With its article “Forest, water, watts – the E-Justice project conserves resources sustainably”, the BA secured second place at this year’s 21st eGovernment competition in the category of “Sustainability through digitalisation”. The jury was convinced by the fact that the BA no longer relies on paper files in its correspondence with the judicial authorities. Since mid-2020, the legal correspondence with the lawyers and courts has been conducted electronically. Procedures and workflows are now faster, and the manual printing and sending of detailed documentation is no longer necessary. Several million euros per year can be saved with the elimination paper, printing, scanning and postage costs. Resources are conserved: sending and receiving messages and files electronically between the BA and the judiciary saves approximately 25 million sheets of printed paper each year. That’s equivalent to a 2.5 kilometre-high stack of paper! The production of such a quantity of recycled paper would result in approximately 110 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year, and consume 2,500 cubic metres of water and 500,000 kilowatt hours of electricity.

Andrea Nahles, Director of the BA: “Second place is a superb achievement for the entire area of IT at the BA. The prize was awarded to us almost simultaneously with the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the electronic filing system at the BA. I am therefore all the more pleased that the jury recognises that here in the public sector, we have already come a very long way in terms of digitalisation, and that our hard work is paying dividends for sustainability, which is increasingly important."

Dr. Markus Schmitz, Chief Information Officer at the BA: “Thanks to our preparatory work of the last few years, we aren’t only able to provide citizens and our employees with modern IT procedures and e-services. The digitalisation of the collaboration between the public authorities also enables us to save important resources such as energy and water – true to our motto: files and data are able to move electronically, but not people.”

Wichtig:The “Competition for the digitalisation and modernisation of public administration”, in short eGovernment competition, has been one of the most widely recognised benchmarks for eGovernment activities in German-speaking countries for 21 years. The patron of the competition is Federal Minister of the Interior and Community, Nancy Faeser. Numerous federal, state and local administrations once again answered the call to participate in the competition this year. An independent panel of experts assesses each competition entry. The jury consists of administration, IT, eGovernment and scientific experts. Three projects in each of the six categories compete in the final. There is also an audience prize.