There are two elements to this: has the Government identified the most effective approach and action to achieve a green recovery that improves our wellbeing? And can that happen at a pace to meet the urgency of today’s situation?
In terms of an effective approach, the most obvious way to achieve success and to make the most of our physical, social, natural and human capital (as the report calls it) is working in partnership. Hence the very clear acknowledgement in this Government response that partnership working is the only way a green recovery will be achieved is very welcome. This needs to be a consistent thread and it needs to reach beyond the business and banking communities. The Scottish Government make it very clear they are looking to build stronger and closer ties between the public and private sector through board membership, but where are the community voices?
Arguably the GDP focus of the business and banking communities has got us into the unsustainable mess we are already in, and that has led to the climate crisis and the nature emergency, which in turn have led to large scale refugee crises and a global pandemic. Partnership working absolutely must include working with local communities of place and with the charitable sector and communities of interest. The strength of a green, wellbeing recovery strategy will be in building on the world views of those that see new paths for achieving welfare and wellbeing into the future and are able to predict implications of resource use that reaches beyond sustainable limits. By only talking to one side of the equation, this represents not just a massive lost opportunity, but, in my view, an error.
Secondly the levels of investment that the Scottish Government are putting into the green recovery, across multiple facets is welcome. With this matched against private investment and leveraging local ingenuity and charitable sector creativity, we begin to see a scale of investment that should start to make a positive impact. Of course, that investment has to be in the right place and at the right time: the 5 green purpose tests of the Green Investment Bank would be a useful check on whether proposed investments can deliver or not.
And thirdly, embedding climate and environmental sustainability into decision making is evident, welcome and unavoidable. 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 good, as long as environmental sustainability remains a fundamental basis of economic growth and not an optional add on. Embedding this across Government would form 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.
So does this all add to the urgency of action we need to see? As ambitions go, this is a good start but needs to take us further if we are to address climate change and nature loss in the next decade, in turn doing much more to tackle the ongoing environment refugee crisis and the spread of disease and collapsing ecosystems. This is why the next Programme for Government, due in September, needs to set out more detailed plans for how progress will be delivered in the short term.
We also need to see all political parties set out their bold ideas for a Green and Fair Recovery in the run up to next year’s elections and for all parties to bring forward constructive proposals that enable Scotland to take effective action using the skills, innovation, creativity and human energy we have across government, business, the charitable sector and communities, to make a swift and effective shift into a sustainable future for all.
If we have learnt anything from the pandemic, it is that wellbeing is not based on fleeting experience and material gain. It is actually instead about immersive experience, close to nature and with family and friends. With that shift in perception ongoing, now is the time for Government to put in place the mechanisms that take us as a society much nearer to wellbeing as we have rediscovered it. And away from the seduction of wealth generated at the expense of local communities, society and nature, what we call, business as usual.
Scottish Environment LINK, a coalition of Scotland’s leading environment charities, has warned the UK government that its plan to create a UK internal market could seriously harm Scotland’s natural environment by dragging down standards.
The plan unveiled by the UK government last month appears to be aimed at both removing regulation and forcing all four nations of the UK to adopt the same standards irrespective of each nation’s environmental context or needs, say members of Scottish Environment LINK. They believe the plan could create a race to the bottom, forcing Scotland to revoke or water down legislation protecting its environment to mirror any lowering of standards in the rest of the UK.
Internationally prized and iconic wildlife including otters, bottlenose dolphins, puffins, bats, Golden eagles and osprey could be at risk along with Scotland’s drinking water, beaches and food standards. At present 80 percent of Scotland’s environmental protections come from EU membership, but the UK will no longer be bound by EU law after 31 December 2020 when the Brexit transition period ends. In response, Scottish Environment LINK launched a campaign, Fight for Scotland’s Nature to help prevent environmental protections for Scotland’s nature from being weakened post-Brexit.
The Scottish government has since committed to ‘maintain or exceed’ current EU environment standards, and published an EU Continuity Bill in June setting out how it plans to replace EU protections.
Scottish Environment LINK is urging the Scottish Parliament to strengthen the Continuity Bill to give greater powers and independence to Scotland’s new environment watchdog, and to enshrine in law the commitment to maintain or exceed standards, requiring Scottish Ministers to keep pace with developments in EU environmental law.
But the charities fear that the UK government’s internal market proposals could instead force Scotland to follow the lowest common denominator, especially where countries negotiating bilateral trade deals with the UK demand lower standards, seriously undermining efforts to combat climate change and biodiversity decline.
Charles Dundas, chair of Scottish Environment LINK, said today:
Scotland’s world-renowned natural environment is central to all our lives, and we must not allow arrangements for a UK internal market to put it in jeopardy by dragging standards down. At the same time, the Scottish government’s commitment to maintain or exceed present EU standards should be enshrined in law and is something we have been pushing for.
High standards of environmental protection are essential if we are to achieve a green recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and tackle the joint crises of alarming nature loss and climate breakdown, the greatest challenges of our time.”
Notes to Editors
Scottish Environment LINK is the forum for Scotland’s voluntary environment community, with 39 member bodies representing a broad spectrum of environmental interests with the common goal of contributing to a more environmentally sustainable society.
The economic fall-out from the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in large-scale job losses. Youth unemployment is forecast to reach the 1 million mark over the coming year unless the government provides an ambitious recovery plan. The “corona class of 2020”, 800,000 school leavers and graduates due to join the labour market, are the most exposed age group to the likely unemployment surge caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Scotland’s economic recovery plan post COVID must guarantee jobs for young people. Bold government action can mitigate both mass unemployment and the imminent climate and nature crises.
Without support and investment, nature cannot continue to provide the well being and livelihoods we depend on. Our health and well being should be based on a healthy and resilient environment. As well as ensuring the climate and biodiversity emergencies are part of our recovery, economic recovery and nature’s recovery should go hand in hand. Green jobs are the basic components of a green economy. Green jobs are central to sustainable development and can respond to challenges such as environmental protection, economic development and social inclusion. Up to 60 million new jobs worldwide in the green economy could potentially be created by 2030. A green recovery from COVID-19 could see increased education and skills provision for young people which could link to the new green jobs needed to promote the sectors of the economy likely to deliver on social, economic and climate justice. In 2018, a survey conducted by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of 1,000 young people aged 18-24 revealed climate concerns and new opportunities are driving young people towards careers in the green economy. Youth unemployment, climate change and the nature crisis may appear as different issues, yet they have a common mutual solution. These challenges are intrinsically linked and should be tackled together. A green economy provides a crucial lifeline for young people facing unemployment after coronavirus.
As more young people identify climate change as the defining issue of their generation, more are seeking careers that will have a positive environmental impact. A 2020 survey carried out by the Royal Society of Chemistry asked 1,008 UK students between the ages of 15 and 18 for their views on environmental issues and careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths). The survey found that around one-quarter are keen to pursue a career in the green economy such as renewable energy or with an environmental NGO which is working directly to combat climate change and the nature crisis. More young people are seeking careers that will have a positive environmental impact and can adapt most easily to the new ‘green requirements’ that are needed in the labour market. However, the transition from education to employment is becoming a complicated process due to the instability of employment.
Tomorrow’s workforce is actively calling for major changes. Climate change protests erupted in 2019 with millions around the world standing up to demand climate justice. The protests were attended predominately by young people. Young people are increasingly concerned about the future of the planet and their vested interest in environmental issues can act as a key driver for greening economies. Teach the Future Scotland campaign is a student-led campaign to repurpose the Scottish education system around the climate emergency, climate justice and ecological crisis. The students behind the campaign believe that young people need to be taught about this emergency and be equipped with the skills to live and lead sustainably. The campaign advocates for the reinventing and reforming of education around the climate emergency and ecological crisis. The campaign asks for this to be a well-funded strategic priority for the Scottish Government from 2021. Young people must be educated and aware of the rapidly changing world they are entering. We must develop in a way that is working with nature and linking in natural capital to address the climate emergency alongside the biodiversity crisis.
Many of the global challenges to development are especially salient for young people. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) established that young people are a driving force for development, however only if they are provided with the skills and opportunities needed to reach their potential and support development. By equipping young people with skills, knowledge and confidence in their abilities, there is a real chance that governments can harness the potential of young people to reach the SDGs over the next 14 years.
If properly managed, green growth can provide an opportunity to address the youth employment challenge while simultaneously preserving biodiversity and increasing climate resilience. Governments have the opportunity to harness young people’s sense of agency by engaging them in formulation, co-creation and/or implementation of policy responses and recovery plans.
Juliet Caldwell
Species Champion Coordinator at Scottish Environment LINK
A blog by Esther Brooker, LINK Marine Policy and Engagement Officer, and Calum Duncan, Head of Conservation Scotland for the Marine Conservation Society.
Our ocean remains in desperate need of recovery. International expert reports[1][2][3] released in 2019 underlined the stark consequences for biodiversity and ecological systems due to climate change and human overexploitation of living resources on land and sea. Since then, the global Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has brought our world close to standstill, with the tragic loss of countless lives and economic challenges that many countries will be dealing with for years to come.
One major realisation has to emerge from this crisis: understanding and appreciation of the fundamental role nature plays in underpinning society.
Environmental Standards Scotland: a Scottish Environment LINK perspective
Since the EU referendum, Scottish Environment LINK has been calling for a new environmental ‘watchdog’ to be established in Scotland to replace the oversight and enforcement functions previously carried out by the EU institutions. The Scottish Government’s new ‘Continuity Bill’, introduced to Parliament last month, proposes just such a body – to be called Environmental Standards Scotland. This is a very welcome step forward.
But how fully does the proposed watchdog replace those EU functions? Will it have the independence, powers and resources required to hold government to account on environmental matters? In this ‘long read’, Lloyd Austin examines these questions and suggests how the bill might be improved by Parliament to ensure Environmental Standards Scotland is an effective watchdog.
Nature has become increasingly important to many people during the covid-19 pandemic. But long before the virus struck, we were facing two linked existential crises – climate change and biodiversity loss. These human-induced emergencies, both requiring urgent action, would be difficult to address even without the constitutional turmoil of Brexit. With 80% of Scotland’s environment law derived from EU law, the UK’s departure from the EU makes these crises even more challenging.
Scottish Environment LINK and its members have engaged with the environmental implications of Brexit since it was announced, seeking to influence the debate in Scotland and engaging in discussions at both UK and EU levels along with partners in Greener UK and the European Environmental Bureau.
Governance gap
A major concern identified by environmental NGOs, and acknowledged by governments across the UK, is the environmental ‘governance gap’ resulting from the UK’s departure from the EU. Regardless of other arguments for or against Brexit, the role of the EU treaties and institutions in protecting the environment is widely recognised.
Court of Justice of the EU. The institutions of the European Union have played a positive role in protecting the environment. Image by Marc Schneider from Pixabay
Our Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign has been a public expression of this work, calling for legislation to:
Embed key EU environmental principles in Scots law;
Create an independent and well–resourced watchdog to enforce environmental protections; and
Set clear targets for environmental protection alongside adequate financial resources.
The Continuity Bill
Last month, LINK therefore warmly welcomed the introduction of the ‘UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Bill’ to Parliament. This bill, which will be considered in detail by MSPs over the late summer and autumn, purports to address the first two of the above issues. On its publication, Michael Russell MSP, the Scottish Government’s ‘Brexit’ Secretary, said:
The Bill’s proposals on environmental principles and governance will also help us to maintain high standards, in line with the EU, in Scotland. … It proposes the creation of a new governance body – Environmental Standards Scotland – which will be able to investigate whether public authorities are failing to comply with environmental law, to take steps to ensure public authorities remedy any failure to comply with environmental law, as well as to investigate the effectiveness and delivery of environmental law by public authorities.
The bill is, therefore, a very welcome and big step forward. It parallels the proposed Environment Bill, currently proceeding through the UK Parliament, which will cover England and (subject to agreement by the devolved Executive) Northern Ireland. Similar measures are under consideration in Wales, although no detailed legislation has yet emerged.
The bill includes three main proposals: a so-called ‘keeping pace’ power, the incorporation of the EU environmental principles into Scots law and the creation of a new governance body, to be called ‘Environmental Standards Scotland’ (ESS). A previous blog provided an overview of the bill, and some immediate thoughts on the proposals for ESS. This more in-depth analysis tests the provisions against the need for new governance, as identified by LINK, including in research commissioned from Professor Campbell Gemmell. Future blogs will look at issues such as the ‘keeping pace’ powers.
When the Scottish Government announced its plan to set up a new watchdog, LINK’s Chair, Charles Dundas, welcomed the proposal but added, summarising the nature of an effective watchdog:
We need a watchdog with teeth: real independence, the power to enforce protections, and the people, expertise and funds to do the job.
These three themes of independence, powers and resources will be used to examine the detail of the proposals in the bill.
Independent, unless it isn’t
In order to ‘replace’ the oversight functions of the European Commission and Court, LINK has consistently argued that any new watchdog(s) must be “truly independent of government” and that, for Scotland, this means ‘it will have to be appointed by and accountable to the Scottish Parliament.’ This view was supported by Professor Gemmell’s research which, based on international examples of environmental governance arrangements, proposed an independent Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. Our colleagues at Greener UK have sought similar independence for the UK Government’s proposed watchdog, which will deal with England, probably Northern Ireland, and any reserved matters.
The Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign has been pushing for an independent, well-resourced watchdog.
However, despite these proposals, neither the UK Government’s proposed “Office for Environmental Protection” (OEP) or the Scottish Government’s proposed ESS are truly independent. When the UK Government’s proposals for the OEP were first published, the Scottish Government was understood to be sceptical at the time– suggesting that a ‘non-departmental public body’ (NDPB) model provided insufficient independence. Yet, this is exactly what is now proposed for the ESS. Both governments have sought to include some reassurances about the independence of what are, otherwise, standard NDPBs – with members appointed by the relevant Ministers and with their budgets decided by those Ministers.
In Scotland, one supposed reassurance of independence provided in the legislation is that ‘Environmental Standards Scotland is not subject to the direction or control of any member of the Scottish Government.’ Yet, this provision is accompanied by an exception that it ‘is subject to any contrary provision in this or any other enactment.’ In other words, it is independent unless it isn’t! This exception should either be deleted or circumstances for its use clearly defined.
Rubber stamping?
The other alleged reassurance is that appointments to the board of ESS must be approved by the Scottish Parliament. This is welcome, but is at risk of being, or becoming, a ‘rubber stamping’ exercise. The bill itself should proscribe greater Parliamentary involvement in the selection process. This might, for instance, include provision for the relevant committee to specify role profiles for board members, or areas of expertise that must be represented. A committee might also nominate ‘rapporteurs’ to be involved in the recruitment/selection process.
LINK is calling for greater parliamentary involvement in the selection process for the ESS board. Image by Waldo Miguez from Pixabay
Future budgets for ESS will significantly define its future effectiveness. Yet, this is purely a matter for Ministers, as part of the normal, annual budget process for the Scottish Government and its agencies. This should be improved to ensure multi-annual, ring-fenced funding that cannot be ‘threatened’ by Ministers. In relation to the OEP, funding was recognised as crucial part of its independence, and UK Ministers have now made additional commitments, such as in their response to pre-legislative scrutiny of Environment Bill. Similar commitments are needed in Scotland.
The UK Environment Bill also requires the OEP to include, in its annual reports, an assessment of whether it has been provided ‘sufficient funds to carry out its purposes’. This allows more transparent scrutiny of ministerial decisions on funding, and such a provision should be added to the Scottish bill.
To address these issues and ensure that ESS is genuinely as independent as possible, the bill should be amended, or Ministers asked, to:
Delete the proposed exception to the prohibition on control or direction (Schedule 2, para 1(2)).
Enhance parliamentary oversight of appointments.
Consider multi-annual, ring-fenced funding arrangements with parliamentary scrutiny separate from the annual budget for the government.
Add a requirement for ESS to report on the adequacy of its funding.
International obligations
The general functions of the ESS are wide-ranging and, in principle, very welcome. Its high-level functions are:
to monitor compliance with environmental law,
to investigate if a public authority is failing (or has failed) to comply with environmental law, and
to take the steps to secure compliance with environmental law.
To carry out these broad functions the body then has a range of general and specific powers. The general powers are very wide-ranging and include matters such as ‘carry out or commission research’, ‘seek advice’, ‘review data’ and ‘make recommendations’. It is particularly welcome that they also include:
keep under review the implementation of international obligations related to the environment,
have regard to developments in international environmental law, and
collaborate with other environmental governance body in the UK, including the OEP.
These general powers are all welcome and will, if adequately resourced, make a significant contribution to replacing some roles of the EU institutions. However, if the Scottish Government is serious about ‘keeping pace’ with, and maintaining or exceeding EU standards, the power on developments in international law should specifically require regular reports on, and recommendations in relation to, how this might be achieved. In addition, reviewing ‘international obligations’ will also need to include work and advice on targets (e.g. the Aichi targets and their successors) as well as advice and recommendations to Scottish Ministers on how such targets should be set in Scotland.
These general powers are also accompanied by a variety of specific powers in relation to its investigation and enforcement functions, such as on information collection, improvement, compliance, and the ability to seek Judicial Review. These are also welcome – but, as the bill is currently drafted, they are unnecessarily restricted and will limit their effectiveness.
No individual decisions
First, ESS cannot use its powers related to ‘improvement’ and ‘compliance’ in relation to ‘any decision taken by a public authority in the exercise of its regulatory functions in relation to a particular person or case’. This is an extraordinary limitation of its role, with individual decisions, including casework, excluded from its remit. The Scottish Government attempts to justify this exclusion with a suggestion that that the ESS should focus on strategic issues, and not be overwhelmed by trivial matters. This argument neglects to take account of two factors. First, under current EU arrangements, by failures with individual decisions – and ESS’ internal operating processes could determine that a case, or cases, that raise issues of strategic importance are prioritised or accorded enhanced action. Secondly, these internal processes could also include a system to ensure that genuinely vexatious or trivial cases are not entertained.
It has also been suggested that this provision is because of a wish to ensure that the ESS does not, in effect, become an additional layer of appeal. However, this argument is disingenuous – as there is no doubt that the functions of the European Commission (EC) and the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) are (or were), in effect, an additional layer of appeal! If this argument is deployed, it undermines the Scottish Government’s claim to be replacing the functions of the EC/CJEU.
Indeed, casework – arising from complaints submitted by citizens, communities, and NGOs, made up most of the European Commission’s work (although the Commission was selective in choosing cases of strategic importance to pursue through all the stages, or to refer to the CJEU). To anyone from Scotland submitting such complaints, this extra European ‘layer of appeal’ is (or was) of great importance – because opportunities to appeal domestically are limited by poor provisions in relation to access to justice (e.g. Judicial Review in the UK is either prohibitively expensive or inappropriate because of its inability to address the ‘merits’ of the case).
The new watchdog proposed in the Continuity Bill will not be able to investigate complaints about specific, local breaches of environmental standards.
Finally, it should be noted that the proposed OEP will not be so constrained – and, indeed, has a specific ‘complaints’ provision (s.29 of Environment Bill). In Scotland, the ESS’ strategy has to address how it will ‘provide for persons (including members of the public, non-government organisations and other bodies) to make representations to it’ about issues of (alleged) failures to comply with environmental law. However, this seems less clear and specific than the proposed OEP complaints procedure – and there is no duty to investigate such representations (just to indicate how they will be ‘handled’).
Defining environmental law
The second serious limitation on the powers of ESS arises from the definition of ‘environmental law’, which is the legal term used to define all its enforcement powers (although not its research, monitoring and reporting functions). The definition in the Scottish bill is identical to that used in the UK bill and raises the same concerns – the ESS’ general powers in relation to international law are considerably better (see above) but the definition issue is the same.
The Scottish Government has a very welcome policy ‘to maintain or exceed EU standards’ and retain alignment with European and wider international environment law – a commitment the UK Government is unwilling to make (due to its underlying desire to ‘take back control’). Nevertheless, it is unclear whether ‘environmental law’, in this bill, includes such EU/international law that is not (or will not be) binding in domestic law. If not, ESS will be unable to use its specific enforcement powers to take improvement action against the Scottish Government if it fails to live up to its own aspirations. This issue should be clarified, or the bill amended to ensure that it is explicitly within the powers of ESS.
People, expertise, and funds
Any effective watchdog needs the resources to do its job. These include people, expertise, and funds. The bill itself makes no provision, positive or negative, in relation to resources; these will be a matter for the Scottish Government’s annual budget process as well as the decisions of the new body itself. However, the financial memorandum suggests the new body would require ‘funding of around £1.5 million a year, based on the budgets of similar bodies, such as the Office of the Informational (sic) Commissioner and the Scottish Fiscal Commission’. It further suggests that ‘a staff complement of around 20 is envisioned for the new body’.
This may or may not be sufficient funding to enable ESS to do its work – whether or not it is will depend on the number of complaints it receives and/or the number of issues of (alleged) non-compliance it investigates as well as how many of these prove to require enforcement action. At this stage, LINK will press Ministers to provide reassurance that, as these factors become known, resources are made available as required. This process will made more open and transparent if ESS is (as with the OEP) required to report on such matters and the sufficiency of its funding.
Interim arrangements
The UK is expected to leave the EU completely on 31 December 2020, at the end of the current transition period. Ideally, therefore, it would be best if the replacement governance mechanisms were in place and operational from 1 January 2021. While this bill may have been passed by that date, it is unlikely that implementation will be complete – including the establishment and operation of ESS.
There is, therefore, a need for some form of interim arrangements and it is welcome that the bill makes some provision for this. The bill refers to a ‘non-statutory Environmental Standards body’ and permits the members of such a body to become the initial members of ESS. It can thus be assumed that Scottish Ministers will establish this non-statutory body and enable it to begin appointing staff, developing strategy and procedures etc; indeed, recruitment for a chair and board members is now underway.
Such an interim, transitional arrangement is welcome – to limit any ‘governance gap’. However, it is also important (especially as the interim board will become the first formal board) that appointments are carried out adopting as much transparency and parliamentary engagement (see above) as possible. Ministers should also confirm that the interim body will be able to accept and investigate complaints from the public – and that, although formal enforcement action may not be possible until the body is legally vested, that such action will still be valid for issues arising during the interim period.
Delivering a genuine replacement
The Scottish Government is committed ‘to maintain or exceed EU environmental standards.’ Such standards should include the establishment and operation of appropriate governance mechanisms. It is therefore welcome that a new governance body, Environmental Standards Scotland, is being proposed. Cabinet Secretary, Michael Russell MSP, has said that this is being ‘established to replace the system of environmental governance provided by the institutions of the European Union which will be lost at the end of the transition’. It is notable that Mr Russell uses the word ‘replace’, suggesting that ESS should be able to carry out the full range of governance functions of the EU institutions – and to be able to do so as independently as those can at present. To fulfil this pledge and deliver a genuine replacement, the bill should be improved to address issues of independence and breadth of powers. Ministers should also provide reassurance regarding the adequacy of funding – and require ESS to report on its sufficiency.
Lloyd Austin is an honorary fellow of Scottish Environment LINK, and convenes its governance group.
This blog is published as part of the Scottish Environment LINK project: A Circular Economy for a Fairer Footprint.
It is clear that Scotland is at a crossroads, facing a challenge to respond to two defining emergencies. First, how do we recover from the economic and social consequences of the Covid-19 emergency? Second, how do we continue to focus on the environmental imperatives presented by our ongoing response to the climate emergency? The meeting point of these two agendas defines what I would mean by a green recovery.
What does a green recovery look like? In fact, what do we mean by “recovery”? An economist might see recovery as getting GDP and jobs back to where we were before Covid-19 hit. But a doctor would see recovery as getting a patient back to a place of health and wellbeing. This begs the question, how healthy was our economy, society and environment before the Covid-19 pandemic? Scotland’s recovery needs to balance the urgent economic, social and environmental priorities we face. Promoting reuse is central to a green recovery in Scotland and defining a new “post Covid” normal.
It is estimated, by Zero Waste Scotland, that 74% of Scotland’s carbon footprint results from our consumption of products and materials. Reducing this footprint is therefore the most important element of tackling the climate emergency. To do this we must move rapidly to a circular economy.
Most members of the public would say the best thing they can do with old household items is recycle them. This is not true – recycling is good, but reuse better, much better. Reuse is simply taking an item such as a bike or washing machine and using it again for its original purpose. This has a much lower carbon impact than breaking it down into its separate materials and recycling them, whilst at the same time manufacturing a replacement product.
There are social as well as environmental benefits to reuse too. For example, reuse creates more jobs than recycling. It has been calculated that processing 10,000 tonnes of waste creates 36 jobs in recycling but up to 296 jobs in reuse and repair.
Community Resources Network Scotland (CRNS) is Scotland’s national reuse, repair and recycling charity. Our latest member survey published in 2019 showed that our members divert over 37,000 tonnes of materials from landfill each year and significantly, for the first-time, reuse had overtaken recycling among our members. Our members are providing local solutions to the global climate emergency.
Each year Recyke-a-Bike diverts 12-15,000 bikes from landfill and last year 16.74 tonnes were reused. In Stranraer, the Reuse Shop is co-located with the council run Household Waste Recycling Centre so literal diversion from landfill could not be more convenient for the public. At CRNS our own Reuse Consortium has sold over 11,000 reuse furniture items to four local authorities generating over £1million of income for local social enterprises.
Our ambition is for reuse behaviour to become mainstream and be the convenient first choice for the Scottish public whether they are donating to a reuse social enterprise or taking items to their local authority recycling centre. Good quality reuse services at local authority recycling centres should not be a postcode lottery. There are some excellent examples of co-location (Stranraer, Moray and Oban), or zero waste sheds (Dunbar and Irvine) but these are the exception to the rule right now and this must change.
Our vision is for every local authority recycling centre in Scotland to offer a convenient and high-quality reuse option for the public. To achieve this, local authorities should be supported to work in partnership with local reuse social enterprises, ensuring local reuse opportunities are maximised for all.
As part of the green recovery, we are calling on the Scottish Government to define reuse best practice in a Reuse Charter or include reuse as a vital part of the existing Scottish Household Recycling Charter. Household Recycling Centres should be renamed Reuse Centres and include best practice provision for reuse as a convenient first choice for the public. Targets for reuse should be set for each local authority and monitored and reported annually (as already occurs for recycling). UK wide legislation for Extended Producer Responsibility could provide much needed funds to invest in this urgently needed reuse infrastructure.
Only by taking these actions can we be confident Scotland will make the rapid progress towards a circular economy needed to meet our climate change obligations. Reuse would also provide valuable jobs which would assist the wider recovery agenda.
Michael Cook
CEO Community Resources Network Scotland.
Michael Cook joined CRNS as CEO in September 2018. His early career was in the financial sector as a chartered accountant and in Change Management. Over the last decade Michael has benefited from a range of experience in the charitable sector, leading both the Scottish office of a medical charity working in West Africa and, subsequently, a large residential outdoor centre.
The arrival, early in May, of a pair of White-tailed eagles in the centre of Helsinki may not be a mark of great ecological improvement or even be a surprise to those of us who have seen these magnificent birds in other urban situations, for example along the Oder River on the Poland and German border. Birds are often simply opportunists and may not always be great ecological indicators. But as we have been pre-occupied with the Covid-19 lockdown changes, nature has maintained its natural course regardless and has responded to opportunities created by our relative lack of activity. Closer to home, in rural Perthshire, it seems to me that many animals became habituated quite quickly to an increase in walkers and cyclists. And reduction in overall “noise”. Farming and some forestry carried on as before, but I am sure that a variety of animals became much less wary of people. I have heard this from many other people too.
Another likely upside to lockdown may well have been less roadkill. Certainly, during lockdown, I found very few birds or mammals along the A9 or side roads. This though may now be changing as we all begin to get on the move again. Research carried out on the levels of mortality of birds along road corridors has identified that many birds become adapted to the traffic norm where they are. In particular, their collision avoidance behaviours are related directly to the speed of vehicles that they encounter regularly. Like us, they become habituated to their situation, but with that comes the peril of sudden changes. The chicks that fledged soonest this year may well end up being the least well adapted to our norms of traffic volume and speed. The behaviour of young deer, just recently born, may be similarly affected, although they at least get some parental guidance. But it certainly raises a question about the risk of increased deer vehicle collisions in the coming autumn and winter. A lesson from this is that change needs to be sustained if it is to have long term benefit – although more deer is a dubious benefit to which I’ll return.
As for my own behaviour, and keeping within current guidelines on exercise, I spent many hours exploring places close to home. I have to admit that I savoured the quiet landscape in which I can hear wildlife so much more clearly. From my house, on foot or by bike, and with limited use of public roads (I’ll say nothing here about the shameless blocking of core paths by certain land managers) I can reach hill tops at over 300m; one of Scotland’s great rivers, the Tay; and areas of lowland mire and ancient woodland. Despite the dominance of arable crops, there are many islands of wild nature. Hemmed in by barley and oil-seed rape and higher up by intensively managed heather and spruce, these fragile wonderful places are where everyday nature is flourishing. Seeing how nature is responding to the very small changes in lockdown it is easy to begin to imagine how these areas could quickly and easily become the start of something greater. And yet, they barely get a footnote in official conservation or land use policy. But what if we made a few permanent small changes to how much we plough, spray and burn? What potential might this land reveal if we could redraw the landscape even a little bit for nature and for ourselves?
Making more space for nature and setting limits on our impacts and activities are not new ideas. Perhaps the best outcome from the 50 years of thinking was the Lawton Report in 2010 – Making Space for Nature. Looking back it is hard to see that talk has delivered much progress in diversifying our landscapes and halting loss of locally diverse places, let alone reversing the decades of decline in biodiversity. Instead, we have promoted a series of exceptions to normality, special projects and special places, and temporary environmental schemes. These have absorbed most of our effort, money and time, and while we can point to some conservation successes, there is almost nowhere in Scotland, certainly in the lowlands, where we can point to landscape scale improvement for nature. Farmers and foresters are driven by markets they do not control, while the Scottish and UK Governments are currently planning for our post-EU environment, where cheap food imports and fewer environmental controls may create huge changes with many unforeseen and unintended consequences. On the hills and elsewhere, game managers continue to justify their practices in part by making claims to support other species – such as waders – yet they almost always create very artificial systems that are hostile to predators. Meanwhile, the ordinary places, where there is the greatest potential for ecological improvement at low cost, are not seen as special enough for action.
I have read with interest and delight the new SWT/SEPA Route Map for the £1Billion Challenge. Thinking about the nine stages identified in the route map as I walked around my local landscape, I also mused upon the gulf between its ambition and the potential of what might be done in everyday places. Sadly, we probably do need some of the bureaucracy identified in the route map – although my experience of the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy has done little to encourage much enthusiasm for biodiversity bureaucracy. The scale of the ambition is fine but on its own it will not scratch the surface of releasing local potential for nature. Any new approach needs to make explicit calls on engaging all local interests, those of land managers, communities, schools, walkers and visitors too. These people need to be given the responsibility and the means to come up with new ideas for nature in their landscapes. I would like to see communities link access with nature, and nature with education and well-being. That of course means rebalancing the equation between land managers, markets, community input and, most importantly, with public expectations.
What if just 1-2% of low ground and 5% of hill ground was to be given over to nature? Productivity might not change, but the change for nature would be immense, even without a grand plan. I don’t say this is the best course to take, but it wouldn’t be a bad one. For a long time, our attention has been fixed on the big issues of the day. Currently these include climate change and plastics and yesterday included protected areas and pesticides. What we are missing is seeing what is literally at our feet; the pair of peezies somehow holding on in a narrow piece of damp ground between the barley fields, the orange-tips thriving on the stands of cuckoo-flower on the road verge, the king-cup glowing in the undergrowth between the road and the railway. These are the things from which nature can and would spread given the chance. There is already a name for this process, (re)wilding. At its simplest, wilding may just be the process of allowing nature to regain some ground and to head off in its own direction.
In three hours, from my house, I could walk from the Tay, through ancient woods, past lowland mire, through regenerating birch in a forestry block, through scrub and parkland, alongside small lochans to the head dyke and the beginning of the hill ground, and yet I would spend most of the time surrounded by arable crops. If we could allow a bit more of wild nature in this landscape, we would have an ecological network, core paths along which to see and hear nature, an outdoor well-being clinic and classroom. The price would be little more than a change of heart. If every land manager did something and every community got to have a say, and there was a shared responsibility then finding the £1 Billion for putting the icing the cake might also be made easier. Working with and designing with nature should not be about exceptions, it should be the norm.
You may recall that I said I would return to roadkill, deer and roads. I started this blog with an observation that nature is very capable of adaptation when given the chance. This suggests that wilding a little everywhere would work to address biodiversity deficits. But it also raises other issues. Why, just by reducing road traffic and increasing walking, did deer become so much less timid? Perhaps, because they are so at ease in landscape where there is nothing trying to eat them. One reason for that is that we have lost space for species such as the lynx. One of the best ways to reverse that position would be to start wilding a bit everywhere as soon as possible and at some point, the idea of having lynx will seem normal too. It is not inevitable that we continue to lose biodiversity or that we will reverse past losses. Recovery of a little of what we’ve lost already may depend less on raising £1billion than on changing the mindset. If I may quote from a recent TV advertisement, conservation should be about expecting “the wonderful everyday”, everywhere and for everyone, without exception.
This blog is published as part of the Scottish Environment LINK project: A Circular Economy for a Fairer Footprint.
The recent lockdown has been the perfect opportunity to demonstrate that mindset and behaviour change can be positive. Look at what’s happened in just a few short weeks – transport down by 60%, air pollution reduced by 50%, we’ve been buying less, fixing more and sharing tools, toys, books and time with our communities. Let’s leverage that change to prepare Scotland’s schoolchildren for life in a resilient and buoyant Circular Economy. A circular economy (CE) is an alternative to a linear economy. A linear economy, which has increasingly characterised our economy in recent decades, follows an extract, make, use, dispose pattern. In contrast, a more circular economy aims to keep resources and materials in use for as long as possible, extracting the maximum value from them whilst in use and recovering products and materials from them at the end of each service life.
In a Circular Economy we will think, design, buy and work differently. We will understand that we need to take care of the world’s resources and keep them at their highest value for as long as possible to ensure that there is enough to go around. This will be reflected in the jobs we do, the holidays we take and the clothes we choose to buy.
The problem is that our current education system simply doesn’t equip us for life in a Circular Economy. We have all been educated to accept that economic growth is good and that the environmental and social costs of this do not concern us. Both our formal education and the structuring of our economy have formed us to crave and consume more and more things, while stripping away our ability to look after them.
So what needs to change? Firstly, and most fundamentally, we need a mindset change that enables us to understand the crushing impact of our current way of life and to commit ourselves to a world in which we can choose to consume less, share more and make things last. Instead of learning subjects in silos, we need to learn in a way that cultivates whole systems thinking, so that we can join up the dots and see the effect that buying a pair of jeans in Dundee might have on a woman in Dhaka; or getting a new smartphone in Glasgow could have on the rivers and wildlife of Pica. Secondly, we need to be trained in the new jobs and skills that a Circular Economy will bring – a 2015 report by WRAP estimated 205,000 new CE jobs by 2030 across a range of sectors. These will include jobs in re-use and remanufacture, and crucially, in design. The Ellen McArthur Foundation estimate that, “80% of environmental impacts are determined” at the design stage, so just imagine the impact if we could transform from linear to circular design.
How can we make this happen? We are lucky in Scotland that our Curriculum for Excellence, in which students are taught to make connections across the curriculum, rather than to learn subjects in silos and by rote, is the perfect bedrock for a successful CE education. We are lucky also to have a group of organisations dedicated to bringing about the Circular Economy working in schools across Scotland, including Young Enterprise Scotland, the Ellen McArthur Foundation, Veolia and Ostrero’s Making Circles design and making workshops.
However, what we really need is a national strategy for Circular Economy education – one that integrates a circular approach into the Curriculum for Excellence to ensure that every schoolchild in Scotland finishes school with a mindset in which making things last is the norm. To do this we need joined up thinking across all sectors and input from Education Scotland, the Scottish Government and Zero Waste Scotland, using evidence and experience from those already working on delivering the CE in Scotland’s schools. We need hands-on training centres to ensure we are learning the relevant skills, we need to stimulate circular design and circular business models – but the first and most essential step is to achieve true mindset change for all learners, which will in turn lead to the behavioural change required. A similar approach in Finland has resulted in the hugely successful Circular Classroom.
The National Museum of Scotland has an online display capturing the experiences of Scotland’s children through lockdown, and which aspects of lockdown they think can help us build back an economy that respects the environment. Their answers show that a major mindset change is possible, and indeed, has already happened in lockdown. One nine year-old wrote: “When schools went on strike for climate action, lots of people said we wouldn’t be able to get people to change how they live. The lockdown is proof that we CAN change how we live to help our planet. We can live without shopping for joy and we can travel less or in a pollution-free way – and we can still be happy!” Children wrote about how neighbours are sharing tools, plants, books and toys; how the reduction in pollution has meant they can hear the birds singing more clearly and see more wildlife; how technology is enabling them to keep in touch with friends and family without them having to travel; and how, because it’s harder to get to the shops, they are repairing their clothes and toys instead of buying new ones.
Education is not all about what children learn from their teachers. Let’s make sure we all learn from the experiences of Scotland’s children during this extraordinary time, and ensure that we respect their ideas for growing the Circular Economy in Scotland.
Mary Michel is the Co-Director of Ostrero, which works to grow the Circular Economy in Scotland through a variety of projects, including Making Circles, a series of circular design and making workshops for schools and universities across Scotland. She is a Trustee of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Scotland and Vice Chair of Craft Scotland.
If you believe your local environment is being harmed due to the failure of a public body to meet environmental standards, you can raise an official complaint and request an investigation. Well, you can until the end of December 2020, that is, when the Brexit transition period ends.
A major benefit of EU membership is that it allows individuals and organisations to complain to the European Commission, bringing specific, local cases of environmental damage to light. Often, the judgements in such cases have set important precedents in environmental law.
Scotland’s environment charities, alarmed by the risk posed to our unique wildlife and landscapes by the loss of EU protections, have been calling since 2018 for new Scottish laws to maintain and build upon these crucial safeguards. The Fight for Scotland’s Nature campaign has gathered support from almost one hundred organisations across Scottish society, and from more than 22,000 individuals who wrote to Nicola Sturgeon to call for new legislation.
Green recovery
In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting lockdown have brought a heightened awareness of the importance of our natural environment for our health and wellbeing, and of the inequalities in access to nature. As we emerge from the crisis, maintaining and building upon high environmental standards will be essential in achieving a green economic recovery by ensuring our natural habitats and wildlife are protected.
Campaigners were pleased, therefore, when in June the Scottish Government published its long-awaited EU Continuity Bill, outlining how it plans to fill the major gaps that will be left in Scotland’s environmental protections.
So, are the Scottish Government’s plans up to scratch?
They’re certainly a very welcome step in the right direction. But we believe the new law will need to be much stronger if it is to maintain the level of protection that EU membership has brought to Scotland’s world class natural environment.
First, the good news
The Continuity Bill meets a key demand of our campaign by embedding four key environmental legal principles, applied until now by the EU, into Scots law. These include the principle that where there is reasonable concern that an activity could be harmful, it should not be carried out unless it can be proved to be safe. In Scotland, this has underpinned action against fracking, neonicotinoids and genetically modified crops. They also include the principle that polluters should pay for the environmental damage they cause, which has helped drive up the quality of Scotland’s drinking water and beaches.
Barra
Also on the plus side, the bill sets up a new watchdog, to be called Environment Standards Scotland, to monitor and investigate public bodies’ compliance with environmental law. The need for a watchdog to replace the oversight and enforcement roles of the European Commission, European Court of Justice and other EU bodies is another key demand of our campaign. The new organisation outlined in the bill goes some way towards meeting this.
A watchdog that won’t listen?
Now for the bad news. Unfortunately, the new watchdog has two major weaknesses.
While it will be able to investigate complaints, it will only be able to take enforcement action on those relating to broad deficiencies in government policy or strategy. This means that specific complaints of the kind dealt with by the EU system won’t be addressed. We believe this deprives citizens of an essential means of making their voices heard and getting justice on environmental matters.
The watchdog set out in the bill also lacks teeth. Scottish Government ministers will appoint its senior officials, with little oversight from parliament, which could seriously compromise its ability to impartially investigate complaints and force public bodies to up their game. The strength of the EU institutions lies in their independence, and the new Scottish body is not sufficiently independent from government.
No going back
Aside from the weaknesses of the proposed watchdog, environment charities are disappointed with the extent to which the bill provides for ‘keeping pace’ with EU law after the Brexit transition period ends. Scottish environment secretary Roseanna Cunningham said in 2019 that the Scottish Government had committed to maintain or exceed current EU environment standards. But there’s nothing in the bill to explicitly prevent standards being rolled back. And while the bill enables Scottish government ministers to align with improvements in environmental standards at EU level, it doesn’t require them to do so. We think it should. Otherwise, we risk becoming once again the ‘dirty man of Europe’ of the 1970s.
Here’s how the bill can be strengthened
We want the Scottish Parliament to amend the Continuity Bill so that it:
empowers the new watchdog to take enforcement action on complaints about specific decisions affecting people’s environment
strengthens the watchdog’s independence to ensure it has teeth to enforce environmental protections
requires Ministers to maintain or exceed EU environmental standards.
The bill is at the very beginning of its passage through parliament, and with your continued support we’re hopeful that public pressure and parliamentary scrutiny will result in new laws with the strength to protect Scotland’s iconic natural environment.
A version of this blog featured in The Scotsman on 9 July 2020.
The Covid crisis and associated lockdown has brought into sharp focus many aspects of our life, our society and our economy; what is important to us and how well equipped we are to deal with sudden shocks. The recovery package being considered by the Scottish Government offers an opportunity to set our economy on a different trajectory – one that allows us to live well within Earth’s limits.
Prior to the recent abrupt downturn in economic activity, our economy was eating its way through the world’s natural resources at a rate that was both unsustainable from an environmental point of view and undesirable from an economic resilience point of view. The world’s consumption of materials has hit a record of 100 bn tonnes a year, and the proportion being recycled is falling – was the sobering headline from January’s Circularity Gap report.
What’s more, the quantity of raw materials consumed is a key driver of our climate and nature emergencies according to the 2019 Global Resource Outlook. Unsurprisingly, Western societies are the main culprits. We are consuming far more than our fair share and if everyone lived like UK citizens, we would need about 3 Earths to sustain ourselves, according to ecological footprint data.
We need to move to one planet, to re-programme our economy from one that ‘takes, makes, uses and discards’ to one that ‘takes less, makes to last, uses repeatedly, and recycles what’s left’. This is called a circular economy. Also essential to a circular economy is that it is restorative, regenerating the natural systems on which we all rely.
The economic fallout from Covid is going to be huge and governments around the world are thinking about and announcing recovery packages. The Scottish Government has committed to a green recovery. Now is the time for a purposeful redirection to a less wasteful, and more circular economy.
In order for this to happen, we need to invest in enterprises which contribute to a circular economy and create the markets for them to thrive. We need products that are designed to last a long time and producers to be responsible for the whole life cycle of their products; we need a coordinated approach not only to recycling, but also to repair, re-use and sharing; and we need to incentivise the use of used and recycled materials so that they loop back into the system. We need investment in infrastructure that enables a less polluting and wasteful economy and we need joined up policies, so that circularity is embedded across all facets of the economy.
The current crisis has exposed the vulnerability of our international and just-in-time supply chains. The time is both critical and opportune – many businesses have been disrupted due to the lockdown and are being forced to rethink business models, and the adaptive nature and ingenuity of some enterprises has been inspiring. There are examples in the food sector of increased demand for locally produced and sustainable food. Let’s build on these initiatives and reappraise our food and farming system so that more of the food produced in Scotland is consumed in Scotland, there is less waste, both by households but also further up the supply chain, and the footprint of Scottish farming is reduced. We need to think about sources of protein, following examples in other countries, to help steer us away from imported soya towards innovative use of by-products for animal and fish food and more home-grown protein. There are already innovative examples such as using insects to turn food waste into fish food and fertiliser, and the potential is huge.
It is time to be bold and decisive – governments need to invest in the infrastructure and enterprises that will contribute to the type of economy we aspire to and to not support practices that lock us into a linear, polluting and wasteful economy.
Let’s hope that a more circular economy is one of the positive outcomes of this difficult time.
Dr Phoebe Cochrane is the Sustainable Economics Officer at Scottish Environment LINK and leads on the project: A Circular Economy for a Fairer Footprint
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
