A report by an environmental group advised the UK to “develop an ambitious circular economy strategy post Brexit”.
Business Green reported that the Aldersgate Group, an environmental group, warned the UK that it needs to develop an “ambitious reuse and recycling strategy” if it does not want to miss out on the “financial benefits of circular economy post-Brexit (http://www.therecycler.com/posts/uk-votes-to-leave-the-european-union/)”. The report said that the government needs to develop new plans to “deliver a resource efficient economy outside the EU”, and that not to do so would risk the UK losing “substantial economic benefits”.
The report, Amplifying Action of Resource Efficiency, claimed that “resource efficiency improvements in business supply chains can deliver major financial and environmental savings”. The results from 26 pilot projects, conducted by ReBUS, applied across the UK and the Netherlands, and showed firms saved £4.89 million ($6.1/€5.6 million) and decreased carbon emissions by 2,000 tonnes.
The businesses involved in the study included electrical, electronic products, textiles, construction and Information and Communications Technology, which are said to be worth €350 billion ($376 billion) to the EU economy. An example of the pilots used was the Dutch Ministry of Defence, which introduced a textile recovery system for old uniforms, and based on the results of all the pilots it was suggested that “adopting resource efficient business models across these sectors could deliver up to” €82.4 billion ($103 billion)” gross value-added (GVA) to the economy in the UK by 2030.
Aldersgate Group did however warn the UK that this is unlikely to accomplish this unless they develop a national strategy that is at least as ambitious as the EU’s, which is awaiting approval. Nick Molho, Executive Director of the Aldersgate Group, said: “As it prepares to leave the EU, the government should urgently develop a resource efficiency policy that will help replicate the benefits of these pilot projects across the UK economy.
“This policy should be supported by all key government departments and should include fiscal incentives, product standards on resource efficiency that are as good as or better than what is in place in the EU and working with businesses to remove the financial and technical barriers that stand in the way of innovation.”
The report also calls on the government to “to introduce more fiscal incentives to encourage the re-use of materials, such as variable VAT rates to favour more resource-efficient goods and services”, and to develop new standards to “ensure green design is promoted in UK manufacturing”, while developing a government-wide strategy to “promote resource efficiency” with agreements from all departments.
A spokesman for Defra said that the “government is committed to improving resource efficiency”, that it will be a “key part” of its 25 year plan for nature, and said that “the UK is an active supporter of the G7 Resource Efficiency Alliance and remains fully engaged in the negotiations on the EU Circular Economy Package”.
The Aldersgate Group also did a similar report for the EU, and the British government are about to publish their Industrial Strategy Green Paper, which is expected to support “a wide range of green industries”, although some have said that it may not provide “sufficient backing for the circular economy”.
Gareth Redmond-King, Head of Climate and Energy Policy at WWF-UK, said that this was “an important opportunity to put low carbon growth at the heart of our economy and build a strong, progressive and competitive industrial base that delivers jobs and prosperity well into the future”, adding that “the strategy will also need to address the pressure on natural resources globally and within the UK”.
He concluded that: “We need an economy and industrial base which recognises the risks for business from the pressure on water, timber, mineral and other natural resources and which reduces, reuses and recycles these valuable resources.”