Data Bites | Digital sustainability in UK government

Tom Parry, Head of Digital Sustainability at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) gave us an overview of efforts within the department and UK government more widely around digital sustainability. Tom started with some ‘scary data’ about rising global temperatures and the contribution of IT, including government IT, to emissions and waste.

More positively, government is acknowledging the importance of digital sustainability in its digital strategies and through initiatives like the greening government commitments. There is emerging best practice – for example, the Greener Service Principles – and groups like the Government Digital Sustainability Alliance.

Kate Marks delivers her presentation while showing a screen with key outcomes of the project she is discussing

Tracking environmental harm in real time

Kate Marks talked about a new digital service they’ve just launched for reporting environmental incidents at the Environment Agency

Liz Lutgendorff showing a screen with various waste management scenarios

Data and waste management

Liz Lutgendorff, Senior Digital Transformation Manager at the North London Waste Authority, speaks about why tracking waste is hard.

Council Climate Action Scorecards

Isaac Beevor, and Alex Parsons talked about their work on measuring UK local authority climate action through their bi-annual Council Climate Action Scorecards.

A big screen shows Ishmael joining a call in a room full of people

Digital sustainability

Ishmael Burdeau, Lead Sustainability Business Architect at the Department for Work and Pensions, gave an introduction to digital sustainability, touching on some government initiatives to do something about it.

Tom Parry delivering his presentation at data bites