Radical and urgent action required if Government is to deliver against its sustainable development targets

The 2007 Sustainable Development in Government report published by the Sustainable Development Commission on 18th March assesses the performance of central government operations against the targets of the Framework for Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate (SOGE). The aim of the report is to inform and inspire continuous improvements across government. The government response to this report can be found here

Whilst there are some encouraging initiatives revealed in the report, along with success stories such as the target of electricity obtained from renewable sources being exceeded, and the target of waste arising being recycled almost being met, the overall message is clear in that government is not on track to meet its targets and needs to act urgently.

Key findings include:

• Overall performance on procurement 'Quick Wins' is hugely disappointing. These were introduced in 2003 and are meant to be 'mandatory', yet only 12 of the 21 departments reported that they included clauses on 'Quick Wins' in all relevant contracts
  
• Carbon emissions from offices fell by 4% compared to the 1999/00 baseline year, but nearly two-thirds of departments are not on course to meet their own 12.5% reduction target by 2012/11
  
• Carbon emissions from vehicles increased by 1.5% against the 2005/06 baseline year. This shows no progress towards achieving the target of a 15% reduction by 2010/11 and is an area of serious concern
  
• Energy efficiency per square metre improved by 21.7% against the 1999/00 baseline - higher than the target of 15% by 2012. However without the improvements made by MOD, energy efficiency across the rest of the government estate has worsened by 3.3%
  
• 28.3% of electricity was obtained from renewable sources - far higher than the target of 10% by 2008
  
• 38.5% of waste arising from the government estate were recycled in 06/07 - almost meeting the 2010 target of 40%
  
• Some limited progress was made towards the target for reducing water consumption (0.1%), but not enough to be on track to meet the target of 25% by 2020

Key recommendations include:

• Each department must provide evidence based trajectories showing how their estate, procurement, travel and other strategies will deliver improvements each year to meet SOGE targets and other sustainable development commitments
  
• Carbon neutrality needs to be defined. Departments need to understand how carbon emissions will be avoided and reduced, and ensure that offsetting is used only as an interim measure
  
• Departments should agree on a government-wide sustainable travel policy
  
• The introduction of an air travel target to encourage travel by more sustainable modes whenever travel is unavoidable
  
• Ambitious future waste minimisation and recycling targets to be introduced in order to ensure continuous improvement
  
• Permanent Secretaries and Senior Civil Servants to have SOGE targets and other key sustainable development targets built into their personal objectives, to ensure accountability and high level leadership
  
• Each department to ensure that Quick Wins  are adopted where relevant, and that compliance is strictly monitered
  
• Government needs to develop, implement and monitor a supplier engagement programme to ensure that products and services procured help it meet its sustainable operations targets and encourage the message of sustainability to be cascaded down the supply chain

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