Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme
NISP is one of the few government programmes
working to influence the upstream, production side of the sustainable
production and consumption paradigm. Working at the upper level
of the waste hierarchy to avoid landfill through more effective
use of resources we build partnerships between businesses to enable
surplus resources which might otherwise become waste to be used
by others. This is Industrial Symbiosis in action.
There is a continuing need for government to
address the problem of business waste. In practice only 9% of
waste is household waste. The rest is from a variety of sources
including business and industry, minerals and aggregate, and farm
waste.
Through its partnership style of working NISP
is able to deliver lasting business solutions. Reliability of
funding is essential to continue to gain substantial benefits
from the programme which is totally dependent on landfill tax.
Through the building of long term relationships with our members
we are able to change the way business views resources which might
become waste.
As a beneficiary of the income from landfill
tax we believe that not only do we deliver, through Industrial
Symbiosis substantial benefits back to the environment in terms
of savings in landfill, energy, water usage, greenhouse gas emissions
and hazardous waste (the "bads") but that we also deliver
social and financial benefits in terms of jobs created and secured,
and bottom line growth for business. However we have studied and
indeed visited the approach by other countries to Industrial Symbiosis
and it is very clear to us that we could not do this without the
benefits of the funding from landfill tax. Business is not structured
to identify the cross sectoral opportunities which we can exploit
nor to ensure that funding is diverted to the work which we do.
The cost of action is less than the cost of
inaction, the basic thrust of the Stern Report, is very true in
our experience. We believe that we can demonstrate that in the
case of landfill tax the cost of action can in fact be neutralised
through the opportunity to gain more efficient use of resource.
It might be useful at this stage to also point out that as a result
of the benefit NISP returns to business, government recovers more
than the amount which is invested in us. This isn't necessarily
true for all the BREW partners as each has its own function, and
for all of us, the primary objective is to make an impact on our
current generation of waste, greenhouse gases and energy use.
There is a further dimension in the argument
of how we deliver benefit to business. Demand for raw materials,
particularly by the tiger economies is driving up cost, not only
in financial terms but in environmental terms. The greater the
investment in resource recovery the greater the long term benefit.
Raising landfill tax encourages business to find another way of
disposing of materials for further use—at no cost or at
a profit.
NISP would welcome a more pro-active approach
to the recovery of waste and resources. We have seen £33
million invested in recycling and reprocessing facilities but
we are concerned that investment in processes to recover and reuse
materials can be impeded by the long lead time on planning which
acts as a disincentive for investment.
February 2007
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