Inland Revenue Sustainable Development Policy

This policy for Sustainable Development within the Inland Revenue has the support of the Acting Chairman of the Inland Revenue and its Green Minister, John Healey. It applies to all parts of the Department, its functions, management and staff, and is consistent with the UK Strategy for Sustainable Development.

IR’s Green Minister and its Senior Official, Board Member Helen Ghosh, jointly take departmental responsibility. All management activity, including overseeing progress towards targets, is delegated to a corporate Sustainable Development Team.

The Department supports and actively contributes to the UK Strategy for Sustainable Development, which has four main aims:

• social progress which recognises the needs of everyone
• effective protection of the environment
• prudent use of natural resources
• maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and employment

The Department will promote and monitor continual improvement by:

• ensuring that its Public Sector Agreement targets contribute to sustainable development objectives
• screening its policies and proposals for sustainable development and/or environmental impacts,
• mitigating such impacts wherever practicable, and maintaining records of all screenings and actions undertaken
• undertaking full environmental appraisals where particularly significant impacts are identified
• requiring all areas of its business to include sections on sustainable development and the environment within their Annual Reports
• openly and publicly communicating progress on environmental issues to internal and external parties
• and respond appropriately to requests for information
• ensuring compliance with all relevant legislation and codes of practice
• reviewing its sustainable development policy regularly and encouraging its suppliers to comply
• integrating sustainable development into procurement activity
• establishing continual improvement targets, against which performance can be measured and monitored
• educating and motivating staff and contractors to operate in an environmentally responsible manner and to conserve resources wherever practicable
• Directors being personally involved in activities to promote sustainable development within the department (reviewing effectiveness of policies, participating in events and giving recognition to teams and individuals involved with sustainable development activities)
• Ensuring that employees are aware of sustainable development issues and that they are provided with opportunities to develop the competencies and capabilities to meet the future needs of the organisation and its stakeholders
• Ensuring that we report on our Corporate Social Responsibility, IIP, Charter Mark, EFQM and other initiatives in a consistent way
• Reporting on our social impact on the community

The Department, working with its estates partners, aims to address and improve its environmental performance (taking account of value for money through whole life costs) by:

• conserving energy, water, paper and other resources, whilst providing a comfortable working environment
• reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 12.5 per cent by 2010-11 relative to 1999-2000
• increasing energy efficiency of the buildings in our estate by 15 per cent by 2010-11 relative to 1999-2000
• introducing Environmental Management Systems to ISO14001 or equivalent standard
• specifying energy, timber and other products from sustainable sources, and using refurbished and recycled products and materials where available
• reducing waste through reduction, re-use and recycling; reducing the waste going to landfill
• reducing water consumption to 7.7m3 per year (7.0m3 for new builds and refurbishments)
• phasing out ozone depleting and other hazardous substances and those with a high global warming potential
• reducing business and commuter travel
• promoting biodiversity objectives for the protection and encouragement of indigenous species
• ensuring that buildings are designed, constructed, refurbished and operated to improve their environmental performance
• benchmarking performance to measure efficiency against recognised best in industry practice
  

April 2004