Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-10-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to reduce food waste in government departments and publicly funded bodies; and if she will make a statement.

Dr Thérèse Coffey

Defra is one of the signatories to the Courtauld Commitment 2025. This is a commitment by stakeholders across the UK food and drink system – from producer to consumer – to work together to respond to pressures on increasingly scarce resources. All the food waste from Defra’s London canteen is recycled.

Reducing waste from Government departments is a key focus of the Greening Government Commitments. In 2014-15, Government departments collectively recorded a 22% reduction in overall waste compared to a 2009-10 baseline. The Greening Government target for waste has focused on the top of the waste hierarchy – that is, reducing overall waste, allowing individual departments to take action on different waste streams as appropriate to their specific operations and material impacts.

A new framework of Greening Government targets covering the period to 2020 will be announced soon.