Question

To ask the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, representing the House of Commons Commission, with reference to the Cabinet Office Environment Policy Statement, published in April 2013, what progress has been made in reducing the carbon footprint of the Parliamentary estate.

The Houses, acting as Parliament, have their own Environmental Policy Statement and set a target to reduce absolute carbon emissions from energy use by 34% by the end of 2020/21, against an independently validated 2008/09 base year. As at the end of October Parliament was on track to meet this commitment with a 51.3% reduction in absolute carbon emissions, equivalent to a reduction of over 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the last full year compared to our baseline year.

The House currently only measures and reports on scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions, and is working to produce a system to measure our scope 3 impacts such as those from our supply chain, travel and waste.