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Think Environment - Vote for a the Process S316 29/3/05 1:59 pm Page 1 “green alliance... issue spring 05 10 “Do the parties have “We will set a long- “If well managed by five million green term goal of zero politicians and voters to woo?” municipal waste.” business, climate protection makes economic sense.” TRACK 6 INSIDE 9 14 LEADING FROM THE FRONT Reconciling the UK’s aspirations for international leadership with delivery at home S316 29/3/05 1:59 pm Page 2 TRACK INSIDE comment The quarterly magazine of Green Alliance Edited by Karen Crane Designed by Carruthers and Hobbs Ltd Printed by Seacourt Press Ltd © April 2005 Green Alliance All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Green Russell Marsh Alliance. Within the UK, exceptions are allowed head of policy in respect of any fair dealing for the purposes of private research or study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Design and Patent Act, 1988, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of the We are fast approaching the next general election. In fact with the stream licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. of announcements emerging from all the political parties it feels as if we are already in election mode even though, at the time of writing, the date has yet to be officially announced. Produced with support from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Defra’s Environmental Action Fund. Green Alliance has been working hard to get the environment into the election debate and in this edition of Inside Track you can read more about our pledge campaign with a coalition of eight other environment groups. We also hear from the environment spokespeople of the three main political parties. The UK has begun its presidency of the G8 and, in July this year, we will take up the EU presidency. The prime minister is making climate change a major element of the G8 presidency and it will more than likely be a key issue for the EU presidency. Decisions will be needed on the structure of the second phase of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and on the EU’s approach to negotiations on international climate policy post-Kyoto. contents Given the UK’s key role in the international arena over the next 12 months we have asked two observers from across the channel to give their views comment 2 on how the UK has performed at a European and International level and the Green Alliance news main challenges as they see it. Anje Köhne from Germanwatch gives her return to sender 3 perspective on the path the UK needs to negotiate through the changing climate policy 4 presidencies to deliver meaningful international action on climate change. designing for water efficiency 5 Tony Long, from WWF in Brussels, looks at European development policy and the opportunity to integrate sustainable principles more deeply into think environment - vote for a the process. better future 6 a top priority The past three months have seen a whirl of activity for Green Alliance. We Elliot Morley 8 launched three new reports, on water, waste and energy policy, all of which at the heart of a vision for Britain are featured in this issue. We had the pleasure of joining with old friends Norman Baker 9 and new to celebrate our first 25 years at the Science Museum in February. The next year promises to be just as full and you can view our finalised a moral duty Tim Yeo 10 work programme for 2005-06 now at www.green-alliance.org.uk all change for european development policy? Tony Long 11 mind the gap Anja Köhne 14 The views of contributors are not necessarily those of Green Alliance. S316 29/3/05 1:59 pm Page 3 return to sender A new agenda for the UK on integrated product policy Return to Sender: Producer responsibility and between this and the current situation. If the UK product policy was published in March, the final could bridge the gap, we would become an report of our sustainability through producer international leader in this field. responsibility project. This was supported by the DTI’s Sustainable Technologies Initiative, Biffa, The government needs to develop and build British Retail Consortium, BT plc, Sainsbury’s and consensus on objectives for a ‘closed-loop’ Unilever. It was launched jointly with the economy and build new institutions to help move Associate Parliamentary Sustainable Waste towards these objectives. Group’s complementary report on producer responsibility. Business must adopt responsibility for understanding and addressing the full impacts of Return to Sender explores the role producer its products. To create incentives for business responsibility can play in meeting more there must be the threat of less flexible ambitious waste and resource objectives. legislation if voluntary measures don’t deliver and public procurement must be used to drive the market for better products. Other measures are also needed, such as virgin materials taxes and minimum recycled content, to provide a market pull and support action for resource efficient products. We will build on the themes of this work in a new three-year project sponsored by Defra’s Environmental Action Fund, Closing the loop: transforming UK resource use and delivering a sustainable resource economy, starting in April. Measures, like the EU packaging directive, are reasonably successful in driving higher recycling, For more details of this work please contact but, overall, the problems of packaging and Ben Shaw [email protected] waste continue to grow. The hope was that producer responsibility would lead to the Return to Sender: Producer responsibility and extensive re-design of products to make them product policy is available to download as a less wasteful, both in their manufacture and in summary and full report from Green Alliance’s their use. But there is little sign that existing website. The summary report is also available as measures, or forthcoming ones on electronic a hard copy from Green Alliance, price £5. equipment and cars, will have that effect. We urgently need a broader interpretation of ‘producer responsibility’ where companies strive to understand the impacts of their products from cradle to grave, and even consider whether some products are just too environmentally damaging to put on the market. This is the new agenda of ‘integrated product policy’, but there is a big gap “3 S316 29/3/05 1:59 pm Page 4 changing climate policy Green Alliance is working to unlock the political barriers to tackling climate change Climate change has been high on the We continue to add our voice to the energy efficiency. We continue to push political agenda during the first few debate about the future direction of UK the recommendations of our report months of this year. The government climate policy with the publication of A Micro-generation Manifesto, using made yet another announcement our report Business Action on Climate our energy entrepreneurs network to about the structure of the UK’s Change: Where next after emissions feed into the development of DTI’s National Action Plan as part of the EU trading?. micro-generation strategy. Emissions Trading Scheme; a major climate science conference was held in Produced in partnership with the Our energy efficiency project is in its Exeter; and the Kyoto Protocol finally Institute for European Environmental final stages and is developing came into force after several years of Policy, the report reviews the various proposals around a suite of policy ongoing uncertainty about its future. incentives that have been put in place measures that we believe will unlock to encourage business and industry to current barriers to greater energy reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. efficiency. We reveal a very confusing picture. For more information contact Russell Some measures, like the Renewables Marsh, [email protected] Obligation, seem to be working well, yet others, like the Climate Change Business Action on Climate Change: Levy, are just not strong enough to Where next after emissions trading? have much effect on business is available from Green Alliance, decisions. price £20. We conclude that the EU emissions trading scheme, the centrepiece of the government’s climate policy, will not be strong enough to persuade business to reduce their carbon emissions, meaning that additional measures are needed to really drive action in this area. This forms part of our input to the government’s Climate Change Programme Review, alongside our other work on micro-generation and “4 S316 29/3/05 1:59 pm Page 5 In the face of massive new There are plenty of new technologies around, but builders have been development in the south reticent to take them on board. Despite east, joined-up action is the fact that research shows that installing water efficient technologies needed now to save water in buildings achieves as much as a 20 per cent reduction in water consumption. Our report makes the following recommendations: • revise building regulations to include water efficiency standards; • clear policy through the planning system to enforce greater water efficiency on developers, planners and local authorities; • mandatory labelling of water fixtures and fittings, similar to the energy label, and regulatory underpinning for the Sustainable Code for Buildings; • better enforcement of building regulations and empowerment for local authorities to demand water efficiency; • fiscal incentives such as VAT and stamp duty reductions, along with inclusion of water efficiency in the Green Landlords Scheme; • universal water metering to provide customers with the opportunity to manage their own water use and save money on bills Although the government has a number of policies covering water Without government action and greater efficiency, joined up action is needed if incentives for consumers, the south the planned development in the south east is likely to suffer extreme water east is to be sustainable.
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