Whitehall accused of poor performance on green targets

Whitehall faced criticism yesterday, over its departments' approach to the environment. A new report from the Commons public accounts committee found that sustainability guidelines governing the assessment of new government buildings and purchasing contracts were being widely ignored.

The report, entitled Building for the future: Sustainable construction and refurbishment on the government estate, found that mandatory environmental assessments were carried out in only 35 per cent of new builds and 18 per cent of major refurbishment projects in 2005-2006. Moreover, less than one in 10 projects meet the required environmental standards.

Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the committee of public accounts, said that while some departments had embraced the new government standards, "departments in general are clearly taking a cavalier approach to the sustainability of their new buildings".

"It goes without saying that the systems for monitoring compliance with environmental standards are poor and that there is no overall responsibility for making sure that fine words about greener government buildings are translated into action," he added.

The report concluded that the widespread failure to embrace environmental assessment guidelines and implement Treasury guidance on assessing the costs and benefits of sustainable design options on a whole-life basis meant that " departments are making poor progress against their environmental targets for estate management".

It also argued, "the poor performance against sustainability standards reflects the low priority accorded to this agenda within individual departments " and called on the government to consider implementing incentive or recognition schemes to encourage greater compliance with green guidelines.

A spokesman for the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) said that the government would respond to the report's findings in due course, but reiterated that it remained "fully committed to delivering on its sustainability agenda, and demonstrating best practice".

"Performance monitoring is key in building on the existing good work in this area and there has already been active engagement by departments in the OGC's property benchmarking service, which will be compulsory from April this year," he added.