Muriel Garland, chair of Zero Waste Mann, asks what we’re really aiming for
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What is it with this ‘vision’ thing? Malaysia, India, Nigeria, The Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership – they’ve all got a vision for 2020.
So perhaps it was inevitable that eventually the Isle of Man has joined the club. First we had ‘Freedom to Flourish’ followed by the ‘Isle of Man Where You Can’. Now our government in co-operation with the private sector has come up with ‘Vision 2020’, outlining the broad way forward for the island’s economy to the end of this decade.
At the same time in the UK, an impressive group of academics, Conservative politicians and business leaders has come up with ‘Vision 2020 C – Sweating Our Assets’. Apparently one of their aims is to point out to Conservative climate change deniers that economic and environmental factors are intertwined and not ‘opposite ends of the see-saw’.
The Manx Vision 2020 sees continued growth of 3-4 per cent in GDP and 1-2 per cent increase in government income. Seven sectors of the Manx economy are expected to grow: financial services, information and communication technology, manufacturing, offshore energy, the island as a destination for visitors and potential residents, local food and drink, and encouraging enterprise. Many of these depend on improving the environment and the careful use of resources – although that is not spelt out in the document, which is vague on detail.
By contrast, in England’s version of ‘Vision 2020 – Sweating Our Assets’, the environment is at the heart of things. Much emphasis is given to improving the productivity and the efficient use of resources through re-use and recycling. In a situation where world-wide demand and competition for materials is increasing, the authors point out that companies need to be much more careful and responsible. Not only should they avoid waste, but they should look to use and re-use materials efficiently. Vision 2020 points out that there is much talk of improving the productivity of workers but not much about improving resource productivity. And yet, in the modern world it is vital.
The Manx Vision 2020 doesn’t mention waste or resources – and yet it is important that companies, which import materials to an island and have to pay for waste to be disposed of, should be thinking hard about their efficient use of those valuable resources. The document mentions ‘excellent infrastructure’ but companies will find few facilities for the re-use and recycling of many materials here. For example, the European WEE directives on waste, electrical and electronic items don’t apply – so electrical items can be sent to the incinerator and batteries can be thrown in the bin. Not a good outcome foranyone.
The English Vision 2020 sees waste as a resource and an opportunity. In fact they call for waste to be moved from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), recognising that there are opportunities for enterprise within the waste sector.
I wonder how many waste companies the Isle of Man government talked to when drawing up their vision of the future. In England, they had the chairman of Novelis, the aluminium can producer and recycler, Claire Whelan from WRAP, circular economy and resource efficiency experts, and Paul Sanderson from Resource Efficiency magazine on their panel. The authors call for demand reduction policies and for waste to be redefined as a business opportunity.
Surely here in the island, the government should be encouraging companies, which go to all the expense of shipping stuff across the Irish Sea and from further afield to take great care of those resources and make sure they are used efficiently and then re-used. Just disposing of items made from wood, plastic, etc, via the incinerator is wanton when such materials could be recovered and used again.
Vision 2020 reckons England could save £1 billion in disposal costs and gain £2.5 billion in recovering materials rather than sending them to landfill. They call for waste to be redefined as resources and see waste as an opportunity with a new stream of exciting business opportunities emerging.
Marketing the environment to visitors is an obvious step for the Isle of Man to take – but while members of our government still refer to people who want to protect footpaths and improve cycling routes as ‘the Greenies’, I can’t see them entering into a real partnership with us. They want the island to look beautiful and attract visitors – but those of us who plant trees are referred to by politicians as ‘those tree huggers’. Our government needs to appreciate that the environment and business are complimentary, not antagonistic, to each other. We can all contribute to the success of our island.
Vision 2020C (Sweating Our Assets) points out that a unit of energy saved and not paid for increases a company’s profitability – although it may not increase our GDP.
And government should ensure that businesses are aware of all the profit-maximising opportunities that are available to them through clever use of resources, as global demand drives up costs.
Both the UK and Isle of Man visions agree that small to medium sized business will be the ones to flourish in the period up to 2020. But where is our promised incubator for budding young entrepreneurs who will create this Enterprise Isle? The last one was sold to the highest bidder in Laxey. And in Business News (Examiner, February 4) only Alyson Hamilton Lacey of ITEX had the temerity to suggest that the government might focus on some of the existing entrepreneurs who are here already!
The UK Conservatives’ ‘Vision 2020 – Sweating Our Assets’ has been greeted very favourably by the Environmental Industries Commission, for putting resource efficiency at the heart of UK’s future economic growth. The Resource Association welcomes it but also calls for a cap on valuable materials going to incineration. Here in the Isle of Man, I haven’t seen a response from the waste industry – but perhaps they weren’t invited to the presentation at the Manx Museum.
The business community generally seems to be seeking more detail on how the Isle of Man government is going to achieve this golden future by 2020.
As a Guardian reader, it grieves me to have to say it, but as chair of Zero Waste Mann, and an advocate of resource efficiency in all its forms I would recommend our politicians and civil servants read the UK Conservatives’ Vision 2020 – Sweating Our Assets. They really do appear to understand how environmental matters are intertwined with economic success. For more information, see here. www.2020conservatives.com/Downloads/PEComissionReport.pdf