Newport Town Council agrees to go 'paper-lite'

Newport Town Council voted to go "paper-lite" by distributing council documents electronically, rather than physically, as the default.

It comes after the council decided to look at its carbon footprint and work to reduce it.

Councillor Thomas Janke put forward the proposal, after newly-elected Sarah Sydra mentioned how surprised she was at the amount of paper she was receiving from the council.

She said: "It baffles me that I regularly receive paperwork for committees that I don’t even attend. In my opinion this represents a huge waste of resources over the years. We should be reducing costs on paper and printing materials by simply reviewing our agendas by electronic means.”

Requests

Under the new policy, all agendas and associated paperwork will be distributed electronically unless a councillor explicitly requests paper copies.

Councillor Janke said: "I’m delighted that the majority of members support this proposal, meaning Newport Town Council is taking real steps to tackle its own carbon footprint.

"All members have access to emails and we’ve recently had our own Newport Town Council-specific email accounts set up by our officers.

"There’s no reason that we should be printing off documents that have been written electronically. I feel this is a step in the right direction and I hope it motivates other organisations to do the same.”

The council recently declared a “climate emergency”, in common with many other councils nationwide. This obliges the council to take steps within its own organisation to reduce its carbon footprint.