Examination of witnesses (Questions 356
- 379)
TUESDAY 10 FEBRUARY 1998
MR GEORGE
CHADFIELD, MS
NICOLA ELLEN
and MS CATHERINE
MARTIN
Chairman
356. May I welcome to our enquiry into sustainable
waste management. I thank you for your written evidence, and may
I ask you to identify yourselves for the record?
(Ms Martin) Thank you for inviting us here this
morning, Mr Chairman. We are from the British Retail Consortium.
My name is Catherine Martin and I am assistant director for property
and the environment at the secretariat for the British Retail
Consortium. I have brought two colleagues with me this morning
who are members of the British Retail Consortium.
(Mr Chadfield) Mr Chairman, I am George Chadfield
and I chair the Environment Committee of the British Retail Consortium.
(Ms Ellen) I am Nicola Ellen and I am the deputy
chairman of the Environment Committee.
Chairman: Mr Olner?
Mr Olner
357. I wonder whether first of all you can
tell me what is the definition of the British Retail Consortium
of "sustainable" in the context of waste of management.
(Ms Martin) I will ask Nicola Ellen to answer
that.
(Ms Ellen) It has been holistic, in other words,
understanding the key environmental impact that waste can cause.
It means ensuring that whatever activity one carries out one is
endeavouring to minimise waste and also pollution and it also
means that if waste is generated one is ensuring that effective
management is taking place to control it, whether it is through
reduction, re-use or recovery or through correct disposal.
358. Could I just ask then, Mr Chairman,
who drives this holistic approach? Is it you as retailers or is
it your customers or do you perceive that there is a mix as between
both of them?
(Ms Ellen) It is a combination of factors really.
Clearly there are financial drivers that determine that you want
to manage your resources effectively, that you want to reduce
the costs of activities through potential for waste, the cost
to landfill and so on, but equally you have a number of stakeholders
who are interested in the way that you are behaving, whether it
is your customers or whether it is the local communities or perhaps
the shareholders in the company. They want to ensure that if they
are dealing with a particular business that business is managing
its resources effectively, so it is really a combination of those
factors.
359. So that it is not really based on sound
science; it is just an amalgam?
(Ms Ellen) Part of that process clearly is understanding
the impact of activities, so one needs to ensure that you are
being systematic but that you are also understanding the different
stakeholding concerns that they have which will be objective but
also emotional as well, and they will have certain views as well
on things. That is all part of it.
360. So that you do not really think that
it is driven by retail using it as an advertising slogan saying,
we agree with them, the next retail?
(Ms Martin) George Chadfield will answer that.
(Mr Chadfield) Retailers are always market centred,
almost by definition. The green consumer is a factor, but it is
much more widely based than that. It is a truly holistic approach,
as Nicola Ellen mentioned.
361. Could I just ask then, do you think
that there are any shortcomings in the strategy and, if there
are, how do you perceive that they impact upon the retail sector
and how do you think that they could be best addressed by legislation?
(Ms Martin) I think that at the moment we need
a balance between scientific and practical considerations. As
Nicola Ellen has said, you can pick up on the interplay between
social, economic and environmental considerations as well, for
example, transport issues. If we take, say, the hierarchy, that
is, the waste management hierarchy, then it really needs to be
balanced with the practicalities. With incineration it can be
valid waste management option, but it can be perceived as being
low down on the hierarchy. It will have its place and one needs
to balance the different elements to know whether to use incineration
or not.
362. This sector covers a huge area. Can
I just ask what efforts you have made to reduce the amount of
waste?
(Ms Ellen) The retail sector is involved in a
number of initiatives to manage its waste, first of all by design,
whether it is packaging, for example, or other activities. We
work closely, for example, with manufacturers and suppliers to
identify opportunities to remove, reduce and so on and so forth.
If an opportunity is identified, say, for example, for one product
one would then look at trying to apply the concept on a wide basis,
so you are not just trying to seek one small solution but you
are trying to see whether it is applicable on a wider scale. The
business has continued to expand its re-useable systems particularly
for transit packaging which includes bringing in additional types
of transit packaging but also increasing product penetration.
Businesses have expanded their in-house recovery operations to
manage the waste that is being generated within the business and
the sector also works to try to help the customer participate
in the recycling activity and you can do that in three ways. One
of those would be through the siting of recycling facilities particularly
where the store has a car park and can cope with these containers
and vehicles can have access to them. Those facilities will be
provided in the main by local authorities and/or their designated
contractors. The second way is to try to excite the consumer to
want to take part in that recycling process so that at the very
simple level it might be a media photocall or it might be more
than that: it may be in-store activities, it might be road shows,
educational messages. The third way, if it is appropriate, is
to try to offer recycled products for the consumer to purchase.
Those are the main ways in which the retail sector endeavours
to manage waste over the years.
363. Can I just say, Mr Chairman, that I
applaud some of the initiatives that some of the larger stores
have made, but it has not really addressed the problem of how
far down the chain do you go to get the rest of the retail industry
involved?
(Ms Martin) I will ask George Chadfield to reply.
(Mr Chadfield) Mr Chairman, the larger retailers
will always drive best practice, and Nicola Ellen has exemplified
some very good examples. One of the roles of the committee that
I chair is to disseminate that best practice among small and medium
sized enterprises and we are very concerned to be seen to be doing
that now and particularly in the future.
364. Can I ask what rate of success you
have had in managing to disseminate not only information but more
importantly the action down the chain?
(Mr Chadfield) Mr Chairman, the Environment Committee
of the British Retail Consortium is widely regarded as one of
the more successful units within the British Retail Consortium
and we would be rated quite highly amongst members of the British
Retail Consortium as a source of inspiration, if you like, driven
by the larger retailers, yes. Just to give you a practical example,
long life re-useable transit packaging has been a feature for
the past five years of the contribution that the larger retailers
have made.
Chairman
365. What do you mean by that, Mr Chadfield?
(Mr Chadfield) This is re-useable boxes, crates,
pallets, anything that aids the transport of goods throughout
the supply chain right through to the retail outlet, and that
has a number of spin off benefits. First of all, it has reduced
the use of materials and it has reduced the amount of waste that
old fashioned transit systems used to generate. Secondly, however,
it has presented the opportunity by protecting the product in
a much better way during the transit phrase when it is very exposed
to damage and it enables us to reduce product specific packaging,
point of sale packaging, and we see that there is a real opportunity
to extend that. The idea that we have come up with is that we
should be promoting unbranded transit packaging which is a generic
item so that it does not belong to a particular retailer but it
is available for us by anybody who has that kind of supply chain,
and that is a very practical way to spin off the benefits. It
is an initiative that we are going to drive forward over the next
year.
Mr Olner
366. Can I ask whether there any difference
in the retail sector in terms of your approach to packaging as
between one sector and another, say the grocery sector?
(Mr Chadfield) There are in fact enormous differences
as between the different sectors. Personally I am responsible
for environmental policy for Arcadia, best known as Burtons, and
fashion is not packaging intensive. Contrast that with a food
retailer where the need to protect the product and the need for
hygiene at all stages makes it reasonably packaging intensive,
and then there is every bit in between, so that there are these
differences. Certain principles, however, hold good and transit
packaging is one area where we have been able to find some common
principles, common ground for action, to take it forward.
Mr Donohoe
367. In terms of the consumer, as a youngster
I remember that you always got thruppence back on a lemonade bottle
and your mother always made sure that all the milk bottles were
on the doorstep, otherwise some charge was made. All that or,
at least, most of it seems to have disappeared except in the corner
shop. Supermarkets are not interested at all in getting deposits.
Is that not therefore a clear example where if you were to move
in the opposite direction at a stroke you would end all this crazy
packaging of milk if there was to be the return of the bottles
and if there was to be the re-introduction of deposit on glass
right across the spectrum of the glass where you would immediately
create a situation where you would have recycling almost automatically?
(Ms Ellen) There are a number of implications
when one thinks about the returnable packaging. You have to remember,
of course, that the returnable pack has never existed for food
packaging. It has been used in the past for drinks, and you cited
milk, I think, and soft drinks. They are good examples where you
have localised milk rounds, deliveries of very specific types
of products going to those stores, but when you are dealing with
a company that is perhaps supplying four billion products a year
an average supermarket will be stocking some 20,000 different
product lines and the practicalities become quite complex. If
I can just illustrate some of the things that one needs to think
about, Mr Chairman, first of all there is the element of storage
of these containers in the store once the customer has returned
them. The customer may then go and buy loose produce, for example,
having handled the packaging, so there is a health and safety
implication. One would then need to return the packaging on lorries,
and a number of retailers already use their vehicles either to
pick up used packaging or, indeed, products from suppliers, so
that you would have to think very carefully about what logistics
operations you would need. Also products are perhaps going to
a number of different suppliers and you would have to have a reverse
method of returning. One also needs to think about the different
types of packaging. It may work for glass, of course, but that
is a heavy material to transport. If you were trying to develop
a re-useable consumer pack for, say, plastic you would have to
design a pack that had a virgin centre layer because you cannot
have recycled plastic in direct contact with the food. All these
sorts of implications would therefore have to be considered. Another
element is that you would probably need a bigger area in which
to store all these packs, different types of packaging, that would
be returned.
368. You give an indication in the abstract
as an answer when I asked a specific question about glass in itself
and it just gives the impression that as far as you are concerned
you are not interested?
(Ms Ellen) Well, I would not say that we are not
interested. We are constantly considering different types of options,
but I have just tried to illustrate the practical considerations
that one would have to think about.
369. Yes, I know, but if you were to look
at what there was, there is this misuse of plastic nowadays where
the item could quite easily be in a glass bottle or whatever,
and similarly with beers, all these beers in cans when before
it was in bottles, and if there was a drive and there was to be
a tax created that made it something that was more attractive,
then perhaps that is the answer, because it is going in the opposite
direction to the whole question of recycling, and this could be
on a basis where it could be driven by some method of taxation.
(Ms Ellen) I think that we should not just think
of recycling or re-useable systems. I think that we should be
looking at different options, whether it is removal of packaging
or whether it is through reduction. If you switch from glass to
other materials such as plastic, for instance, it is a much lighter
pack, so applying the principle of weight reduction. Re-use does
have its role and there are areas where it is being used, and
there is recycling as well, and it is really a combination of
those factors. There is no one solution for each type of packaging
or, indeed, each type of commodity.
Mr Gray
370. I find myself completely mystified
by what you are saying. By arguing the case so generally you are
saying, there is no means by which we can recycle all packaging
for all goods under all circumstances, and that, of course, it
true, but you are completely avoiding the question, why is it
that Safeway do not charge a pound deposit on a lemonade bottle
which they hand back to the housewife when she brings it in? You
are perfectly happy to put a glass recycling thing in your car
park so why not make this offer on particularly glass bottles
and why is there not, as in the old days, and as Mr Donohoe asked,
a system whereby you paid a deposit and you brought the bottle
back and got the deposit? Does that not seem sensible to Safeway?
(Ms Ellen) It does not necessarily work though.
Where there have been returnable systems the consumer does not
necessarily bring back that packaging.
371. If the consumer does not do it, you
would not worry about it, but why do you not offer them the facility?
(Ms Ellen) It is all about offering facilities
that the customer wants. If they do not want to bring back the
particular pack, then——
Mr Gray: But why not
try it out for a year or two and then see what happens?
Chairman
372. Why does it work in Denmark and in
France?
(Ms Ellen) Because they have put the laws in place
there, there is no alternative. I was just trying to illustrate
the factors that one would need to consider in determining whether
re-useable packages or returnable packages are appropriate. There
are many different issues.
373. While we are on this question of waste,
what about the tomato which was grown, I understand, on moss in
Southport and then found its way to Spalding, then back via Yorkshire
to a supermarket in Southport? Is that not a waste?
(Ms Ellen) The way industry has moved, whether
it is suppliers or retailers, is that if we were still in a situation
of trying to deliver products direct to stores if you took a supermarket
you would be having an average of 250 deliveries a week which
from an environmental perspective is unsustainable because of
the congestion that that caused and there was a desire by suppliers
and retailers to find a more effective way of moving products,
hence the move towards regionalised distribution. However, I mentioned
earlier the fact that companies use their vehicles then to pick
up products from suppliers so that goods are being dropped off
at a store and they would then return via local suppliers to pick
up those products and then returning, driving themselves to the
distribution centres. It is just trying to find a way of moving
large volumes of goods to supply many customers. This means that
one is endeavouring to reduce the amount of stock that is being
held so that you produce the goods that are actually wanted by
customers rather than being held and it means trying to harmonise
the movement of goods as effectively as one can by working with
suppliers and retailers. It is working together to try to ensure
that large quantities of goods can be provided for customers in
the most effective way. Just looking at it from a congestion point
of view, if the old system had continued the problems of congestion
in towns would be far greater I believe than they are today. That
is not to say that one should not be carrying out further improvement
measure. It is a continuing process.
Mr Olner
374. On a question of detail on this particular
point, Mr Chairman, what do you think has been the greatest incentive
to the retail sector to reduce its waste?
(Ms Martin) I will ask George Chadfield to answer
that.
(Mr Chadfield) It is primarily the economic drivers.
Just to take transport, for example, which we have just been talking
about, optimising transport has been an objective of retailers
for many, many years. It is an extremely high cost, and it is
interesting that there are experiments going on to lop some of
the high mileage legs out of transport. Sainsbury, for example,
in their latest environmental report—and we would be very
happy to supply a copy to the Committee—are piloting some
high mileage leg lopping by introducing a level of regional packing
and labelling to avoid the sort of situation that has just been
instanced. The other driver for retail, of course, is the sheer
volume of waste that a large supermarket or hypermarket generates.
You have to manage waste anyway because of the general waste legislation
and the duty of care. You have to control is for hygiene reasons
and for logistical reasons and everything so that again there
are practical and economic considerations coming into play there.
If there was no legislative framework at all other than a general
duty of care retailers would probably be doing much the same as
they are doing currently.
375. In terms of packaging it is the consumer
who has to deal with it. For instance, my wife has just bought
a new cleaner and the packaging weights nearly as much as the
cleaner, and certainly in volume terms it was just as bad. Now,
we have bought that—we have bought the goods and we have
bought the packaging from you.
(Mr Chadfield) Yes, and hopefully, Mr Chairman,
Mr Olner's wife will bring the cardboard back to one of the banks
in the car parks.
376. Yes, but not the polystyrene?
(Mr Chadfield) Polystyrene is a difficult product.
There is some research going on of which you may be aware for
end uses of polystyrene, water filters, for example, have been
a recent innovation, and re-using polystyrene to produce a fairly
hard substance that can be used to used to manufacture pencils,
for example, is another recent innovation, so again one of the
roles that my committee fulfils is to keep retailers—all
retailers, that is, large, medium sized and small—appraised
of developments on the technical side which open up the opportunity
for innovation.
Mr Gray
377. What do you think the biggest driver
in waste production is? Do you think that it is practical and
economic considerations that you mentioned or do you think it
is because retailers are genuinely environmentally concerned and
they want to get the thing down to the lowest possible level or
is it because you want to be seen to be getting it down to the
lowest possible level by PR marketing in doing so? Which is the
most important driver, do you think?
(Mr Chadfield) Mr Chairman, they are all important,
and it would be relatively easy to say that they are all pretty
well equal. They do change over time. Today green consumerism
is on an upsurge again. It has waxed and waned over the past 20
years, but there is definitely an upsurge and most of our predictions
are that it is now here to stay and it will continue to grow,
not dramatically, but in an incremental way year on year, and
that ties in very neatly with some of the other drivers and, as
Catherine Martin mentioned, to reduce our costs we have to innovate
with materials, we have to innovate with the engineering packaging
and so on. Legislation is also a factor. The packaging waste regulations,
I think, have created a new playing field. We actually helped
to shape that. We contributed to the result of producer responsibility
and the concept of producer shared responsibility underpinning
the legislative framework was one that retailers generally have
supported for two or three years now and we are determined to
make it work. I would say therefore that it is a rich mixture
and I really would not like to single out one particular element
and say that that is the most important today.
Dr Whitehead
378. Can I just take you back to what you
said earlier about common transit items for retailers, Mr Chadfield.
I am aware of the Tesco invasion in this field and I believe that
not only did it do all the things that you did but it saved particular
amounts of money in the end. It was very effective. How do you
prevent free ridership if you make that sort of commodity available
to all major retailers? How do you fund it? How do you prevent
people getting more than their fare share of the packaging compared
with what they put into the scheme?
(Mr Chadfield) It would have to be controlled
very tightly through contractual arrangements. It is not an area
where we would be looking for legislative underpinning. We think
that the practical arrangements and the value of the items that
we have been talking about would be sufficient to ensure control,
so, yes, you are right, it was pioneered by Tesco but other of
the major retailers are now picking that up and want to progress
it. It is really in the no brainer category for the reasons I
have mentioned, it is environmentally sound and it will also save
money if we can make it work.
379. You mentioned that your view is that
the green consumer is now here to stay. Can you just give us a
little more detail on that? To what extent are customers now positively
requiring and requesting products with recycled content? What
is the sort of trend? Can you give us a little more detail on
this?
(Ms Ellen) Just to take up first the view that
the green consumer is becoming stronger, there are two things,
I think, that customers are looking for when they are shopping.
One is a general confidence about the business that they are shopping
with, and that includes their green ethics and behaviour, so it
is really the activities that underpin the business operations.
The second is that there will be an element of consumers looking
for different types of environmental products. It may be recycled
products, it may be other things that they are looking at, and
there is often quite a mix, and some people are very specific
about what they are looking for while others want to look for
a number of elements. The demand for recycled products has been
in fits and starts. There is a variety of products on offer, and
we must not forget, of course, that packaging has a recycling
content as well because people are actually buying a product wrapped
in a recycled pack. However, there is a perception among a number
of people that recycled products are inferior and nobody I think
has found the answer to that yet. That is a perception that I
am sure is hampering stimulation of markets. Certainly from a
packaging waste regulation point of view we have to pull demand
for recycled materials or otherwise, if we are not careful, we
will end up with the German scenario of collection systems being
established, material being stockpiled for reprocessing but unfortunately
having nowhere to send it. Everyone must be applying lateral thinking,
I feel. To think about applications to collecting material may
not be back into consumer products but it may be into something
quite different, whether it is construction materials or whatever
it is, and there are a number of factors. I do feel that the regulations
need to be pulled to stimulate the demand for this material.
|
