Is your government saving paper?

The table below summarises the responses we have received from all the European Union governments to our enquiries about their policies and practices on saving paper.

Denmark is clearly taking paper reduction seriously: its Environmental Protection Agency has already cut paper use by 48% and there are strong procurement rules that require paper efficiency measures. Sweden also responded positively and openly, and the government there has both internal targets (only 5%, but it's a start!) and it is promoting paper reductions by wider society through a producer responsibility law that includes paper efficiency. Austria's ministry of the environment has also taken paper-saving seriously: it has reduced its paper use by 24% since 2006 and uses eco-labelled paper only. Other Austrian ministries are expeceted to follow suit. Belgium and the Czech Republic also have paper reduction policies and are actively working to implement them. Malta is very transparent about its paper-consumption and a target for paper-reduction is in the process of consultation; furthermore, Malta has implemented rules to prevent junk mail.

Some other governments have shown some promising signs of interest in this issue, with France having made a commitment in 2008 to cut paper use by its national administration by 50% but they have failed to give us any details of how this is being achieved. 

The majority of EU governments, however, have totally failed to respond to our enquiries, showing no commitment at all to reducing their paper footprints. We will continue to lobby for greater attention to be paid to this important issue.

(Note the paper consumption figures are from the World Resources Institute Earth Trends website).

 EU Governments' Performance on Paper Reduction 

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