When is a target not a target?

When is a numerical target not a target? Answer – when it is not met.  Then it becomes an “ambition”, a “comment”, a “goal” or an “aim”. At least, that’s what the government claimed when net migration to the UK rose to 298,000 in February 2015, against a “no ifs, no buts promise” to reduce immigration to below 100,000 come the election in May 2015.

Add to the media battering the government received over this politically charged failed target, the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee report An Environmental Scorecard (June 2014) which scored the government three reds, seven ambers and no greens across ten environmental areas ranging from emissions and climate change to the marine environment. “Resource efficiency and waste” received an amber traffic light, signifying “unsatisfactory progress”.  No change come 2016, at least with regard to the 2020 recycling target of 50%.

Against this background, the reluctance of Minister Rory Stewart to support or to commit to any numerical targets whatsoever in the waste and resource sector is perhaps understandable. This position has been trailed previously in Defra’s memorandum to the EU Latvian Presidency in 2015, titled ‘UK Ideas for a Circular Economy’, a response to the proposals put forward by Environment Commissioner Potocnik, but was reiterated for good measure by the Minister in his interview with letsrecycle.com last week (see letsrecycle.com story).

Strategy

The Minister’s invitation to the waste management industry to make submissions on where the sector wants to go and what it wants government to do is to be welcomed. Indeed it is incumbent on the sector to take up the challenge thrown down by the Minister and do some strategic thinking on the challenges facing our businesses, where we want to be over the next 10-15 years, and what policy drivers we believe are needed to get us there.

Will numerical targets figure in the discussion? From the sector’s perspective, almost inevitably. It is difficult to see how voluntary measures on their own can move an entire economy away from its present linear path, something that Wales and Scotland have recognised. We await with interest to see how Defra engages with the European Commission and its Member State partners in the ongoing discussions over the latest circular economy package, which of course has proposed several numerical targets impacting our sector.

The irony is that voluntary measures typically contain numerical targets. For example Courtauld Commitment 3 contains three targets which in terms are: reduce household food and drink waste by 5% by 2015; reduce waste in the grocery supply chain by 3% by 2015; and improve packaging design through the supply chain while ensuring there is no increase in the carbon impact of packaging by 2015.

By supporting voluntary measures the government is in effect outsourcing target-setting while distancing itself from the responsibility for meeting them. Target not met? Not government’s fault.