an individual, but how long will this building… As far as I'm concerned, it's a lovely building. It's an iconic building. It's certainly a futuristic building. How are you managing the building? The recommended five steps to climate change adaptation are getting started, understand the impacts of climate change, identify and prioritise actions, take actions and monitor, review and evaluate. We have undertaken the first two steps of those recommended steps from Adaptation Scotland. We held a workshop with Adaptation Scotland in 2016 and followed that up with identifying and prioritising all of the actions that we can take around adaptation. One of those steps was to provide some guidance for local officers around what they can do on adaptation. My colleague sitting in the back from Spice is helping us to develop plans for local officers, which is really good. You'll be pleased to know that this building is still relatively new and doesn't need a lot to adapt to climate change. We're hopefully touched with the roof. Tiles are not going to blow off and we're not going to be flooded any time soon, she says. We are working through the adaptation plan as set out by Adaptation Scotland so that we can make sure that this building is here for many, many years to come. I'm glad you raised the life expectancy point. It's really important to draw a distinction between accounting practice, which is what was reported. There is a standard accounting practice over the period in which you essentially have to depreciate and look at lifespan. Our absolute expectation is that this building, which was built with at least a 100-year lifespan, will last that, and a way beyond that, the actual basic infrastructure should pretty much last in perpetuity. Of course, over many, many decades, one has to look at windows and plant, but I can give you an absolute assurance that there's a huge distinction between what was reported, which is simply what was in our accounts, which were bound by standard accounting practices. Our expectation is that this building will last far, far longer than what was reported. I hope that that's a helpful reassurance to you. It is a hopeful reassurance. The one thing that I've felt in the last number of years is that the quality that the staff enjoy coming to work in the way that the staff look after this building. One of the questions that I first asked when I came was regarding the wooden spars. I was reminded that those are louvres, not wooden spars, and they are being currently upgraded, painted, etc. What is the current cost of looking after the building and what is the projected cost over the years? From the day that we moved in, under guidance of our excellent head of facilities, we adopted a 25-year rolling maintenance plan. His very strong advice to me and colleagues who have been on the corporate body, Mr Scott and others, will remember that we didn't make the mistake that some building owners have done of taking a holiday for a few years because the building was new. We began investing in it almost from day one in terms of maintaining it, especially the external order. We live in a wonderful, but pretty tough climate, so we continue to invest in that. We continue to do that. I think that that has paid dividends if we genuinely want this place, not just to be standing in 200 years' time but to look fantastic. We have our responsibilities, the current guardians of the institution to invest in it and I believe very strongly in that. I will need to write to you with the exact amount that we spend on maintenance. I will be revising that for my appearance before the finance committee in a little bit of time, but I can easily check that and drop you a note via the clerks on that point. Just to reassure you that we have always had terrific support from successive corporate bodies to maintain a sensible level investment, so we do not face a huge problem in five or ten years' time. I hope well after I have moved on that we continue that policy. Thank you very much. A brief supplementary, Mr Vlyl. Emma Harper. Finlay Carson mentioned coffee cups earlier and the current UK Parliament's Environment Audit Committee has an inquiry into the use of disposable packages such as coffee cups and plastic bottles. Are you comparing our progress with other parliaments across Europe or UK Parliament and other devolved assemblies? My point being, are we doing better? No, it's a really good question. It's hard to do a formal benchmarking. Everyone seems to have different baselines and different approaches, so it's hard to produce a sort of numeric comparison. For example, our colleagues in Wales who we often benchmark with have a different baseline, I think 2008, 2009 whereas ours is five, six. That said, yes, we do is the short answer. Wherever we see another Parliament, whether it's Wales, Germany, colleagues in the UK doing something interesting and better, we're absolutely happy to take on people's other ideas. At all levels, Victoria is in contact with her colleagues. I know that clerks of various committees are a good way to get intelligence. I have regular and frequent dialogue with my colleagues from Northern Ireland, Wales and Westminster, but I will next, in fact, be meeting two of the colleagues in a couple of weeks' time. Actually, I'll happily specifically put this on the agenda just to make sure that we're not missing ideas. It's also pleasing to note that other parliaments have adopted some of our ideas. I believe that the Australian Parliament cited this Parliament as inspiration for starting beehives. It's nice to think that we're getting some recognition, but you make a really important point. It's a great way. If it works in another Parliament, then my starting position is why wouldn't it work here? We're very open to other people's good ideas, but I'll take up that specific point. When my two colleagues from Wales and Northern Ireland are here in a couple of weeks' time, I'll put that on the agenda and make sure that we're not missing any ideas that they're pursuing. Okay, thanks. Okay, it was useful to explore that. Let's look forward to future targets, Kate Forbes. Thank you very much. A number of these points will have been mentioned in the previous evidence, but as you look ahead, what are the big ticket investment items that the Parliament is likely to have to consider in order to achieve the future emission reduction targets? For me, the big one is around energy. I think both energy usage and energy production. That, for me, is where we're going to really hit these demanding targets, which I think is hugely important. We can't credibly be asking other people to hit them if we don't. I think that we have a role not just as an institution in its own right but as an exemplar. I think that we have to be prepared and say that I've had very strong encouragement from Mr Stewart and his colleagues on the corporate body to do that. I think that that's what you should expect to see. I think that we just need to be prepared, I think, as an institution, to try some ideas out. I think that that's where you will see. I think that an area that isn't about a single big investment but which I think will take a lot of behaviour and other change is around the scope. I think that procurement isn't easy. It's complex. You're into contractual and legal issues, but I think that we need to make. I would regard that as a big ticket item of a different type. We need to continue to really work hard on this. The encouraging thing is to pick up point raised by the convener and others is that what we're trying to achieve is something people want. They want local source high quality products. We're going with the grain that the challenge area is just—I didn't realise myself until I looked into just how complex supply chains are. We need to get a better understanding to work on that. The other one I think is around travel. Travel is a big contributor overall. Because we didn't measure it previously, perhaps it was off the radar. Now we've begun to measure it. At least it's given us a sighter on that. The challenge area is because that's hundreds if not thousands of individuals taking decisions and finding ways to persuade them. Again, it's something that maybe the committee can lend its considerable weight to. There you are really into behavioural change. We can make things easy. We've invested hugely in cycling and other facilities to make that easier. Electric car charging points are fine. We will make all of those investments, but at the end of the day, with all of us, myself included, we've got to change behaviour. That's a big-ticket item in terms of behaviour. They will be the three. If we can really crack all of those, I'd be very optimistic that we can be at the leading edge of that. Where do I think that we should be? Lastly, in the climate change bill proposals, the Scottish Government is considering revising its target for 2020 to 56 per cent compared to 1990 levels. Does the Scottish Parliament anticipate revising its targets for 2020? I think that if the Government changed it, we would want to do that. We haven't had a chance to give this, which has obviously just recently been announced. I've always got to put a little caveat in this. I have colleagues elsewhere in the organisation with a sharp intake of breath. I think that you, as members, would want your institution to be one that we can be proud of and stand up with targets that we're setting for others. My starting point is that, if they change the target, how can we change to achieve that? I don't yet know enough to categorically say that we could. Again, next time, I'll give evidence before you'll be more than happy to give you a firmer answer, but that would certainly be my aspiration. My last comment is that, since being elected in terms of the technology available, it's done wonderful things for being able to connect to the Highlands and Islands. It's further, we could go, but whether it's mobile, surface or whatever, it's been really helpful. On that note, we should wrap this session up. I thank you both for your time today. I think that that's been incredibly useful. You've undertaken to write to us on a number of items. We would welcome that, but I think that we would also look forward to continuing engagement with the Parliament on the issues that we've discussed today. It doesn't just have to be wrapped up in an annual session, so if there are any developments on the lines that we've covered, it would be useful for the Parliament to continue to keep us appraised of any progress or otherwise. Please do that. Again, I really genuinely thank the committee for your challenge and your encouragement, and I'm very happy to keep you appraised of progress. Of course, at any time, I would obviously be happy to come back before the committee if that was to be useful. At its next meeting on 26 September, the committee will take evidence from the Crown of State Scotland. It will also initially consider petition PE 01636, which calls on all single-use drinks cups to be 100 per cent biodegradable. As agreed earlier, we'll now move into private session. I ask that the public gallery be cleared as the public part of the meeting is closed.