Introduction
1. The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) coined
the term "greening government" in one of the first reports
it undertook following its creation in 1997.[1]
The phrase refers not only to incorporating environmental objectives
in operational aspects of departmental performance (eg by reducing
energy and water consumption and recycling waste); but also—and
in some senses more importantly—to greening the fundamental
objectives of departments by ensuring that full weight is given
to environmental impacts in policy appraisal and development.
2. Greening Government has comprised a core aspect
of the work of this Committee over the last seven years. We produced
several major reports on this topic in 1998, 1999, and 2000.[2]
It was as a result of EAC recommendations that the Green Ministers
began to publish an annual report from 1999, and indeed EAC itself
initiated the annual questionnaire to departments which formed
the basis for these reports.[3]
3. We last reported specifically on the Greening
Government initiative in November 2003. This was prompted by
a number of changes, including the transformation of the Green
Ministers Committee to a formal Cabinet sub-committee—ENV(G)—and
the consequent rebranding of the Green Ministers report as the
Sustainable Development in Government (SDiG) annual report. The
first SDiG annual report formed the basis of our November 2003
report, the Government response to which we published in March
2004.[4]
4. This report focuses on the second SDiG annual
report, published in November 2003, and covering the period from
April 2002 to March 2003. Our previous work on Greening Government
has been mainly based on an analysis of departmental data which
our own staff carried out. This year, the National Audit Office
(NAO) has carried out such an analysis on our behalf, and we are
grateful for its memorandum, printed here as an appendix. We
anticipate that NAO analysis of future SDiG reports and associated
departmental data will become a regular feature of our own work,
and we have also identified with the NAO some specific areas where
it could usefully carry out further work over the next six months.
5. As the SDiG 2003 annual report focuses only on
greening operations (see below), it has not afforded us the opportunity
to comment on the range of policy and awareness issues which form
such an important aspect of the Greening Government initiative.
This report should therefore be read in conjunction with our
November 2003 report, which represents a more comprehensive assessment
of progress.[5]
1 EAC, Second Report of 1997-98, The Greening Government
Initiative, HC 517. Back
2
EAC, Second Report of 1997-98, The Greening Government Initiative,
HC517, 1997-98; EAC, Sixth Report of 1998-99, Greening Government
1999, HC 426; EAC, Fifth Report of 1999-2000, The Greening
Government Initiative: First Annual Report from the Green Ministers
Committee, HC 341. Back
3
The 1998 and 1998 Greening Government reports from the EAC were
based on questionnaire surveys it conducted of all ministerial
departments and some major agencies. Back
4
For the Government Response see the EAC's Third Special Report
of 2003-04, HC 489. Back
5
EAC, Thirteenth Report of Session 2002-03, Greening Government
2003, HC 961. Back
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