Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-02-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to (a) increase the share of remanufacturing in public procurement and (b) reduce the volume of office equipment currently going to landfill.

Rory Stewart

Defra encourages Departments’ efforts to take account of sustainability in public procurement and to reduce waste through its role in developing, co-ordinating and reporting on the Greening Government Commitments. The commitments for 2010 to 2015 included to reduce the amount of waste generated and to buy more sustainable and efficient products. A new set of Greening Government Commitments for the period to 2020 is currently being developed.

Defra and the Environment Agency are also among the Government Departments and agencies planning to participate in a pilot programme being run by HM Revenue and Customs in 2016-17 to promote reuse and recycling of Government assets.

The 2014-15 Annual Report on the Greening Government shows that between 2009-10 and 2014-15 the Government reduced the amount of waste, including office equipment, it sent to landfill from 37% of its total waste to 17%.