Examination of Witnesses (Questions 602-619)
Professor Sue Grimes, Dr Norman Swindells and Mr
Malcolm Wilkinson
18 MARCH 2008
Q602 Chairman: Good morning ladies
and gentlemen; can we welcome you here. Thank you for your written
evidence so far. Perhaps we can start off with Professor Grimes,
would you introduce yourself?
Professor Grimes: Thank you very much, my Lord
Chairman. I am Professor Sue Grimes; I am the SITA and Royal Academy
of Engineering Professor of Waste Management at Imperial College.
Dr Swindells: My Lord Chairman, I am Norman
Swindells, Managing Director of Ferroday Limited, which is concerned
with information representation and I am Chairman of the Sustainable
Development Group of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and
Mining.
Mr Wilkinson: Good morning. I am Malcolm Wilkinson
and I am here as the Chairman of the Institution of Chemical Engineers
Sustainability Subject Group.
Q603 Chairman: Thank you very much.
If we could start off with materials and resource efficiency.
One of the things that we have noticed is that there is a lack
of standardised information on materials and products, and this
seems to be causing difficulties for designers who want to utilise
their materials in the most sustainable way. What data could be
made available to designers and engineers to assist them in developing
innovative products and processes which would lead to less waste?
How do you see getting a consistent database which is easily accessible
and available? Who would like to start?
Dr Swindells: Perhaps I could start. I think
there are two main requirements for engineering data to support
the whole lifecycle approach, such as is integrated in the IPP
Programme of the European Commission. I think first of all there
should be design and manufacturing information that can accompany
the product, even a complex product, throughout the whole life
of the product; so when you come to the end of life you can manage
the end of life process without creating any waste. For that kind
of thing we have now developed a series of international standards
because you have to have data that is independent from the kind
of software that the engineers used to create the design in the
first place. That is now being applied to be able to deal with
the whole life history. Then the second one is that you want to
be able to estimate the impact of the manufacturing process and
the use of the product on the environment and that is the lifecycle
assessment. Some of that impact comes at the beginning of the
life when there is process waste, but all engineers aim to reduce
that waste because it is economically a problem. But at the end
of the life we need more data than is available to people. There
is a new database from the European Commission, which deals with
the impacts of several common products, such as steel sections
and steel sheets and aluminium sheets. I think there is also a
Defra research programme to try to find a way to provide information
to companies about the kind of impact of their product in the
environment. Then we are trying to make a connection between these
two in the new European programme called DEPUIS, where we are
developing distance learning methods where we are able to get
engineers and designers more aware of the possibilities of this
data standardisation that is now becoming feasible for the first
time.
Q604 Chairman: From what you are
saying there is a Defra initiative, there is an EU database, but
what about the rest of the world? You have to start somewhere,
I accept that, but how would you internationalise this so that
it could be readily acceptable in Japan or in China or in the
United States? Would the ISO route be the best one to go down?
Dr Swindells: The ISO standards are developed
by a committee called, with the jargon of ISO, the TC184/SC4,
and that is a global project. It includes delegates from all the
main manufacturing nations—Japan, Korea, Germany, the USA,
the UK, and every main manufacturing sector in the world is represented
there—and that has been working very successfully for the
last 20 years. The problem is, you are quite right, my Lord Chairman,
that it is one of the world's best kept secrets—not enough
people know about it. So we are trying to make it more available
by DEPUIS but it is quite hard to get people to understand, first
of all, what the problem is and secondly that there is a solution
to the problem.
Q605 Chairman: Do you think you could
drop us a note on this because obviously if a lot of work has
been done on it and it is rather a well kept secret it might be
useful for us to publish that along with our written evidence
at an appropriate time.
Dr Swindells: Yes, my Lord Chairman.
Q606 Lord Haskel: Could we come to
the question of actually assessing the resource efficiency of
the waste that is produced? There are measures such as "total
raw materials used per kilogram of product", or "atom
efficiency" or "e-factor" can be used, and that
is mainly in the chemical sector. How widespread is the use of
these measures, and are they effective at enabling businesses
to recognise the amount of waste that they produce?
Professor Grimes: In terms of the e-factor we
are talking about the volume of waste generated in the production
of material as a fraction of the tonnage of the material produced.
How widely used? It is used in the chemical industry but I think
that a better parameter is obtained when you start having accountants
looking at the cost of waste, and the Environment Agency has proposed
that industry should look at accounting for their waste and costing
every step through the production of waste. So if you are looking
at the cost of raw materials through reworking, through production
constraints and so on, I think we can build up a better picture
in terms of the overall measures and how they can impact on use
of materials. I think that the e-factor is very useful; it gives
us a volume, it gives us a fraction of tonnage or a percentage
of tonnage, but very often we could be talking about materials
that could be embedded in composites which actually are much more
difficult to deal with. It is really a balance between working
out the type of component and the volume of component, but there
are well documented pieces of work on environmental accounting
procedures for costing waste.
Q607 Lord Haskel: In this accounting
world which you have just told about is there a measure, for instance,
of the recovery value from the waste—the energy that you
can recover from it or the materials which you then offset against
the cost of the waste, so that you can then compare what you are
doing with somebody else?
Professor Grimes: I think you are absolutely
right. The documentation I am talking about is perhaps a couple
of years old now and it is only more recently that we have been
really looking at this focus on energy and recovery in the big
picture, but I think there is definitely scope for calculation
of the amount of energy to get a cost benefit analysis derived
from it.
Q608 Lord Haskel: Is there anything
existing at the moment or is that to be done?
Professor Grimes: There could well be something
existing but I do not actually have access to that information.
Mr Wilkinson: Talking about the process industry
in particular, the measures that you quote in the question are
very crude and they are certainly used—and of course they
do not give you any judgment on perhaps the energy efficiency
of the process, or even the environmental impacts of the waste
that is invariably produced. So I think companies that are using
these systems have moved to a more complex measurement system
and there are a number around, which you can look at—the
Dow Eco Efficiency System is quite well known and well publicised.
Other companies like GSK have internal systems which are not so
well publicised, but they measure a much wider range of parameters
and they certainly use them to assess processes from the environmental
point of view. The Institution of Chemical Engineers of course
has also produced a set of sustainability metrics which, moving
outside just the broad environmental area, tries to look at economic
and social aspects of production as well. But on the accountancy
front I think we are still some way away from having a system
which properly accounts for waste, and in the accounting sense
I think we are still looking at production in the age old way
of rewarding shareholders rather than looking at how it might
be impacting on the environment as a whole and on society as a
whole.
Q609 Lord Haskel: On the different
methods of measuring which you have just mentioned is there any
one that is standard in industry so that firms can compare each
other's performance?
Mr Wilkinson: No, I think is the simple answer
to that. Lifecycle assessment, which Dr Swindells mentioned, there
is an international standard for that, of course, as Dr Swindells
said, but we would hardly say that it was widely used. It is very
complex and it requires a massive amount of data and a massive
amount of research to do it and most times companies are trying
to get their products through the development phase and to market
as quickly as possible and LCA is usually difficult to implement.
We really have a fundamental issue here about accounting and about
accounting for sustainability and we have a fundamental issue
that really needs to be crunched.
Q610 Earl of Selborne: I would like
to ask about the Materials And Design Exchange, which we understand
is bringing together the design and the materials communities
in order to stimulate innovation, promote the transfer of materials,
knowledge and improve the competitiveness of UK business. Could
you tell us what response there has been towards this exchange
from the design and materials communities and what are the benefits
for members? Also, perhaps, to what extent sustainability features
as one of the goals of the exchange.
Dr Swindells: My Lord, I can answer this. My
colleague Sumeet Bellara from The Institute of Materials Minerals
and Mining is responsible for this and from his report I think
you could say that MADE has been extremely successful. It is the
node design of the Materials Knowledge Transfer Network. First
of all, they have produced a magazine which is published three
times a year and that reaches 4000 readers. Then they have had
a whole series of events, including recently in the last two or
three months one about Waste Not Want Not, about recycling use,
and they had 67 people at that. Other ones typically would have
between 50 and 100 people and they have those meetings every month
or so. They have a Web presence with 1000 online members and they
have several awards for different concepts given to designers
who are working with materials in novel ways or with a novel use
for them. Then they have a materials resource centre which encourages
more designers to use more innovative materials. They have an
electronic news letter, which reaches over 1000 designers. They
have a strong link with the Royal College of Art and with the
Design Council and had a large presence in London at the Design
Festival. The impression I get is that it has been a very good
way to bring both designers and engineers together in this field.
Q611 Lord Haskel: It sounds from
your description as if it is essentially a knowledge transfer
organisation.
Dr Swindells: Yes.
Q612 Lord Haskel: And also from your
response it is clear that sustainability and waste reduction is
indeed a core function.
Dr Swindells: It is a core function and it seems
to be increasing in the attractiveness and in the way as to how
they can bring the engineers face to face with the designers at
these events.
Q613 Lord Haskel: Who funds the exchange?
Dr Swindells: I think it is part of the Materials
KTN, with which Lord Haskel will be familiar. It comes from the
government funding through the Materials KTN Network.
Q614 Lord Lewis of Newnham: Dr Grimes,
I think in your written evidence you do actually state, if I can
quote, "There are undoubtedly barriers to the use of sustainable
materials in production where there is a possibility that the
technical performance of the product is diminished". What
are the priority materials which have a negative environmental
impact, and have you been able to replace these by more sustainable
options due to technical difficulties?
Professor Grimes: The function of a designer
and the function of a producer of a product is to design something
that is fit for purpose, and we have to accept that because consumers
want to buy products that are fit for purpose and functioning,
and that is where the design constraints are. In terms of changes
that have been made, perhaps through perception, if we just take
a step back to the lead-tin solder in the electronics industry
that was replaced and that was replaced because of the perceived
problems associated with lead, for example, the effect it might
have in the acquifer as lead was leached through from a landfill
site. In fact the problem there is that it was actually perception
because in fact a lead-tin solder could be recovered quite safely
and recycled at end of life, if you took up the end of life option.
But that has forced the industry to think of new changes of inputting
a new lead-free solder. The area that I think is perhaps more
of a challenge is the area of composites and in particular, again
sticking with electronics, we have brominated flame retardants
in composites that are being used in the plastic casings of electronic
devices, just as one example, and they are there to impart flame
retardant properties. I think that there is a school of thought—and
in fact some of the industry in Europe is actually moving completely
away from the use of decabromodiphenyl ethers, which are effectively
the brominated flame retardants, and have replaced the materials.
The actual function I think will just take time to see how that
does perform. But in terms of their development and their process
they have removed those types of materials from their products.
But there will be cases where a component such as a flame retardant
is such an important aspect of a product that it cannot be changed,
and I think it is at that point that we need to think about ways
in which we can recover the material selectively at end of life,
and we have developed a technology that can achieve this. I think
the barriers are really more where we have composite materials
and there are two types of situation—where we have the composite,
say, on an electronics motherboard where it can be recovered in
its own right relatively easily, or where additives are embedded
in a material such as a plastic. We can thus look at direct replacement
of the composite but there will be barriers to the uptake of the
replacement in terms of the economics, function and fitness for
purpose, but where the replacement is still a composite, I think
there should be a way to tag the material to optimise the material
recovery at end of life.
Q615 Lord Lewis of Newnham: What
further research is needed to address these technical barriers?
Who is doing this and is it adequately funded?
Professor Grimes: I think that there are barriers,
undoubtedly; there are the barriers associated with industry being
prepared to take up new technology; there are barriers arising
from the fact that changes in legislation can reverse policies
and can create a non-competitive environment. And there are barriers
associated with the opportunities for markets for recyclate materials.
Indeed, academics are also at fault because we do not help industry
understand some of these elements in a much better way. I think
that research needs to be done on, first of all, what the barriers
are now. But equally we cannot just stop there, we actually have
to look at ways of overcoming those specific barriers that we
have collectively identified.
Q616 Lord Haskel: Where is the funding
coming from? Is there government funding for this or Research
Council funding for this?
Professor Grimes: As a specific theme of research
to help industry I think that this could only be sought through
Research Council funding.
Q617 Lord Haskel: Mr Wilkinson.
Mr Wilkinson: You can look at this at two levels.
You can look at a material and say, "This material is potentially
damaging to the environment; how can I substitute it with another
material?" Or you can look at it at a much higher level and
say, "This is what I am trying to do with this material;
what other way can I achieve the same functionality entirely?"
For example, in a broader sense would you include petrol, perhaps
as being one such exemplar, of a material with a negative environmental
impact? You might therefore rather look at not replacing petrol
with, say, some other fuel but look at the fundamentals of moving
people around the place. I think we have to start really in all
sorts of areas looking at what we are trying to deliver rather
than necessarily starting with what material we are going to deliver
it with, and take a much more fundamental approach. That is obviously
a major mindset change in the educational chain.
Q618 Lord Haskel: I wanted to make
a point and that is that, for instance, the Institute of Materials,
as I know, has done some work on improving the materials out of
which you make boilers so that they can now be run at ten degrees
higher so that you get 10 per cent more efficiency out of the
boilers. So there are some quite simple things actually that you
can do.
Dr Swindells: My Lord Chairman, the problems
are now coming about from other directions. We have the directives
on the hazardous waste and the REACH directives and it is not
very clear whether these have been derived on the basis about
what is possible or upon the other basis of what people are frightened
of. I think we need much more involvement with the engineering
profession at a much earlier stage in the development of issues
such as the points made by Professor Grimes about the lead. We
have produced an engineering solution to the reduction of lead
but that is a very expensive solution. It may be easier just to
have a better method of recovering the lead rather than just saying
that we have to get rid of the lead. That is a fear approach rather
than, as Mr Wilkinson was saying, a more considered approach.
My suggestion would be to have much more involvement with engineering
at an earlier stage when developing these directives and the legislation
that goes with them.
Q619 Lord Lewis of Newnham: You have
made what I think is a very important point. There are many compounds
that we know appear in the hazardous list and as a result of that
you can say that they are forbidden to you. But there are new
materials, of course, that are quite often combinations which
in themselves are hazardous and have not been recognised. Is anybody
testing that particular aspect of the science?
Dr Swindells: I think the REACH Directive requires
this testing to be done but the expectation is that now that the
people have looked at it they believe that they are going to have
to find new metallurgy to replace these combinations which have
been identified as hazardous. But it can be absurd in some cases
because in the early stage of the REACH legislation they did not
distinguish between alloys and metals and the components of those
alloys, and so the idea was that nickel oxide was carcinogenic
then nickel oxide was made into nickel and nickel was included
into stainless steel, and therefore stainless steel was carcinogenic.
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