‘Today nature is vanishing at rates never seen before in human history,’ warned David Attenborough in September’s hour-long documentary looking at how our planet’s wildlife and habitats are faring. It made for necessary, but uncomfortable, viewing highlighting trends that have been identified by researchers and campaigners across the world: species and habitats are declining and the pressures driving this decline are intensifying, from climate change to growing urban developments and mass consumption.
The UN described this moment as a crossroads for humanity in a major new review of global biodiversity trends that was released in September. It points to the international community’s failure to act collectively to reduce environmental harms, calling the past decade ‘a lost decade’ for nature.
However, the UN Secretary-General noted there is an unprecedented opportunity as we emerge from the immediate impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic to seize the initiative to make sustainable transformations across our society and economy that will put us on track for nature recovery. Next year, world leaders will once again come together at an international summit to determine a new set of targets to reverse biodiversity decline and it is vital this marks a turning point in countries’ commitment to restore the natural world.
The events of recent months have shown us just how necessary protecting nature is: Covid-19 emerged due to an intensification of human activity bringing humans and wild species into closer contact. As industrial agriculture, forestry and mining expands into new areas, bringing urban societies into more frequent contact with wild animals, there is an increasing risk of similar viral diseases jumping from animals to humans.
Scotland is no exception to the global trend of biodiversity decline. The latest State of Nature Scotland report showed that 1 in 9 species is at risk of extinction from our country. Yet many of us have recently come to appreciate the nature on our doorsteps more than ever, with local walks and garden bird watching providing a much-needed respite as lockdown restricted our travel.
It’s not too late for Scotland to turn this situation around and, if we act swiftly now, we can reverse nature’s decline. The natural world has an amazing capacity to recover from crisis and by taking steps to expand our native woodlands, restore carbon-locking peatlands, move to nature- and climate-friendly farming and step up protections for Scotland’s seas we can look ahead to a brighter future.
To drive success in the coming years, a clear commitment from the Scottish Government to address the nature emergency head on is needed, backed up by measurable targets and action plans to take us on a path to nature recovery. Commitments to nature recovery targets from Scotland’s political parties ahead of next year’s Holyrood elections would be a signal that politicians are taking the loss of Scotland’s nature seriously.
Nature has brought comfort to so many of us during these tough times, it’s now time for us to stand up for Scotland’s nature.
Vhairi Tollan is Advocacy Manager at Scottish Environment LINK
A version of this blog was published as a Scotsman column on 27 October 2020
A guest blog by Sophie Unwin, founder/director, Remade Network
IKEA has made the news as it launches its plans to buy back unwanted furniture – going beyond recycling to include repair and refurbishment, as part of its multi-billion dollar plans to become a ‘truly circular climate positive’ business by 2030.
It’s clear that repair is becoming more mainstream in the large business community. Will this mean that repairing and mending becomes more prevalent in society as a whole?
Remade Network’s Govanhill Repair Stop opened in July 2020 – at the height of the pandemic. Working collaboratively with Repair Café Glasgow, Govanhill Baths Community Trust, and the Glasgow Tool Library we offer an affordable repair service for electronics, textiles, and small electrical goods – currently £5 or £10.
Having come out of three months of social isolation ourselves, for the team, one of the things that has given us the most pleasure is engaging with happy customers – who bring in their items (safely) and hand them to our hatch at Govanhill Baths’ Deep End site. From record players, to jeans, to blenders and phones – each fix involves problem solving and creative thinking in order to return the item to its owner. The technicians have fixed over 120 items in the first two months alone, with an 85 percent success rate, and making no charge if the repair is unsuccessful.
Many people have carried out clear outs during the pandemic and are keen to donate unwanted household items and ensure they go to a good home or to fix the items they have. As one customer said to us, “This project helps us look after our household goods, as they in turn look after us.”
Of course, repair is not a new idea. Look to other cultures and go back in time and an ethic of ‘make do and mend’ was much more commonplace. When there are fewer resources, people need to make them go further. And repair and mending has often been unpaid women’s work, done at home.
The ethos of Remade Network was born 20 years ago, after I spent a year living in rural Eastern Nepal. With new goods hard to find, we reused, repaired and repurposed everything we owned and found. Milk came straight from the cow, vegetables unpackaged from the market, and sacks of rice were refilled at the local shop. In a year our household of six created just one dustbin of rubbish.
This experience led me to set up Remade in Brixton, which became the Remakery in Brixton, and then the Edinburgh Remakery. In a ‘developed’ economy it’s not always possible to make a business case for repair, as buying new is cheaper – but I wanted to show that it would be viable to have a business model centred around repair education – to help people learn the skills that I knew I lacked, practical skills that are really essential for living more lightly on the planet.
A group of volunteers and then a staff team in Edinburgh grew the project from £60 through various phases, to a turnover of £240,000, 80 percent traded income, and 10 members of staff in 2017, when I left. By then, the project had a bustling hub on Leith Walk, and was £15,000 in surplus.
At that point, other communities had started asking about how to collaborate to set up their own repair social enterprises. This seemed an ideal way to share the learning of the previous 12 years. Repair Café Glasgow was one of the first projects to get in touch, which is what led to the Govanhill project.
Lauren Crilley, who works at Repair Café Glasgow one day a week alongside her role at Remade Network explains: “Repair Café Glasgow is built on the idea that our possessions have lots of life left in them when we maintain and repair them. We have been running repair events in community spaces across Glasgow and beyond since 2017. Over the last two years we have built a wonderful community of volunteer fixers and have saved 12 tonnes of CO2e [carbon dioxide equivalent] emissions through repairing electronics, electrical goods, clothes and more. The project has also spawned a new social enterprise – the Pram Project – devoted to repairing prams and redistributing them to refugee families and other families in need.”
Repair cafés are run by volunteers and are an excellent way to bring people together and build community – as well as save goods from landfill. What makes Remade Network’s approach different is that its focus is on creating jobs. We’ve grown from 1 member of staff to 7 over the past year, and continue to recruit new technicians as the volume of repairs grows. Repair creates 10 times as many jobs as recycling, and it seems the ideal model for building quality green new jobs as we navigate our way to a future beyond COVID-19.
In April our future seemed precarious for a moment, but we have been relieved and delighted that we can keep going and growing by responding to the need across the city – both for repair and also for distributing refurbished donated computers to vulnerable families across the city, diverting an additional 117 tonnes of CO2e in the process.
Responding to the pandemic has also drawn parallels with the Remakery in Brixton, a project born from Transition Town Brixton’s work in 2008 at the time of the financial crash. The motivation for this project, too, was to create jobs for the people who had the kind of useful skills we all rely on – but who weren’t earning a livelihood from them. My elderly neighbour was an AfroCaribbean immigrant who used to fix bikes in his front garden, but barely make any income. The Brixton project was gifted a set of unused garages by Lambeth Council, which my co-founder Hannah Lewis converted to the Remakery thanks to a grant from the Lottery. Each garage then became a different social enterprise for repairing and reusing a different material stream – from bikes, to chairs to musical instruments.
Our Remade projects create jobs, build skills, and help build a sense of community as we work at the heart of different neighbourhoods – rather than blaming people for not doing enough, shifting wealth and decision-making to local communities. We are both making it easier for people to behave differently and recognising that those who consume the least are often the people who are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change and pollution.
At their heart, we believe that repair is not just about saving waste, it can be a way to tackle inequality too. Is there a tension in mainstreaming something into business practices? Perhaps only if it’s seen that repair is a means to an end of growing business, rather than looking at how business can serve communities. Repair can be not just part of a circular economy; it can be part of a circular economy towards a fairer footprint – one of Scottish Environment LINK’s core aims.
The first test of this commitment is facing the Scottish Parliament. In less than three months, Scotland, and the rest of the UK, will lose the oversight of the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. These institutions have played an invaluable role in ensuring nature is strongly protected, by giving a voice to the public on environmental matters and holding governments to account. It is vital that Scots do not lose the ability to speak up and request that action is taken to protect their environment.
The Continuity Bill, currently going through the Scottish Parliament, is designed to ensure laws in Scotland continue without any interruption as we leave the EU. As part of the Bill, the Scottish Parliament must replace functions of these EU institutions by creating an independent watchdog to oversee and enforce the implementation of environmental laws. This will ensure that the places for nature, species and habitats we love best will continue to be strongly protected in Scotland.
Ensure that environmental protections are being implemented and enforced correctly
Receive public complaints about failures to apply environmental law
Investigate potential breaches of environment law, and refer serious cases to the courts
While the Continuity Bill does include provision for a watchdog, it doesn’t go far enough. It needs to be made more independent of government and it needs stronger teeth so that it can take action when environment laws are not being applied properly.
The ability to take action on specific complaints is a key strength of the EU system and has allowed people to challenge decisions affecting their environment, on land and at sea. But it’s missing from the proposed Scottish watchdog. The bill must be amended to include this power – and to make the watchdog truly independent of government.
Furthermore, the watchdog is not guaranteed adequate or ringfenced funding meaning that they might not be able to properly investigate potential breaches of environmental law, ensuring enforcement and applying sanctions in cases of noncompliance. It also means the watchdog is left vulnerable to future public sector cuts.
The Scottish Government has declared itself to be a global leader on the environment. In order to truly demonstrate leadership, it must not take backward steps upon leaving the EU. The Continuity Bill must be more than just a symbolic gesture; it must maintain the protections already in place and leave the door wide open to strengthening our nature laws so that we can deliver transformative change for nature, climate and people.
These are extraordinary times. Scotland is emerging slowly and cautiously from lockdown and considering how we recover, as a nation, and as part of the global community. Attention has rightly focused on the public health crisis and treatment of the most vulnerable, but as governments begin to look to life beyond lockdown it is clear that the lockdown and its aftermath is having severe consequences for the economy, both globally and nationally. Livelihoods, particularly in hospitality, retail and tourism, are under threat and millions of jobs are at risk.[1] The Scottish Government forecasts an immediate downturn in economic activity of up to 33%[2], while the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts a downturn of 35% for the UK as a whole[3]. Indeed, current predictions from the Bank of England suggest that this will be the deepest economic recession in living memory[4].
However, we should not be mistaken that this is the only crisis for which we need an immediate solution. Science shows us that we have 10 years to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and 10 years to reverse the loss in biodiversity[5], happening across the world and in Scotland[6]. While there are a number of paths the Scottish and UK Government could choose to embark upon to lead us out of this crisis, we must not repeat the mistakes of the 2007-08 financial crisis and the following decade and more of austerity measures have crippled the public sector, including environmental services, and driven up inequalities in our society[7]. We must learn from the recent past and choose an alternative path. A recovery that takes us back to the old ways of running the economy is not inevitable – it is a political choice towards an unstable climate and failing ecosystems.
Welcome statements from the Scottish Government Ministers have signalled the intention that the economic recovery should be ‘green’[8]. However, for this to be real, there is a level of ambition for action that is not yet visible. Before the Covid-19 pandemic swept Scotland, we were already facing nature and climate emergencies and the Government’s Environment Strategy recognised that significant action was required[9]. The Government’s response to the Economic Recovery Group Report[10] produced quickly and under limited resources, has some good points but overall lacks the ambition, commitment and urgency that are needed to drive the level of change we need to see. Our tests[11][12] show that a green recovery must stimulate national and local economies that work for people while delivering benefits for nature and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These issues are not separate to economic considerations – for example, Scotland’s £6bn tourism sector[13] and £14bn food and drink sector[14] depend on a thriving environment.
Our response must therefore be a step change in policy, with tangible results within the next decade, as urged by international scientists and policy-makers[15], and including natural solutions to climate change and reversing biodiversity loss with wide-reaching positive impacts on society and the economy. There are 3 vital elements that are present in part, but not at the scale needed, in the Government response to the proposals:
Partnerships: The scale of the challenges cannot be tackled by government and the private sector alone. It is very clear that we will only achieve the level of buy in and action that we need through proper partnership working – not just between business and government but with local communities and with communities of interest in the arts, culture, environment and care sectors. Together we can create jobs, build the skills base needed and involve everyone[16]. A top down approach simply will not work.
Investment: government cannot fund us out of these crises. They simply cannot afford it. The funds identified in the report are a good starting point. But they must be matched against private investment and leveraged by local ingenuity and charitable sector creativity. That way we may see the scale of investment able to make a positive impact. That investment must also be in the right place and at the right time. The Scottish National Investment Bank has a clear leadership role to play here. In meeting its mission and objectives, it should firmly focus its limited public funding in de-risking green investments and thereby leveraging much greater private investment in initiatives that build back better for society and the planet.
Embedding climate and environmental sustainability into decision making: this is now unavoidable if we are to avoid disasters of massive and long term recession, climate instabilities and uncontrollable ecosystem feedback loops. The Infrastructure Investment Plan for example with 3 strategic outcomes that mirror the green wellbeing economy outcomes, and include climate action and nature restoration is a part but must be so far embedded that environmental sustainability is the fundamental basis of economic growth and not an optional add on. Embedding this across Government is a powerful lever to lead and drive change. When it is matched across the rest of society, business and industry, we start to see a very effective mechanism to move towards the future we all want to see.
This all takes ambition, leadership, drive and commitment. With an election coming up, this is what we want to see in Party manifestos ready to be enacted immediately in June[17]. This has to start now: unless such ambition is clearly committed to in Party manifestos, the scale of change we need to see for Scotland to lead by example and come out of the pandemic, the climate emergency and the nature crisis, simply will not be achieved.
[7] United Nations, 2019. Visit to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.https://undocs.org/A/HRC/41/39/Add.1
By Dr Phoebe Cochrane, LINK’s sustainable economics officer
Official figures released last week show a 72 percent rise in the amount of waste burned between 2018 and 2019. The increase is largely due to more household waste being incinerated, instead of being landfilled, and corresponds with several new incinerators becoming operational during this period.
This trend is likely to continue as waste is diverted from landfill ahead of the ban of biodegradable municipal waste to Scottish landfills in 2025. Scotland has six operating incinerators, also known as Energy from Waste (EfW) plants, and this number could double within the next few years. Is this a wise trajectory, compatible with net zero ambitions?
A new report by Zero Waste Scotland, ‘The climate change impacts of burning municipal waste in Scotland’, looks in detail at the carbon emissions associated with energy from waste. Based on analysis of the plants operating in Scotland in 2018, it found that sending one tonne of residual waste to EfW emitted, on average, 219 kgCO2e. The average carbon intensity of energy produced was found to be nearly double that of the UK grid average (509 gCO2/kWh compared to 270 gCO2/kWh). The report shows that this is sensitive to technology type, with the one Heat Only plant having a significantly lower impact; and composition of material burnt, particularly plastic content. However, it is fair to say that energy from municipal waste is not low carbon.
Incineration has also been shown to impede improvements in recycling rates, since often some of the material burnt could have been recycled or composted. The fear is that building more incinerators will further hamper efforts to increase re-use and recycling and reduce our residual waste, as the companies contracted to run incinerators require councils to provide them with ‘fuel’ in the form of waste.
In Denmark, the government has recently decided that, in order to reduce carbon emissions, they need to incinerate less and recycle more. They will be reducing their incinerator capacity over the coming years and redoubling efforts to increase recycling to achieve a ‘climate neutral’ waste sector by 2030.
Although desirable, it is unrealistic to think that we will be able to use or recycle all our waste – with the best will in the world, we are going to be left with some residual waste; so we do need a plan of how to treat it. A recent report from Zero Waste Europe provides what appears to be a practical solution: Material Recovery and Biological Treatment (MRBT) that combines biological treatment, to stabilise fermentable materials still included in residual waste, with sorting, to recover materials which can be recycled. This ensures that the negative impacts of residuals are reduced when landfilled, and at the same time keeps the flexibility required to continuously improve the performance of waste management systems.
The Zero Waste Scotland report mentioned above looks at various scenarios for managing our residual waste and finds that a strategy that includes this approach could offer the lowest greenhouse gas impacts, but notes that more research is needed.
It is also worth considering the fiscal environment. Should we be taxing waste going to incineration in the same way as we do for landfill, as is done in the Netherlands and Sweden? The Scottish Government does not currently have the powers to introduce such a tax, but the subject was twice debated at the beginning of this year at Westminster, with cross-party support for an incineration tax and a halt to new investment in energy-from-waste facilities.
Scottish Environment LINK has called on the Scottish government to focus on reducing waste through developing a more circular economy and increased re-use and recycling, and and we urge it to develop a waste strategy that is in line with our net-zero and circular economy ambitions.
We will be holding a webinar on November 10th to discuss management options for residual waste. If you are interested in taking part, please contact phoebe@scotlink.org.
The global pandemic has proven that people are far more vulnerable than many of us thought. However, the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the power, resilience and potential of grassroots and community-led action. There have been many inspiring examples of how community and voluntary organisations have stepped up to meet the huge challenges that the pandemic poses. As we start to shift from emergency response to planning for the ‘new normal’, we should all be asking ourselves how we can support and strengthen the kindness, solidarity and energy that has been shown in our communities.
The meanings, applications and implications of the concept of ‘resilience’ are contested, varied and not well understood. A definition of resilience needs to recognise that it’s not necessarily about bouncing back to the status quo but the ability to shift and adapt to a fundamental shift in circumstances. Community resilience describes the sustained ability of communities to withstand, adapt to, and recover from adversity. Community resilience must be at the heart of a green recovery.
Amid the resulting uncertainty, a window of hope and opportunity opens: an opportunity to shape the economy in ways that are greener, cleaner, healthier and more resilient. We must seize the opportunity to transform how we understand, plan, finance and respond to risks. We must integrate climate resilience into decisions at all levels of government, local authorities and communities. Communities have a role to play but are not often able to affect systemic change. However, supporting communities to be more sustainable will empower them to respond better to challenges arising from issues such as climate change and the nature crisis. In the context of a green recovery, we must harness community energy and enthusiasm. Scotland’s geography and history has led to the creation of diverse communities: from remote highland and island villages and towns, to the cosmopolitan cities of the central belt. Communities are best placed to make decisions and act themselves, shaped by their own local geographies and demographics.
Healthy ecosystems help increase the resilience of Scotland’s communities to the impacts of climate change. Securing these through an ‘ecosystems approach’ means taking account of the benefits that nature provides for people and involving people and communities in decision-making. Scotland has multiple organisations offering a diverse range of projects which support and enable communities to connect with nature and ‘green’ their lifestyle to have a positive impact on the planet. Community projects empower individuals to build an understanding of the nature and climate crises by increasing access to green space and improving mental and physical health through connection to nature. Keep Scotland Beautiful campaigns, acts and educates on a range of local, national and global environmental issues to change behaviour and improve the quality of people’s lives and the places they care for.
Barry Fisher, Chief Executive of Keep Scotland Beautiful said:
“Throughout the challenges of the past seven months, Keep Scotland Beautiful has been consistently struck by the resilience and ingenuity of community groups, normally focused on improving our neighbourhoods and climate, in leading positive action to help us get through this difficult time. From Climate Challenge Fund-supported projects such as Bike for Good in Glasgow, which at the height of the pandemic provided free loan bikes and virtual route planning to key workers, to It’s Your Neighbourhood groups such as the Darkwood Crew in Renfrewshire, which distributed food, picked up prescriptions and even hosted a ‘social isolation bingo bus’, the groups we work with have shown incredible energy and creativity in supporting their local communities and helping maintain a sense of social cohesion and solidarity. We firmly believe that recent months have shown the huge potential of community-led action in driving and catalysing positive change, and that a truly effective response to the climate and nature emergencies in Scotland needs to be one that makes the most of what communities have to offer.”
Communities must be viewed as assets and as key actors in both preparedness and long-term resilience. Building public understanding of the nature and climate crises can be a challenge. However, we need to understand what engages and motivates people to respond. Over lockdown, people shifted their relationship to the natural environment at a time when access to shared outdoor space has rarely been so difficult. However, the current lockdown is proving challenging for millions of people across the country who do not have access to greenspace. Greenspace provides important mental and physical benefits for people as well as helping to conserve biodiversity and reverse nature’s decline so that wildlife can thrive, not just survive. Improving the quality of our urban and rural environment is vital if we are to deliver on our ambition to make Scotland a greener, fairer and more resilient country. An example of a charity championing access to the countryside is Ramblers Scotland. Their work involves looking after paths and green spaces, leading walks and encouraging people to get outside and connect to nature.
Helen Todd, Campaigns and Policy Manager of Ramblers Scotland said:
“We have around 1,200 Ramblers volunteer walk leaders across Scotland and each of our 55 Ramblers groups, from Wigtownshire to Inverness, has a programme of regular walks. We all know how important it is for our health and wellbeing to get outdoors all year round, and it’s particularly important now to build personal resilience in order to cope with the Covid-19 Pandemic. There are particular benefits to walking in a group. These include maintaining social contact, building communities and keeping motivated, especially in the winter months when it can be difficult to get out of the door. Older people are supported to keep active through the group walks, but we also have thriving young walker groups who make the most of opportunities to get outdoors together and learn the skills they need.”
Green space, growing, food production and increasing biodiversity have enormous benefits to building sustainable and resilient communities with a wealth of evidence available in terms of benefits of health and wellbeing, community cohesion, ecology and climate change adaptation. Civil society organisations such as Keep Scotland Beautiful and Ramblers Scotland strengthen partnership working between people, government and organisations as well as facilitating public engagement. Coronavirus has reminded us of what is important; looking after each other and our communities. The local layer of action and national initiatives must work alongside each other. National plans are essential for achieving fast and systematic change; however, they must be designed to work with and alongside a local layer of action. Community led action offers a massive and largely untapped opportunity to address the nature and climate crises. To build back a better and greener economy, we need to see this community resurgence as a power source. Communities must be empowered to take the economy on as we rescue, recover and reform in the wake of Covid-19.
Juliet Caldwell
Species Champion Coordinator at Scottish Environment LINK
With the 2020 Paris Fashion Week currently underway, there are few global industries where the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic are more starkly apparent. National lockdowns around the world have highlighted the fragility of linear economy supply chains, and there has been a much-discussed re-evaluation of what counts as vital, necessary or luxury. The industry has been significantly impacted by the logistical challenges and change in consumer habits over the past six months; sales have dropped, there have been significant levels of unsold stock and companies have gone out of business.
The ‘fast fashion’ consumer model of high volume, low quality, low price, and therefore easily dispensable clothing has been economically successful for fashion companies, but has massive environmental and social impacts and is the very definition of unsustainable.
In their 2017 report ‘Pulse of the Fashion Industry’, Global Fashion Agenda and the Boston Consulting Group project that by 2030 global apparel consumption will rise by 63%, from 62 million tonnes today to 102 million tonnes—equivalent to more than 500 billion additional T-shirts.
The report calculates that the environmental impacts from the global fashion industry were 79 billion m3 of water consumption, 1,715 million tonnes of CO2 emissions from energy used in materials extraction and manufacturing, and 92 million tonnes of waste produced. By 2030, they forecast that these figures will rise by 50%, 63% and 62% respectively.
There is growing awareness of the environmental impact of the industry and, as with all sectors, companies are keen to publicise how they are tackling the issue. High-profile take-back schemes and encouraging the donation of unwanted items to charity shops appear to demonstrate admirable aspirations, and make good PR copy, but they are only a finger in the dam when compared to the industry’s driving business model.
What changes are needed?
So what to do? What does ‘building-back-better’ into a more circular textiles industry actually look like?
We don’t like change, we don’t like risk. And the people that run businesses especially don’t like change or risk. So to make the changes required for an industry to transition into one which operates sustainably within its, and all of our, environmental boundaries, the risks involved need to be outweighed by the potential benefits.
As part of Ricardo Energy and Environment’s work in engaging and supporting businesses of all sizes, we explain key business models through which they can benefit from circular economy ideas.
The process of identifying, developing and implementing circular practice for any organisation is the same, it is a logical progression through the following steps:
Step 1 – Ask five fundamental questions:
What is our key product or service?
How do we deliver it?
What raw materials does it require?
What secondary / enabling resources does it require? (energy, water, packaging etc.)
What wastes or by-products does it produce?
Step 2 – Analyse the answers to those questions, considering what opportunities there are to introduce the ideas of the five circular business models.
Step 3 – Once opportunities have been identified, work to understand all of their risks and benefits:
Financial:
What are the costs associated?
What will the delivery model look like?
What are the revenue streams?
Environmental:
How will our resource consumption change?
What will be the long-term impact of our new offering?
Commercial:
How will our customers react?
Is there a market for it?
How do we engage with that market?
How will our reputation be affected?
What regulatory considerations do we need to be aware of?
Social:
How will this change affect the communities we operate in?
What will be the impacts for our suppliers?
Step 4 – Compare those risks and benefits to the impacts of not changing at all.
Step 5 – Gather the results of these investigations into a business case for change, to secure any internal or external support and resources required to make it happen.
When applying this thought process to the textiles industry as a whole, three main necessities for large scale change become evident. Overarchingly, there needs to be a shift towards the use of more sustainable materials, and an accompanying shift towards them being utilised in more circular ways – bringing in cradle-to-cradle ideas of design for longevity, design for repair or remanufacture and resource efficient manufacturing processes.
But perhaps even more fundamental than that, two mutually dependant systemic changes need to be enacted. The core delivery model of the industry needs to shift from ‘fast-fashion’ to one where the concept of access to clothing instead of outright ownership is more prevalent, through product-as-a-service models or facilitated sharing platforms.
For that shift to take root, consumers – all of us – need to be engaged and made aware of the alternative options, and convinced that they represent an accurate reflection of our personal values. Therein lies the classic chicken-and-egg barrier to innovation; businesses will not wholeheartedly change their practices unless the market votes with its collective wallet, but that market can’t vote conclusively without a viable choice of distinct alternatives.
Help, and hope, is at hand
To overcome this barrier there needs to be a combination of two factors; courageous organisations willing to be the standard bearers for the new mode, and support – financial, technical and legislative – from governments and industry bodies to de-risk that courage.
Thankfully these factors do exist. None of this is new information, and it is already on the agenda of the UK and Scottish governments. The Environmental Audit Committee produced a report on sustainability in fashion in 2019. The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Ethics and Sustainability in Fashion published a report just last month about the impact of COVID-19 and how the industry should respond. In Scotland the Circular Economy Bill, although now on hold due to COVID-19, includes actions around tackling fast fashion and the compulsory reporting of surplus stock.
Most importantly the industry itself knows it has a massive, if not existential, issue to address. Environmental awareness among the public is at an all-time high and continuing to grow, driving consumption habits and examination of the sustainability credentials of suppliers and retailers.
There are many examples of organisations making large strides towards change, along with Scottish, UK and European Government and NGO initiatives to support and drive the transition to a more sustainable, circular way of doing things.[1]
Here in Scotland, there is significant government funded support available for organisations looking to investigate circular economy options, both technical and strategic assistance through its Circular Economy Business Support Service, and financial support through the Circular Economy Investment Fund.
In helping to deliver a lot of this support over recent years, Ricardo Energy & Environment have worked with many Scottish fashion industry organisations doing great things. These include:
A Lanarkshire based firm specialising in clothing rental services, as well as ensuring zero waste to landfill, employing an innovative low-impact Ozone sanitisation technology, and partnering with high street retail brands to offer repurposing and remanufacturing services for returned garments.
A cashmere manufacturer in Tayside investigating the use of wool mill offcuts for remanufacture into its range of high quality, designed for longevity, products.
A subscription service for baby and toddler clothes in Edinburgh. Offering a full customisable wardrobe package for everything a child needs up to 3 years old, items can be returned when they need to be ‘sized-up’ and a new selection is supplied. Returned items are cleaned, repaired where necessary, and circulated back into the available inventory.
For these businesses, and many more, we helped to analyse and engage the markets for their offerings, refined operational models and supported business planning, including financial and environmental modelling, to improve the understanding of investments needed through the growth stages.
So change is afoot, and it is gaining traction. But these are just the first, tentative, stages of the fashion revolution. For the large-scale systemic transformations required to decisively embed a circular textiles industry, the support and incentives available need to be maintained and even strengthened to allow more and more businesses to get on board and build the critical mass. Also, the education and engagement of the buying public needs to be ramped up to drive home the necessity of a different trend for fashion.
Rob Snaith Biography
Rob Snaith is a senior consultant and experienced project manager within Ricardo Energy & Environment’s Circular Economy team. He has extensive experience in managing projects and delivering impartial, in-depth consultancy and auditing services across a broad range of environmental sustainability topics to a broad range of clients and stakeholders.
Rob manages projects and teams delivering successful outcomes for a diverse range of clients, from national and local government, through NGOs and sector-wide bodies, to community organisations and businesses of all sizes. Rob’s work includes:
Inter and intra-national reviews and assessments of circular economy best practice and innovative technologies and business models to inform policy and regulatory recommendations and decisions.
Supporting individual organisations and collaborative groups to develop and deliver circular business models and initiatives. Rob co-ordinates and delivers all stages of projects, incorporating initial innovation and ideation; market assessment stakeholder engagement; operational, financial and environmental modelling; marketing and communications support; and pilot design, delivery monitoring and assessment.
The design and delivery of effective training, engagement and innovation guidance documents and workshops, covering topics such as resource efficiency and circular economy fundamentals, circular procurement and circular construction.
To discuss how Rob and Ricardo Energy and Environment’s Circular Economy team can help your organisation, or just to share your thoughts on this topic, please get in touch at rob.snaith@ricardo.com.
Many governments are turning their attention to the post-Covid economy and there’s talk of ‘building back better’ and ‘green recovery’. Here, I’d like to share some of my past experiences and hopes for the future – where a system which is inherently greedy for raw materials and wasteful is replaced by one that is green
More than 10 years ago, my wife and I interrupted our careers and opened an eco-store and organic café in Glasgow city centre. We spent six months researching the products we would stock – to ensure we picked environmentally the best. We wouldn’t source beyond Europe due to freight miles, and the more local the better.
There were some great items: the triple certified coffee, roasted 3 miles away; a minimum-energy tumble drier, manufactured in Yorkshire; recycled plastic boards for DIY from Dumfries; and hemp clothing from Romania, with hugely reduced environmental footprint compared to cotton.
We stocked Spanish rugs, made from 100% post textile industry waste, and we also stocked Interface/Heuga carpet tiles made in Holland; and it is these carpet tiles which are my particular favourite (by the way, no endorsement is intended and I have absolutely no interest or connection with this company).
Just think for a moment – you want a fitted carpet in your living room. It might cost, with underlay/grippers/fitting, around £30 per square metre – so, for the room, perhaps £500. You might be concerned, along the way, about the environmental impacts of the materials, the wastage of offcuts during fitting, the roll-ends the supplier is left with and whether your carpet be recycled at the end of its life.
Anyway, you’ve got your new carpet and, next day, you spill a glass of red wine. The stain maybe covers 0.05% of the carpet area, but chances are you have to replace the whole thing. Pity – but also a really bad environmental impact.
Now, with a carpet tile, you can have a spare in the cupboard, or buy a few more, or shift them around so the stained tile is under the sideboard. No waste; no impact. What a brilliant eco-design feature. As the carpet wears in doorways or corridors, you can circulate the tiles to other parts – prolonging its lifetime.
The founder of Interface was the late, and inspirational, Ray Anderson. In 1994 he ‘dared to imagine’ and launched Mission Zero, intending to attain zero environmental impact for the company by 2020. Ten years ago, the carpet tiles we sold were all around 80% recycled content, and one line was zero-carbon. By the start of 2020, many of the Interface factories in Europe and the USA had achieved zero impact.
All company data are independently verified and, world-wide, over the past 25 years they have achieved 89% use of renewable energy, 60% of all input materials being recycled/bio-based, 89% reduction in use of water, 92% reduction in waste to landfill, and 96% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Every carpet tile is now zero-carbon.
All nylon fibre used in manufacture is now 100% recycled and the independent supplier has expanded production beyond Interface’s needs and markets more widely. This is an example of the ‘ripple effect’ where a pioneer company can influence others within the sector to innovate. Interface is also proud of ‘Net-Works’, now adopted fully as part of its commercial business model, in which coastal communities in Philippines and Indonesia gather abandoned fishing nets as supply material for recycling into carpet products.
The concept of industrial circularity has been taken further and, across 95% of the USA and 80% of Europe, Interface offers a carpet tile take-back service – promoting maximum reuse/recycling of materials. The company has now adopted the concept of the forest factory, putting more back into nature than is removed. It will become a restorative business. Yes – it’s all being done by a billion-dollar, global, highly competitive business.
But, unfortunately, they are an outlier. Overall, the UK recycling rate for carpets could be a lot better: currently around 55% goes to landfill, 30% is fed into waste-to-energy plants, and 15% is reused or recycled.
In Scotland, we must also ‘dare to imagine’. This really is the best opportunity to revolutionise our Scottish economy from one founded on a system which is greedy for raw materials, personalised profit and socialised risk; to one founded on green design, green manufacturing and green wellbeing.
Now I don’t want get too theoretical, but there are numerous studies showing that a circular economy doesn’t just eliminate waste. It also contributes hugely to reducing carbon emissions and to future-proofing and improving our way of life – by providing increased resilience through localised production and repair, by employing more local people and community-based enterprises, and by increasing traditional GDP.
You might ask – what should we do in Scotland? Well, here’s just one example; you’ll be able to think of many others. We should use the neglected section 82 in our own Climate Change Act which allows Scottish Ministers to specify the recycled content of items procured or constructed here. What a great opportunity for the enterprise agencies to determine what local recyclate streams could be available, what local businesses might be ready to use those recyclates, and then to create, by regulation, good stable home markets to promote innovative eco-designed products which, once established, could then be marketed elsewhere.
Scotland has signed up to the New Plastics Economy global commitment and yet recycles only about half of its plastic waste. So, maybe, we set an escalator of recycled plastic content of, say, outdoor furniture – which is a market of tens of millions. In our climate it is far more robust in any case, and we have some excellent local manufacturers.
It’s time to turn it around …
James Curran MBE an honorary fellow of Scottish Environment LINK and chair of the James Hutton Institute.
Yesterday [31 August], the Scottish government published the ‘Edinburgh Declaration’. This declaration seeks agreement between subnational, regional and local governments across the world, calling on the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to elevate ambition in order to halt biodiversity loss. It urges that greater prominence be given to the role subnational authorities play in delivering on the new global targets set to be agreed next year.
The text of the declaration calls for collective commitment to raise ambition for nature’s recovery; frames the global pandemic as a reminder of nature’s central importance to human wellbeing; recognises our collective failure to halt biodiversity loss, and the urgent need for transformative action across land and sea to do so; and it recognises the role that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like Scottish Environment LINK and its member bodies will play in making the changes needed.
The UK government is a national signatory to the CBD, however Scotland supports globally important wildlife species, habitats and ecosystems, across land, freshwater and marine environments, and virtually all policy relating to nature is devolved to the Scottish government.
Scottish Environment LINK’s Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign, launched in 2018, calls on the Scottish government to set legally binding targets for the recovery of nature. Scotland’s iconic wildlife is under threat, with one in nine species at risk of extinction from Scotland.
Craig Macadam, convenor of the LINK Wildlife Group said:
Scottish Environment LINK welcomes the Edinburgh Declaration and we support its central message on the role of sub-national authorities in restoring nature, against the backdrop of collective failure to date. We urge the Scottish government to cooperate constructively beyond and within its borders, and to realise the declaration’s recognition of NGO roles, developing progressive strategic engagement as the next Scottish Biodiversity Strategy develops.
A recent article in the Scottish press implied that planting trees may not tackle climate change. But the research paper on which the article is based is clear: the issue isn’t with tree planting overall, but with planting on carbon-rich soil. The press article failed to highlight that if the right trees are planted in the right place, they are effective against climate change.
What did the study show?
The new research by Friggens et al. is titled Tree planting in organic soils does not result in net carbon sequestration on decadal timescales. It shows that soils already rich in carbon – known as peaty soils in Scotland – released more carbon than the trees could absorb over the 40 year study period.
But it also provides strong evidence for establishing the right tree in the right place, for the right reasons. We’ve long advocated this at the Trust. The study shows that when deciding where to plant, it’s important to first consider the soil’s existing carbon levels. Landowners will already be aware of these levels based on their location, vegetation type and soil characteristics.
Carbon absorption
Trees lock up carbon as they grow, but carbon exchange also occurs in the soil. Carbon is added to the soil through plant litter and released by fungi and organisms known as decomposers. If trees are planted on soils already rich in organic carbon, it tips the balance so the soils release more carbon than the young trees can lock up over the coming decades.
Lead author of the research, Dr Nina Friggens, explains the implications. “Tree planting can increase carbon stocks in certain areas and ecological contexts,” she says. “But it is important to understand where in the landscape this approach is best deployed to achieve the best results for climate change mitigation.”
Planting in the right places
This is new evidence from the UK for a view long-held by conservationists and the Woodland Trust: there are places where it isn’t appropriate to expand woodland cover. Following lessons learnt in forestry, the UK Forestry Standard now prohibits planting trees on peat deeper than 50cm in the UK. In light of their research, the authors recommend that this should be extended to any soils with organic surface layers less than 50cm thick.
The UK has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. That means we can’t afford to plant trees in soils that release more carbon than the tree can absorb in a generation. We need to plant them where they will be most effective.
Policy and professional guidance needs to improve
Tree policy in the UK is heavily focused on the carbon aspect of tree planting and woodland creation. But that focus neglects many of the other benefits trees offer. The value of our native woods for biodiversity is huge. The right trees in the right place also provide flood mitigation, clean air, timber and green spaces to enjoy for our health and wellbeing.
Experts agree that planting trees can only be a first step to creating a woodland ecosystem. To reap maximum rewards, we must focus not only on planting – or allowing trees to grow naturally – but also on the tree species and their future management.
As well as a climate emergency, we’re facing a nature emergency. Trees are one of the solutions to address these simultaneously. They are vital in tackling climate change and reversing biodiversity loss.
We need landscapes rich in native woods, trees and wildlife. Government policy must go further in committing to plant, protect and restore our woods and trees for the decades to come.
Forestry guidance on what is acceptable needs tightening further too. This latest research shows that when deciding where to establish trees, the carbon below ground must be considered for the trees to have a positive effect on carbon emissions. We need better advice on which trees to plant where, and how. The right trees in the right place are crucial for the future of people, climate and nature.
Karen Hornigold, Conservation evidence officer at the Woodland Trust
This article was first published as a Woodland Trust blog on 27 July 2020
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