46. Departments are required to have strategies in place for raising awareness of sustainable development and environmental issues among their staff. Unfortunately, departmental questionnaire responses were not as informative as they might have been, partly due to ambiguities in some of the questions.[14] There was not, for example, an explicit question asking departments whether or not they had awareness raising strategies in place. In a few cases, the answer to this question was clear. DCMS and DWP had no strategy—the latter excusable on the grounds that they were a new department—while the MoD and the FCO both explicitly confirmed that they did. Other departments cited a variety of promotional activities as if these, in themselves, amounted to a strategy. As a result, it is impossible to ascertain whether most departments have formal awareness raising strategies in place. But it is clear that few departments—with the exception of the FCO—have any structured approach to monitoring the effectiveness of their strategies.

47. We were also disappointed that only between 15 and 20 staff across all central departments attended external training courses on Sustainable Development in Government. One would not necessarily expect large numbers as such courses are primarily aimed at managers. However, the paucity of attendees is extraordinary when one considers that there are over 370,000 staff in civil departments and agencies alone. Similarly, there was little 'hard' evidence of the emphasis placed on sustainable development in internal training courses, and how widespread (in terms of numbers of staff and frequency) the coverage of these courses was. We would expect such issues to be covered in formal awareness raising strategies and subsequent monitoring reports.

Greening operations

48. To the extent that departments are major employers and estate manager, there is considerable scope for them to manage their activities to reduce environmental impacts. Many of these activities have traditionally been associated with estate management functions such as reducing water, waste and energy consumption. They also cover aspects of procurement, such as the purchase of renewable electricity, energy saving products, and recycled paper.

49. In the Annex to this report, we have commented at length on departmental responses to questions on greening operations, and would refer readers to those analyses for more detailed information.[15] We have, however, included some key findings in the table below, though as will be immediately apparent a considerable number of departments were unable to provide comprehensive information in a number of areas.

50. Our overall findings on the progress departments are making towards greening operations demonstrate continuing weaknesses in data availability and huge variations in performance. These partly reflect the absence of structured systems for monitoring and managing activities, and as long ago as 1999 the EAC recommended targets for implementing Environmental Management Systems (EMS). We note the statement in Part 1 of the Sustainable Development in Government report: "The Government has agreed that to deliver challenging environmental targets for the Estate within this Parliament, a significant increase in the uptake of Environmental Management Systems is needed."[16] And we welcome the cross-departmental targets for the take up of EMSs the Government has now set as part of the Framework initiative.[17]

51. Our conclusions and recommendations on some key aspects of operational performance are set out below.

a)  With the exception of those departments which utilise the Whitehall District Heating Scheme, progress on CHP schemes remains poor. Renewable energy, however, presents a more varied picture with some departments well ahead of the 5% March 2003 target.

b)  In terms of overall performance across the entire estate, the Government appears to have met in both 2000-01 and 2001-02 the new target set of a 1% per annum reduction in carbon emissions, with overall reductions of 3% and 7% respectively. However, some individual departments have conspicuously failed to meet the target, with carbon emissions increasing in one or both years against the baseline.

c)  We have some concerns on the Government's plan to replace the interim 1% per annum carbon reduction target with targets based on benchmarking individual offices. We would urge the Government to ensure that all departments face targets which are at least as challenging as the current one.

d)  Given the incentives which the Government has provided to encourage LPG since 1997, it is disappointing that only some 547 vehicles out of a total fleet of over 18,600 are LPG equipped. The performance of DWP is particularly creditable, while that of HO, IR and C&E is far less so.

e)  Only 5 out of 19 departments have clearly met the March 2002 water consumption target, while only 6 met the main waste recovery target set in 1999 by Green Ministers. We regard this as an abysmal performance.

f)  There are huge variations in departmental performance. The proportion of renewable energy purchased, for example, ranges from 0% to over 75%, while the proportion of paper purchased meeting the 80% post-consumer waste specification ranged from 0% to 100%. The Government should investigate the reasons for these variations as a matter of urgency and make publicly available the findings.

15   See paragraphs 30 to 66 of the Annex to this report. Back

16   First Annual Report, Sustainable Development in Government, DEFRA, November 2002, paragraph 3.17 Back

17   Ibid. Back