§ Mrs. Curtis-ThomasTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the "Sustainable Development Strategy—A Better Quality of Life" paper, with particular reference to the recommendations for reducing corporate energy consumption. [124388]
§ Mr. BradshawThe 1999 strategy for sustainable development for the UK, "A better quality of life", sets out key UK Government actions to achieve sustainable development, including those to achieve more prudent use of energy by the business sector. They have been taken forward in the following ways.
The Climate Change Levy was launched in April 2001 to help fund measures to promote energy efficiency in business and the public sector. As part of the CCL package a number of measures were introduced including:
The EGA scheme offering tax incentives to firms investing in approved energy saving technologies.The Carbon Trust (CT) was launched "to take the lead on energy efficiency for business and the public sector, and to support the development of a low carbon economy", delivered through the trust's two main programmes: the Low Carbon Innovation Programme, and Action Energy (formerly the non-domestic part of the Energy Efficiency Best Practice programme) the UK's main energy efficiency information, 830W advice and research programme for organisations in the public and private sectors. Since 1989, the EEBPP has helped many organisations save up to 20 per cent. of their energy bills, which equates to total UK energy savings of around £800 million a year.Envirowise (formerly the Environmental Technology Best Practice Programme) is the main programme promoting the resource efficiency message to business. Since it was established in 1994, the EETBP has helped UK business make resource efficiency savings of approximately £800 million.
A review of "A better quality of life" has just started, to have a revised strategy in place by 2005. We intend to take a fresh look at how we achieve sustainable development in the UK, building on the current strategy to improve delivery.