OPINION: Green Day delivered a veritable library of Government publications yesterday (30 March), within which were several items of interest to the recycling and waste sector given our important potential role in the context of the UK’s carbon emissions. The ESA’s Net Zero Strategy found that the Waste and Resources sector’s activities, while saving more emissions across the wider economy than they produce, account for eight per cent of the UK total and, consequently, the acknowledgement of our sector as a key part of the Government’s Net Zero journey is a long-awaited development.
We welcome the announcement that the Viridor and Protos EfW projects will proceed to negotiations for Business Model support to deliver carbon capture and storage (CCS) as part of the HyNet industrial carbon cluster. These projects are likely to be among the first energy recovery facilities to deploy CCS, which is an important component to decarbonise residual waste treatment, which has the potential to reduce the sector’s emissions by 15% as acknowledged within our Net Zero Strategy. Both the launch of Track-2 and a future expansion of Track-1 with it, represent further opportunities for additional energy recovery projects to deploy CCS in the near future. This will be supported by the proposal to ensure all new Energy from Waste facilities are built carbon capture-ready by July 2024.
From the wider announcements, we expect a net-zero addendum to the Resources and Waste Strategy in the summer. Defra’s focus must remain on delivering the fundamentals of this pivotal policy suite – our sector still awaits urgent clarity on collection consistency that is now delaying implementation. Achieving higher recycling rates, particularly for plastic, is a crucially important component of achieving net zero as a sector, whilst also promoting a circular economy, generating green growth and jobs. The RWS remains the primary future driver of recycling performance – which, as local authority recycling figures published last week show, continue to stagnate.
A notable omission from yesterday’s announcements is any further clarity over the inclusion of EfW in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). This represents the most significant regulatory intervention to the UK waste industry in a generation. It will fundamentally change the economics of the sector, and impact all stakeholders across the value chain, including local government. It is our view that this should align with the proposed 2028 organics to landfill ban – for which we can expect a call for evidence in the coming weeks – and as far as possible align with the proposed EU timeline to avoid any carbon leakage.
Other areas of interest include an investment roadmap by 2024 to support the nature-positive transition pathway for the resources and waste sector and the extension of capital support to 2028 to facilitate the continued growth of low carbon heat networks. This aligns with work the ESA has been undertaking over the last year to promote and facilitate the development of EfW heat networks as part of our Net Zero Strategy – efforts which include a recent EfW heat network viability study with Arup and BEIS (recently presented at the ESA Conference), as well as our Heat Network Prospectus.
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