Scottish Government

Zero Waste Think Tank for Scotland

Minutes of meeting on January 20, 2009 of

Chairs of Sub-Groups on:

Delivery;

Carbon, Resource and Energy;

Regulation and other Policy Levers;

Business Resource Efficiency

Present

John Ferguson, Member of the Think Tank and Chair of sub-group on delivery

Iain Gulland, Member of the Think Tank and Chair of sub-group on regulation and other policy levers

Peter Jones, Member of the Think Tank and Chair of sub-group on business resource efficiency (by phone)

Kim Fellows, Chair of the Meeting, Scottish Government

Simon Stockwell, Chair of the Meeting, Scottish Government

Apologies for absence

Jan Bebbington, Member of the Think Tank and Chair of sub-group on carbon, resource and energy (this sub-group was represented at the meeting by John Ferguson)

Minutes of the meeting

Future procedures and timings

1. The main points made on procedures and timings are recorded below:

• The reports being prepared by the sub-groups would be turned into annexes of the main report which would be submitted to the Cabinet Secretary.
• The secretariat would produce a template for the main report. [Action: Simon Stockwell, Scottish Government].
• The main report being submitted to the Cabinet Secretary would need to be short, written in non-technical language and have a small number of key recommendations (around 12).
• As a result, each sub-group chair should aim to have around 3 key recommendations from their sub-group.
• Where possible, recommendations should be supported by evidence or should briefly outline what more evidence should be obtained.
• In line with the Think Tank's remit, recommendations should show vision but should also be deliverable.
• Final drafts of sub-group reports should be sent to Simon Stockwell no later than Wednesday 4 February [Action: John Ferguson, Iain Gulland, Peter Jones and Jan Bebbington].
• The Secretariat would then send the sub-group reports out to all members at least one week before the meeting on 16 February, along with the Agenda for the meeting and the proposed template for the main report. [Action: Simon Stockwell]. There would be no other papers for the meeting on 16 February.
• The aim for the meeting on 16 February would be to agree the template for the main report and agree the key recommendations from the sub-group reports. The Secretariat would then circulate the main report by email in draft, for approval by all members.
• Once approved by all members, the main report and annexes would then be submitted to the Cabinet Secretary.
• The main report and annexes would be published on the web.
• The Scottish Government will respond formally to the main report and its response will also be published on the web.
• The Scottish Government will also take full account of the main report, all annexes, the Think Tank's scenario planning report, the minutes of the meetings and other Think Tank work when preparing the consultation draft of the National Waste Management Plan for Scotland.

Sub-group on delivery

2. A draft of this report would be circulated shortly. It would contain suggested time-lines, as well as key recommendations. It was noted that this was a challenging area, as there was not consensus amongst Think Tank members on what needed to be delivered.

Sub-group on carbon, resource and energy

3. The main points discussed in relation to this report were:

• Current recommendation 5 (a national franchise for a network of energy from waste facilities) had given rise to considerable debate at the last full meeting and needed to be considered further.
• Current recommendations 6 and 7 could be deleted as they would happen in any event.
• The reference in current recommendation 4 about a national network of biomass treatment sites being given outline planning permission by 2010 was not deliverable.
• There was scope to merge recommendations 1 and 3.
• The use of landfill bans as a policy lever was a strong feature of the sub-group reports generally. To support the consultation draft of the National Waste Management Plan, the Scottish Government intended to carry out work on potential landfill bans. The types of areas this work would consider are attached at Annex A.
• The Scottish Government would look to WRAP and SEPA for help with the work on landfill bans.

Sub-group on regulation and other policy levers.

4. A revised draft of this paper was circulated. The meeting agreed that this paper contained clear recommendations on potential policy levers. It was agreed that the paper should have 3 or 4 key recommendations (action: Iain Gulland). The Scottish Government noted that it had drawn up a very brief list of policy levers, which is attached at Annex B.

Sub-group on business resource efficiency

5. The following points were made:

• A number of the points contained in this report related to policy levers (eg subsidies; carbon accounting; producer responsibility and end of waste criteria) which could be incorporated into the report on regulation and other policy levers, to avoid duplication (action: Peter Jones and Iain Gulland).
• Areas in this report which would form the basis of the key recommendations were: data; Knowledge Transfer Networks; design; and bankability and investment.

Waste and Pollution Reduction Division

Scottish Government

January 2009

ANNEX A: LANDFILL BANS WORK PLANNED BY THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT

ANNEX B: BRIEF LIST OF POLICY LEVERS PREPARED BY THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT

Policy levers which can drive Zero Waste include:

• Fiscal, such as Landfill Tax; Aggregates Levy and differential rates of VAT for environmentally friendly goods.
• Economic, such as the Landfill Allowance Scheme and Producer Responsibility.
• Subsidies, such as the Renewable Obligations Scheme and subsidies for home composting bins.
• Funding, to local authorities (eg for collections); to the private sector (eg WRAP's capital grant schemes for organic waste infrastructure) and to the community sector.
• Education, awareness, information, advice and training, such as the Scottish Government Go Greener campaign; Waste Aware Scotland campaigns for householders; incentives to householders to participate in recycling collections; advice to business through Envirowise; advice to local authorities on efficiencies in collections; compositional analysis of waste; information in development plans on waste infrastructure needs.
• Regulation, Appropriate regulation of waste technologies; appropriate controls on the outputs from waste plants; potential landfill bans/restrictions; use of land-use planning and licensing conditions; and the use of regulation to drive desired environmental outcomes (eg the use of PPC to drive waste prevention and the use of PPC to impose requirements on the efficiency of energy from waste plants).
• Legislation, such as the waste provisions in the Climate Change Bill or measures to introduce forms of rationing (eg carbon).
• Voluntary agreements, such as the Direct Marketing Association work on unwanted mail and WRAP's work with the construction industry to halve construction waste to landfill.
• Procurement, conditions to drive desired outcomes such as waste prevention and use of recyclate.
• Methods of collections, such as fortnightly collections, direct variable charging and bin sizes.