§ Mr. ChidgeyTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what(a) green and (b) energy efficiency programmes are pursued by his Department in (i) the UK and (ii) missions abroad. [149199]
§ Mr. Rammell[holding answer 22 January 2004]The FCO has established Environmental Management Systems (EMS) across most of its UK estate. The system covering our London Offices has been certified to ISO 14001 and covers 75 per cent. of UK based staff. We will extend this to 95 per cent. in 2004 by including our Hanslope Park site.
The EMS aims to improve the FCO's environmental performance. Examples of improvements already made include:
677W100 per cent. of electricity used in the Main Building is from renewable sources.The range of waste recycled now includes fluorescent tubes, paper, unsaleable furniture, and toner cartridges. A new waste contract in 2004 will extend the range of waste recycled in line with Government targets.We have implemented revised government policy on the purchase of sustainable timber. We also purchase a range of energy-efficient equipment and office supplies. All major contracts are evaluated against environmental performance.All new FCO buildings, in the UK and overseas are designed to comply with best practice, including sustainable development issues.In the UK, we have met the interim Government energy target of reducing carbon emissions from buildings through closer temperature control, and the purchase of renewable energy for the Main Building. This also helped us meet the target for the purchase of energy exempt from the climate change levy.Overseas Posts are required to apply the same environmental principles where possible. Some have undertaken local environmental initiatives. But it would be impracticable to apply the full UK programme with immediate effect to all 232 Posts in the overseas estate.