On 12 June 2006, the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Fisheries (David Miliband) announced revised sustainable operations targets for the Government estate. They focus on key areas such as carbon neutrality and emissions, energy efficiency, waste and water consumption.
The 2006 estate targets include:
Recycling:
Departments to increase their recycling figures to 40 per cent. of their waste arisings by 2010 and to 75 per cent. of their waste by 2020.
These targets will apply for the reporting period April 2006 to March 2007 onwards.
Previous Government targets that applied to the Government estate were launched in March 2004 but have since been superseded by the new targets.
The Department has consistently exceeded the targets. Our performance over the past five years is as follows:
Waste arisings (tonnes) Proportion recycled (percentage) 2001-02 n/a n/a 2002-03 908.69 78 2003-04 918.95 65 2004-05 1,152.76 68 2005-06 635.48 85
All figures exclude information technology (some is refurbished and resold; the rest is dismantled and disposed of in accordance with legislation)
Figures are not directly comparable from one year to another. Staff have moved from buildings where waste collected by departmental contractors to buildings managed by other Government Department (who include our staff in their returns). In addition, in some buildings waste streams have been added to what was previously collected under the departmental contract.
Figures for earlier years are less reliable than more recent figures.
Figures include the main departmental London estate, and departmental agencies.
The 2006 report is available at: www.sd-commission. org.uk/sdig2006/ and the 6th annual report is due to be published in spring 2008.