At Tāhū o te Ture Ministry of Justice, we’re committed to operating in a way that supports a sustainable future for our environment, finances and people.
The Ministry's Sustainability Strategy 2025-2030 details how we’ll reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and embed sustainability into our operations, now and in the coming years.
Our Sustainability Strategy contains four key sustainability goals:
- We use resources efficiently.
- We minimise our pollution.
- We manage our climate risk.
- We empower our people to make sustainable choices.
Read the Ministry's Sustainability Strategy [PDF, 2.8 MB].
Emissions and reduction targets
The graph below shows the Ministry’s annual emissions, from 2021 to 2025, alongside our 2025 and 2030 reduction targets. It also shows the trajectory of reductions required – what we need to do to meet these targets.
In 2024/25, mandatory emissions were 20.1% below 2020/21 levels, but 0.3% higher than 2023/24. This means we ended up 1.1% above target.
Electricity is our largest mandatory source of emissions; however, we have no control over how clean the electricity grid is. To help reduce our exposure to this external factor, we’ve reduced our electricity consumption and will continue to do so.
Key reduction areas
Two areas are essential to meeting our emissions reduction targets. These are:
- making our buildings more energy efficient
- keeping non-essential travel low.
We have around 100 buildings, including courthouses, across 58 towns and cities. We conducted energy audits at several sites, which revealed practical initiatives we can do to conserve energy in our buildings. We’ve made many of these changes and are applying them at other sites, too.
Some of our heating and lighting systems are up for replacement. This is an opportunity to invest in low-emission upgrades that can also reduce our energy bills.
Our emissions
Many of our activities emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
This graph shows a breakdown of where our emissions come from:
Our progress
As a big organisation, the actions the Ministry takes to reduce our overall emissions matter.
Emissions rose in 2022/23 as operational travel neared pre-COVID levels. In 2023/24, emissions fell due to:
- cleaner national electricity grid
- reduced travel budgets
- LPG optimisation.
In 2024/25, despite a 4.4% drop in electricity use, electricity emissions rose 33% due to lower rainfall. This was largely offset by sharp reductions in LPG (-81%), domestic air travel (-14%) and refrigerant gas leaks (-54%).
Would you like to know more? Our Sustainability Strategy details initiatives that’ll help reduce emissions in each area.