Christmas and Consumerism

The consumerism of Christmas always highlights to me the difficulties that we face in reducing our environmental impacts.  Finding resourceful solutions to these problems will take time, but I am encouraged by the increasing role of the circular, or closed loop, economy.

One only has to look at the tenders that WRAP have been putting out this year to see that the shift to resource security and new ways of working is well underway.  To many people, the waste sector is one that is focussed on the stuff we throw away.  But for those of us working in it, it has always been about the resources we use, and how to use them better, with less impact.  As the world shrinks and economies grow, the way we use these resources becomes more important.  Back in 1972 the Club of Rome wrote the first Limits to Growth report, arguing for the importance of the environment and the things it provides for us.  At the time, the counter-argument won the day, as in economic terms, resources that are valuable will never run out, just become increasingly expensive.

Now, with the growth of China and the BRICS and the ever-consuming populations, the limits to growth arguments are once again reaching the mainstream.  It is not only the coal or the rare earth minerals that we should be concerned about, but also the ability of the ecosystems to provide the vital services we need - clean water and air.

I went to a fascinating Green Alliance event last week that explored the issue of resource resilience and security.  We talk regularly about energy security, but our economy also needs resource security, or resilience, if it is to be sustainable.  Hence the new focus on different models of business, where products are leased, not sold.  Where jobs are created in service and maintenance if not in production.  Where new organisations, such as the Ellen Macarthur Foundation are aiming to educate the next generation.  If this is the way we are headed, then I am feeling positive about 2012.  So as you unwrap those presents, the challenge is to see if you can think of a different way for the wrapping paper industry to work.  Merry Christmas!

Call for innovative local authorities

Low and Behold is managing an innovation project on behalf of the Local Government Association.  We will investigating the impact of food waste disposers in domestic households; both in terms of residual waste reduction and the impact on the sewage system.


Food waste macerators, or disposers (FWD), are an interesting piece of kit.  In theory they could reduce the amount of food waste going into the residual waste stream; but if they do it will still be counting as disposal, not recycling.  In theory, they could reduce vehicle movements by sending the material through the existing sewage system to AD; but they could also block the sewers.


This pilot is aiming to build the evidence base in this country, so that authorities, and government, can give advice and base policy on the facts.


We are currently looking for innovative local authorities or housing associations that are interested in finding out more.


If you are an English authority and have a new build or refurbishment housing project underway or planned for 2012/13, then please do get in touch.

The Catch-22 of Community AD

In early 2008 I came up with what I thought was a  fantastically unique idea to develop a community-owned anaerobic digester in  North Herefordshire.  I thought the idea was so good that I wrote an application to NESTA’s Big Green Challenge for some funding and duly found out that a nice chap down the road called Jay had written an almost identical business plan.  And so as Jay and I were introduced, Project LeAD (Leominster’s Anaerobic Digester) was born.

Three years, and much hard work later, we still do not have our community-owned AD plant built, but we have learned a great deal along the way. Thanks to the time given by both our businesses, Low and Behold and Biologic Design, and the financial and business support provided by Sharenergy and ReAlliance, we have been able to delve deep into the world of community ownership and AD.

When we started our project, the impetus was to support the local economy.  The plan has always been to develop an asset that could deal with the waste from local farms and food producers, create renewable energy and a financial return that could be used locally, and a product that would help our farmers become less reliant on chemical fertilisers.  The closed loop nature of the project made it an ideal candidate for community ownership.  At our first public meeting, two years after the idea was born, over eighty people turned up and without a doubter, all offered their support and most offered to invest their money.

The project identified a site, conveniently located on the outskirts of town and secured a potential heat client in the form of the local swimming pool, which was willing to discuss a long-term contract.  The legislative environment was good, with the introduction of feed-in-tariffs being imminent and the Renewable Heat Incentive in the pipeline.  However the plant is not yet built and the experience highlights some of the issues for the development of community-owned assets and of AD.

The first unexpected and interesting issue raised by this project was around what constitutes a community.  For Project LeAD the idea of a community was geographic: the project would operate for the benefit of a market town and its surrounding area and in an ideal world, the investors would mainly come from the county.  We gained support from the Co-operative Enterprise Hub to investigate how to develop a co-operative model that would reflect this; support that was based on our definition of community. 

However the question was often asked whether it would be possible to raise the finance in such a limited area.  For the 20,000 tonne per annum plant modelled it was estimated that 50% of the equity, approximately £1million, would be raised through a community share offer.  If the money could not be raised within a geographic area, but had to found further afield, would this still be a ‘community’ owned project?  If the definition of community were widened to mean a community of interest, for example, and investors came from all over the country, would that still be community-ownership?  Or does that take a project too far from its original purpose?

We were confident that with a return to investors of 6-8% and the tax benefits from the EIS, that the fin ance could be raised locally.  In fact, many of the stages of development that we thought initially would be problematic turned out to be straightforward.  A number of suitable sites were identified; a local business partnership was established to spread digestate and relationships built with farmers who would take the material; food producers and farmers with slurry who were keen to work with us were introduced and the technological options for our feedstock mix were appropriate and cost-effective.

The Catch-22 situation arose when it came to getting commitments in writing.  We needed to have feedstock contracts in place for 75% of the total volume in order to access the finance.  But when it came to sitting down with identified feedstock suppliers to agree the Heads of Terms, we were unable to reach agreement.  What was the main reason for the unwillingness of companies to sign a contract? Because we had not yet built the plant.  Yet the plant could not be built without the finance which could not be accessed without the feedstock contracts.  And so we went round in circles; the classic Catch-22.

Project LeAD expanded and incorporated, becoming Marches AD CIC.  The expansion brought with it the Cwm Harry Land Trust who had an existing IVC and food waste collection service.  Partner farmers guaranteed a slurry baseload, but still we could not reach the magical 75% target.

The problem with an unwillingness to sign contracts came ironically, with the increased awareness and confidence in the AD market.  In 2008 when we spoke to potential partners, any hesitancy was around the capability of the technology.  By 2010/11 this had changed and an unwillingness to sign a feedstock contract was based on the perception that the market was changing rapidly and that a better deal could be reached if the feedstock provider waited.  We were told that because it would take 18 months to build and commission a plant, anyone signing a contract now could lose out from potential falls in the gate fee that could happen during that time as more facilities came on-stream.  Feedstock providers increasingly asked why they should commit to anyone when the market was on the cusp of being ‘flooded’ with facilities.  So we found ourselves in the peculiar situation of being stymied by the increased awareness and promotion of AD as a solution to an organic waste problem.

For communities thinking of owning and developing their own renewable energy infrastructure, there is a valuable lesson to be learnt from this experience: feedstock contracts are key.  While skills, expertise, site and technology all have an important part to play and will be critical in the operation of a plant, the project will not be able to overcome the Catch-22 of financing without the feedstock contracts.  As the organics processing market develops and more facilities are built, the problem is likely to become greater. 

The gate fee for food wastes is indeed falling.  We shall have to wait and see whether this knocks some of the fledgling players out of the market as in the short-term there are likely to be significant pressures on gate fees.  However the reality is that policy has been the key driver of AD, as a response to both the Landfill Directive and the need for increased renewable energy.  The solar industry has already suffered from unexpected changes to the FIT regime and the uncertainty over the stability of future funding makes it even harder to raise finance for infrastructure projects.  Politics has, on the one-hand, blown hot air into the AD industry and given the perception that the market is about to explode, which in our case made it difficult to get those critical feedstock contracts.  While on the other hand, policy, from FITs to the Waste Review, is making the investment environment less certain.  All of this does not mean a bleak future for AD or community ownership, but it does make it harder for new entrants to the market.

Project LeAD is on hold, but not dead.  We have become more inventive in our approach and are now looking at potential joint-ventures.  The community is still enthusiastic about owning an asset and 18^th October sees the launch of Leominster Community Solar, a 50kw PV array on the local sports centre, again developed by Sharenergy.  While the AD may not be built, the opportunities for other communities to learn from this experience are great and it is hoped that with our support, a community-owned AD will be built in the Marches.

Philippa Roberts MCIWM is the Managing Director of Low and Behold.

Project LeAD and Marches AD CIC were supported by WRAP as part of the ReAlliance, The Third Sector Capacity Building Programme.  Two reports were commissioned, and three-months of staff time were supported, by Sharenergy as part of a project funded by AWM.   Legal support was provided by Community First, through the Co-operative Enterprise Hub, an initiative of the Co-operative Group.  More information about the learning from this project can be found on www.lowandbehold.co.uk

 This article first appeared in the CIWM Journal, November 2011

Binning Bin Taxes

Eric Pickles announced yesterday that the government should treat people with respect as he removed one of the tools that was available to local government for reducing waste

In this case localism is perhaps as much a victim in this case as the ‘pay as you throw’ (PAYT) scheme originally proposed by Labour. If we are to really change the way that we deal with our waste, we need to reduce, reuse and recycle. PAYT gave local authorities the option of linking part of council tax to the amount of waste produced. Those who produced large amounts would have been charged more, but those who reduced their total waste, either through recycling or through consuming less, would have been rewarded. Now this tool is no longer available.

The irony of the Conservatives’ favoured scheme is that householders are rewarded for recycling more, which perversely can come from consuming more. When rewards are based on the weight of your recycling, then why not buy the biggest and heaviest weekend paper you can find? And then use your rewards to buy more stuff that you can recycle to get more rewards?

Incentives have a place to play in changing behaviour, that much is clear. But rewarding good behaviour by encouraging consumption will not help us reduce and reuse, only recycle. Waste policy has just taken one step forward and two steps back.

This article first appeared on ProgressOnline in June 2010.

Technology solutions to climate change can be hugely effective - and do not need to be expensive

This is the third in the series of LabourList link-ups with SERA during the Copenhagen summit.

One of the first rules of journalism is apparently “simplify, then exaggerate’. Judging from some of the press coverage and subsequent comments in the new media from the Copenhagen Summit this week, the rule appears to hold true.

While it is easy to become bogged down in arguments over leaked data and the number of flights being taken by delegates to Copenhagen, the principles of Copenhagen should be undisputed.  Principles of equality and social justice need to be at the core of these discussions, for it is always those that are least resilient who will be hardest hit.

Those who argue against the a global agreement state that it will either be prohibitively expensive or that it is a form of neo-colonialism that will stop poorer countries from developing. Technology transfer one of the key issues being discussed in Copenhagen this week. The Carbon Trust argues against technology transfer saying that either the technology does not exist yet, or the infrastructure (human and physical) is missing in the developing world to take it up. This misses the point somewhat in that it assumes all technological solutions must be high-tech and therefore expensive.

Climate Frontline, a recent NGO-produced document, details the low-tech and local adaptation strategies being used in Africa, supported by charities such as Concern Universal. A British sustainable designer, Emily Cummins, recently created a sustainable fridge which requires no electricity and is now used in Africa to store medicines. Small-scale renewable energy generators do not require large-scale national grid infrastructure and provide economic opportunities at a local level, such as those being promoted by SolarAid. Importantly, these are technologies that already exist.

Such solutions are not necessarily expensive and are often community-based, but they do require support.  Labour’s commitment to international development, as explained by Douglas Alexander in SERA’s latest pamphlet, is critical in providing this support and intrinsically linked to whatever is agreed in Copenhagen this month. Our basic principle of equality, and equality of opportunity to face new challenges, is fundamental to these global debates.

This article first appeared on Labour List in December 2009.