roundtable 45
declared, explaining that M&S stores might be neutral, but what about the carbon M&S was generating through its worldwide supply chain?
Brace: “The key to this is having a level playing field on carbon reporting. You can’t get an understanding of what M&S is actually saying until you get uniform reporting across the economy – and that includes the SME sector, although that will be an extra burden for them. Until then, you won’t be able to see what people are really doing and where they are paying to offload their carbon elsewhere.”
Actually, we are quite upbeat about the future
Murray asked the Roundtable where they thought the sector would be in five years' time.
Prior actually felt “slightly optimistic and reasonably confident because we (Summerleaze) are in a very good cash position and we are moving forward with the technology fairly quickly, but there will be hiccups. We are at least helping to bring down the cost of disposable waste. We will move forward slowly, there will be ups and downs, but we will be producing more electricity and saving fuels by supplying wood to appropriate places.”
Hillier: “My company is also cautiously optimistic. Renewable electricity generation has to be the way forward because of security of supply arguments and depletion of gas reserves. Deployments of heat pumps, solar and solar thermal, AD, biomass generation and waste- to-electricity and so on, have to be the future because we need to look at the most efficient ways of producing and using electricity.”
Sean Reel
Grundon said his company is currently working with a university on the carbon cost for every waste usage and service in order to produce a sector carbon calculator. “There will be a carbon cost to everything, so how companies can say they are carbon neutral without us becoming carbon neutral I just don’t know.
“Companies may talk about greening their supply chain, but unless their supply chains are carbon neutral, in my mind they are not carbon neutral.
“The mere fact that we exist means we are creating carbon, so unless we all plant three trees before breakfast, we can’t be carbon neutral”
Williams: “Companies all put it in their aspirations, but in reality it is difficult. We look at how and why they are producing the waste they do, but the ultimate responsibility is for them go back down their supply chain and get it to change the way things are done, and there will be costs associated with that all down the line.”
Not all green supply chain changes are costly, said Grundon. He highlighted an example where a half-used £1,000 roll of sheet-wrap was being sent to waste on every change of work-shift.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – OCTOBER 2012
Grundon was equally optimistic, but thought
the sector should be promoting the idea of extended producer responsibility. “At the moment manufacturers are making things that are too consumer orientated, and not always suitable for the waste sector to handle efficiently. I would like to see them closing the loop more. Hearteningly, some enlightened FMCG companies are doing that, and it’s good that the effort is coming from the corporates not via the Government.
“As far as my company is concerned, even by standing still we are growing market share because the industry is contracting. But we are also improving our profits.”
Peter Prior
Reel suggested two important elements for the sector’s future:
• stability (either through the market or other means) and level playing fields.
• more public awareness of the available technologies.
He also suggested greater sharing of technological knowledge and experience among businesses within the sector. “We can only make better decisions by knowing what is happening at the grass roots; successes or failures both need to be explored.”
Williams said Biffa was now probably
more open-minded to working with other companies and their technologies (possibly as a result of its 2010 acquisition and integration with Greenstar UK). “We are now moving beyond the ‘doing it all ourselves’ culture, and that is opening the door to more solutions for our customers. Where we are not blocked and can make the investment ourselves, we will get the facilities built, but I think the future will be about working with partners.”
Brace: “One of the major challenges the sector faces is in trying to build businesses that are not affected by government grant aid and tax incentives, which produce market distortion. Until you get a stable long-term energy strategy, any business decision is bound to be short-term because you have not got the security of what will be here in five years time. We have seen that with the FIT and RHI changes in the past two years. It just destroys decision-making.”
Yarrow: “Despite the Government’s apparent reluctance or, perhaps, inability to create a level playing field that allows and encourages the industry to grow, we should be reassured that the industry is made up of people like these here today at this Roundtable.
"While they are confident in the position of their business and in the technologies that they are working in, and they continue to innovate and push forward in spite of the lack of understanding, working around the planning and financial hurdles that they face, then, ultimately, we will see some progress.”
www.businessmag.co.uk
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