That was the theme when he spoke to letsrecycle.com about his 20 months in office, a period which has seen the scheme transformed from a London-based operation employing 105 people to a Midlands-based business employing just half that number. Overheads in 2003 were 37% down on 2002 and this year they will be down 20% on 2003.
“In my time with Valpak a lot has happened, and it has been great,” he says. “We have a clear strategy to move forward, we know that legal compliance is our business and we are making this happen for other people.”
 Jonson Cox joins water company AWG next week |
A number of key decisions were made during his term in office. Asset ownership was dropped as one of Valpak's activities. He emphasised: “We are not investing in assets – this would have seen us having to indemnify the revenue contracts for the plants and would have required a guarantee of about 50 for a PRN under five to ten year contracts.”
Instead, he argued that “Our job is to manage the compliance.”
Mr Cox considers that the UK and Valpak have succeeded in this, and he points to the low PRN prices of 10-15 in 2003 and to the fact that the PRN supply is growing.
His term of office saw the sale of the pub and hotel glass collection business Recycle-more-glass to Berrymans – a business which was believed to have been loss-making and a challenge for Valpak to run efficiently.
The sale turned things around. Says Mr Cox: “Last year the glass figures were up – there was a significant increase. Recycle-more-glass has managed to halve the cost of glass PRNs and Berrymans have done a fantastic job. They are now growing that supply of glass and have doubled the supply of PRNs to us. We have a five year deal in place to buy PRNs from them.”
T2E
While distancing Valpak from investment in asset ownership, Mr Cox did decide to pay 125,000 for a 40% stake in the Environment Exchange, an online market for buying and selling PRNs. The Exchange has plus points, he says, giving price visibility and transparency. But, Mr Cox is low key on the overall role of the Exchange – or T2E as it is known from its web address. “Personally I don’t see a very big role for T2E … my view was that we would be helping it to develop, but it will never be a huge part of our PRN sourcing.”
Under 10% of Valpak’s PRNs come from the Environment Exchange, which in numerical terms is less than 150-200,000 out of 2.5 million needed, net of PRNs generated by Valpak’s own members.
Buying other compliance schemes was also considered but, said Mr Jonson, “I didn't see any that were worth it. It is cheaper to recruit members than buy a compliance scheme. We have been successful in growing organically – we now have 3,300 groups as members and a total of 5,000 companies.”
Service charge
For its members, Mr Cox claims that Valpak provides a cost-effective deal. He affirms that Valpak is “totally committed to the lowest cost of compliance but this has to be at a sustainable level,” and rebuts claims that the scheme’s service charge could be seen as exorbitant in 2003, especially when PRNs were low priced.
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