The government has failed to meet its own targets to cut the environmental impact of its operations, according to a report quietly released by the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) last month.

The Greening Government Commitments (GGC) were imposed on waste, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, domestic flights, water and paper use and included targets for each compared to a 2009-10 baseline.

The GGC targets, which applied to 22 central government departments and non-ministerial government departments in England and many of their arm’s-length bodies, included a 25 per cent decrease in waste generation and a 25 per cent decrease in GHG emissions.

Waste

The government reported a 22 per cent reduction in total waste generated, three percentage points short of its target and no different from 2013-14 levels. Out of 22 departments, 16 met or exceeded the 2015 target, an improvement from the previous year, but the Department of Energy & Climate Change’s (DECC) waste actually went up by 18 per cent from 2013-14.

The target focused on waste prevention in line with the waste hierarchy and also committed to ensuring that redundant information and communication technology equipment is reused within government, the public sector, or wider society or is responsibly recycled.

Any waste reused outside a department was still classified as waste in the figures, meaning that while items such as surplus furniture may have been reused elsewhere, it is still considered waste.

The government as a whole diverted 83 per cent of its waste from landfill and the report states that reducing waste achieved savings worth an estimated £12.5 million.

A case study given in the report focuses on the Environment Agency, which has reduced its waste generation by 50 per cent (375 tonnes) since 2008-09. The reductions, it says, have been achieved through a number of initiatives including staff awareness programmes, increasing source segregation, changing waste supplier contracts and ensuring that lifecycle is considered during procurement processes.

Cutting the use of paper created the biggest savings, with measures taken to print less, increase digital storage and introduce more scanners leading to 115 tonnes of paper waste being saved.

Apart from DECC, the National Crime Agency (NCA) was the only department to create more waste than its 2009-10 baseline, posting an 18 per cent increase.

HM Treasury produced the best results over the five years, reducing waste generation by 69 per cent, followed by the Department for Communities and Local Government (65 per cent).

GHG emissions

A target of 25 per cent reduction was set for GHG emissions, but the report suggests that a drop of 22 per cent was achieved. The Ministry of Defence, which accounts for half of all government emissions, only reached a 19 per cent cut, which prevented the government as a whole from reaching its target.

Out of 22 departments, 17 met or exceeded the target, compared to 16 in 2013-14, and the report estimates that £164 million has been saved through reduced energy consumption.

Paper

The GGC target for paper consumption was to cut paper use by 10 per cent in one year in 2011-12. All 21 departments that submitted data reported lower paper consumption in 2014-15 than in 2009-10, with an overall reduction of 38 per cent.

Water

Under the commitment, water consumption was to simply be reduced by 2015, with a report on office water use against best practice benchmarks.

Out of 22, 16 departments failed to reach the benchmark for water use: using less than six metres cubed of water per full-time equivalent employee, although there was an overall 11 per cent reduction in water consumption from the baseline, saving an estimated £8.5 million.

Failure still presents ‘impressive results’

In a foreword to the report Oliver Letwin, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Resources Minister Rory Stewart wrote that the commitments ‘encapsulate an unprecedented level of ambition for reducing the UK government’s environmental impacts within a five-year period’.

The two ministers state: ‘The results reported here reveal that those ambitions have led to impressive results in most areas. While these headline achievements may fall slightly short of the targets set for 2014-15, the picture at department-level shows that many departments are meeting and exceeding targets, while others are recording valiant reductions in face of significant operational challenges.’

In response to the report, Craig Bennett, CEO of Friends of the Earth told the Guardian: “The government has still managed to save £185 million in energy, waste and water costs, showing that environmental protection makes economic sense too.

“The government must end its relentless attacks on green issues and make the reduction of the nation’s environmental footprint a top priority.”

“For months, ministers have been systematically undermining national efforts to tackle climate change, and now we learn that they’ve failed to meet a whole range of green targets for their own performance too.”

More information on the 2015 government green targets is available in the Defra report.