I'd be happy to speak to that.
The background on carbon-neutral government is that the legislation mandates every public sector organization on an annual basis to measure its greenhouse gas emissions as rigorously as possible, to take steps to reduce those emissions as much as possible, and to offset the balance through the purchase of offsets from the Pacific Carbon Trust, a crown corporation that was specifically created to assist the public sector in that regard.
We have achieved carbon neutrality for 2010 and 2011. We are confident that we will achieve carbon neutrality again for 2012.
In the first two years that we have achieved carbon-neutral government, it has cost the public sector approximately $19 million in offset purchases. I would hasten to add, however, that the provincial public sector in British Columbia spends just less than $400 million a year on energy costs. So we are using the incentive of $25 a tonne to purchase offsets as a very direct economic incentive to look for energy efficient opportunities.
Obviously, our eye is on reducing our reliance on offsets going forward, but equally on reducing the cost of energy within the public sector. That is why we're so encouraged by some of what we've seen in our energy efficiency efforts.