The UK must adopt an industrial strategy which goes 'beyond carbon' to address critical resource efficiency challenges in all areas of the economy if it is to maintain employment and a competitive, sustainable advantage in global markets, now and in the future.
This is the conclusion of a far-reaching, in-depth report by the Aldersgate Group, a coalition of companies, NGOs, professional bodies, MPs and others, who believe that high environmental standards are essential to long term economic growth.
The report - Beyond Carbon: Towards a Resource Efficient Future - states that resource efficiency will be one of the key determinants of economic success and human well-being in the 21st century and describes what a resource efficient economy might look like and what policies would be required to enable the transition.
It welcomes the publication of the Low Carbon Industrial Strategy. However, there is now a need to go "beyond carbon" and adopt general resource efficiency principles through practices such as true resource pricing and life-cycle management. Resource efficient policies should become key objectives for HM Treasury's Management of the economy and be supported across Government departments, the report says.
It also states that while carbon may be the most immediate resource issue, it is not the only one. Water and other resources are also of critical importance. Substantial cuts in carbon emissions will require changes to the use of natural resources with significant indirect carbon impacts.
Sir John Harman, former Chairman of the Environment Agency and lead author of the report, said: "There is understandably a focus on carbon in policy making at the moment. However, there are equally pressing resource demands across many areas of the economy which need to be addressed, such as water resources against energy use, food production against biofuels, natural habitats against agricultural intensification and so on.
“All of these will require a strong policy response and each will need to be addressed sector by sector."
"We cannot rely on the market to act in time to anticipate constraints in natural resource stocks, we have to act in advance.
“The Low Carbon Industrial Strategy was an encouraging sign. For the first time, one of the economic ministries showed it wished to explicitly promote and shape Britain's transition to a low carbon future.
“We now need to build and expand on this approach to promote low-resource consumption as a vital part of securing future competitive advantage. This report and the work of the Aldersgate Group can be seen as a step towards that."
The report describes the possible features of a resource efficient economy by considering three contrasting economic sectors of food, water and materials. It makes clear that resource use has to be considered sector by sector.
Although there are common issues, such as a need for a life-cycle approach to policy making and for the true price of environmental externalities to be reflected, they work out very differently in each sector due to the nature of the resources in question and the market structure in which each resource operates.
For example, the water sector is characterised by a small number of very large companies operating in a closely regulated manner. The report recommends the regulator's role be enhanced to take a number of environmental considerations and costs into account and take some decisions on environmental grounds alone, rather than simply focusing on supplying water at least short-term cost to the consumer.
Conversely, the food sector has a large number of small enterprises, with the result that regulation is less all-encompassing and the market dominates. In the EU, 29% of all consumption derived GHG emissions are food related while the WWF estimates that food supply accounts for 23% of the total global ecological footprint.
The food sector involves a complex interplay between land, water and nutrient resources so any regulatory response would have to include policies covering each diverse area. In addition there would have to be significant improvements made in food-chain economics to produce more with less and to reduce waste through the system, while far greater efforts would have to be made to drive sustainable consumption.
A one-size-fits-all approach would not work with such a complex production and consumption sector.
"Each of the case studies shows that there are some common general principles of economic management for a resource efficient world, but each sector requires its own approach, and some of the measures will require us to step away from traditional economic thinking," Sir John Harman added.
"We have made a number of policy recommendations in this paper but they will need support across Government departments through policies on spatial planning, the remits of regulators and specific targets in key sectors. It is now in Britain's interest to build and expand on this approach to promote low-resource consumption as a vital part of securing future competitive advantage, because the economies of the future will be the ones that make best use of the available resources."
alan butters, morningside, the old street, capel st mary, suffolk around 1 month ago