Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Procurement

(asked on 15th May 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to promote sustainable procurement throughout government; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
George Eustice Portrait
George Eustice
This question was answered on 23rd May 2018

Defra is the lead department for coordinating the Greening Government Commitments, which set out the actions UK government departments and their agencies will take to reduce their impacts on the environment. Progress towards targets is reported in the Annual Report on the Greening Government Commitments. These commitments include specific requirements for departments to report on how sustainability is embedded in their procurement policies and procedures, including managing sustainability risks within the supply chain.

The Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan, published in January 2018, includes a commitment to remove all single use consumer plastics from central government offices. This commitment will be delivered and reported under the sustainable procurement reporting section of the Greening Government Commitments. A number of departments, including Defra, are already taking steps to eliminate single use consumer plastics from their operations. Plastic drinking cups have been removed from Defra offices and replaced by glasses, and plastic coffee cups are soon to be banned from office catering outlets. The department is currently tendering for a new catering contract which will prohibit single use plastics from the summer of 2018.

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