Resource policy: joining the dots

Calls for enhancing coordination between government departments to tackle resource management and resource security have been gathering momentum. Following warm words but an otherwise noncommittal reception to the Materials Security Working Group’s idea of an Office for Resource Management (ORM), the political parties have again been exhorted to adopt the proposal as a priority for the next government (see letsrecycle.com story).

This follows a recommendation from the Circular Economy Task Force for a National Resources Council (NRC) supported by a Commission on Resource Risk. The proposals differ in that the ORM is conceived as Unit within BIS (or Defra according to an IPPR recommendation), while the NRC would be an independent body.

Will this approach produce real results?

Unfortunately, Councils and Commissions can be emasculated or even abolished, as in the case of the Sustainable Development Commission. Created by Labour in 2000 precisely to provide cross-departmental policy advice and assistance, the SDC was terminated in 2010 by the Coalition Government as part of its “bonfire of the quangos”, a string of hard-hitting reports suggesting that the SDC was perhaps too independent for government’s liking.

The ORM invokes the Rural Communities Policy Unit (formed in 2010 within Defra) as its model. Reporting on its work in July 2013, the EFRA Committee opined that resource constraints were limiting the Unit in its cross-cutting activities, and that “for a body within government there is concern that the RCPU may be starting to become an uncritical advocate of government manifesto commitments, and less a supporter of appropriate solutions”. In short, a mixed review of the Unit’s independence and effectiveness, some of the constraints being of a structural nature.

Legislation

The main attraction attributed to these models is that no new legislation would be required. But that is precisely what is needed. Just as the Climate Change Act forced governments to confront the issue and introduce appropriate policies and targets, so would a Resource Management Act provide the necessary anchor for resource management and resource security. Under a single integrated legislative framework and policy umbrella, the following principles could apply to a UK Resource Management Act:

1. Conserving natural resources by restraining their use as raw materials;
2.  Reducing emissions by promoting the effective utilisation of resources (ie reducing resource intensity) and by preventing products from becoming waste;
3. Promoting sustainable consumption behaviours to minimise resource use and maximise the useful life of materials;
4. Maximising the reuse and recycling of unavoidable waste, creating secondary resources to offset the use of primary raw materials in the production and supply of goods and services;
5. Ensuring the safe and secure disposal of unavoidable residual waste.

The Act would deliver the bullet-proofing resource management requires if we want it to be treated seriously by governments as a policy imperative, while providing legislative underpinning for an ORM or NRC. Importantly, it would also formalise the development of national and sectoral materials flow accounts, something that the UK has long lacked.