Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to reduce paper usage in Government departments in light of the climate emergency.

The Government is proud to lead the world in ending our own contribution to climate change and we have achieved a lot on our road to net zero already.

Under the new Greening Government Commitments Framework for the 2021-25 period, the government committed to reducing paper use by at least 50% against the 2017-18 financial year baseline. The first Annual Report against the new Framework, covering the 2021-22 financial year, is due to be published later this year.

The Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) and Government Digital Service (GDS) in the Cabinet Office lead a ‘digital by default’ approach to government services. As a result, thousands of government services are now mostly used online and most service users are no longer using a paper-version of a service.

Last year, CDDO added a new mandatory standard to the existing Technology Code of Practice on ‘Make your technology sustainable’, which implements the published Greening Government ICT and Digital Services Strategy (2020).