6 February 2007Tara Conlan
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Paxman: accused the BBC of hypocrisy over the environment in its in-house magazine Ariel. Photograph: PA Last week, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman accused the BBC of hypocrisy over climate change, saying it takes a "high moral tone" in its reporting of the issue while at the same time pursuing environmentally irresponsible policies.
Now it has emerged that the BBC has not carried out its annual environmental report since April 2005, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.
Every year, between 2000 and 2005, the BBC issued an annual environment report. The document contains environmental targets, plus details of the corporation's carbon dioxide emissions from transport and broadcasting, how much it recycles and how much waste it creates per member of staff.But the last BBC environmenal review carried out was for the year ending April 2005. In the report, the director general, Mark Thompson, promised the BBC's "overall objective is to carry our operations in a way which manages and minimises any adverse environmental impact and demonstrates pollution prevention".
Mr Thompson went on to say the next BBC environment report would be due in 2006. But no such document was issued last year.
It is likely that since the last study was carried out, the BBC's carbon emissions will have risen.
Paxman said a "corporation-wide policy is urgently needed" because the BBC is not doing enough to make itself greener.
According to Paxman, the BBC's switch to digital broadcasting has created a bigger carbon footprint.
In an article in last week's in-house BBC magazine Ariel, the Newsnight presenter said that in the past three years, the corporation's electricity bill had doubled from almost £6.5m to nearly £13m.
He also called the BBC's recycling practices "laughable".
Other broadcasters, such as BSkyB, are already carbon-neutral.
However, the BBC does not pay to offset its carbon emissions, leaving journalists paying from their own pocket if they want to offset taking flights for work.
A BBC spokeswoman said: "Yes, there was no environmental report published last year. But there is a big corporate social responsibility document coming out mid-February and part of that will include the environment."
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http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2006495,00.html
