The European Parliament will in 2016 be the first EU institution to be 100% carbon neutral, it announced on Friday.

This will involve expanding its current carbon offsetting scheme, which currently only covers staff travel, to all irreducible carbon emissions including MEP flights.

The plan will earmark funding of up to €250,000 to pay for offsets registered under both the UNFCCC and Gold Standard.

“Projects in the African, Caribbean and Pacific states should be considered first. If no projects are available in these countries, projects in countries covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership/Union for the Mediterranean should be considered next, with projects in EU accession candidate countries or EU member states also being eligible,” the legislative body said in a statement.

This follows other Parliamentary initiatives to improve environmental practices such as water, paper and electricity consumption, waste recycling and awareness-raising.

Some parliamentary committees have also gone paper-free from this year in their use of official documents.

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