The UK is on track to achieve its renewable energy and waste recovery targets, suggesting a broader legislative approach is having the desired effect.
(Graph by the Department of Energy & Climate Change and National Statistics)
The UK’s improved environmental performance and active participation within European environmental policy debate is a result of the EU targets we have agreed to meet and, as the renewable energy graph above demonstrates, are doing well to achieve.
For many years now we’ve worked with and met packaging, WEEE and battery targets – and even with environmental measures and targets, each of these sectors has experienced new business development, increased consumer and business services and technological and industrial innovation, as well as what we see as being vitally important: resource efficiency benefits.
The impact of energy security and legislation aiming to change our old ways is another tool being used to persuade us to move towards more effective and controlled energy usage. You may have seen news stories about the UK energy supply being put at risk this winter due to lack of supply, for example. Drawing attention to the supply and demand of energy in this way can protect the UK from these risks by encouraging the country to conserve energy wherever possible.
Energy audits carried out by ecosurety as part of our ESOS compliance service have shone a light on energy consumption via data analysis; highlighting the consumption sources that cause increasing bills, wastage and poor setup, all of which can be easily remedied.
The UK is on track to achieve its renewable energy and waste recovery targets, suggesting a broader legislative approach is having the desired effect. This has still allowed positive growth inside UK Plc and has shown improvements in how we manage and handle our wastes. Some performance is led by the market demand (e.g. material prices), but even when the market fails the legislative back-stop allows the UK to achieve targets, helping to maintain our leadership role inside Europe on environmental standards.
As long as UK businesses continue to adhere to the current regulations set out by government, ecosurety believes the UK performance will remain on track and here's why:
The explosion in solar energy across Germany, UK and perhaps next in the USA, shows that to support new clean energy technology, government intervention is needed. However ecosurety is not in favour of the sudden change of direction that then puts businesses affected by the clean energy technology sector at risk. Instead, ecosurety wants to see more consultation with industry to coordinate longer term strategic plans to promote and introduce green technology. This will steadily remove the incentives government can offer, allowing the open market to naturally support the implementation of green energy technology.
To book a free meeting with one of our ESOS Auditors, simply call 0845 0942228 to review your energy usage. We’ll then give you a bespoke solution to both comply with ESOS and drive savings to your business.
Innovation and Policy Director
Robbie is innovation and policy director at Ecosurety. Having spent years building an intimate understanding of the industry’s policies and politics, he uses this knowledge to help shape new legislation and oversees Ecosurety’s growing portfolio of cross-industry innovation projects including Podback and the Flexible Plastic Fund. He has worked closely with Defra during the most recent packaging consultations, outlining the impacts and required transitional arrangements of the UK’s new EPR system and is a member of the government’s Advisory Committee on Packaging (ACP). He is also a spokesperson for the company and regularly uses his influence to communicate the importance of environmental responsibility to external stakeholders.
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ecosurety’s ESOS lead assessors are busy completing energy audits right now on behalf of members, ahead of the final report and ESOS submission deadline of 5 December 2015.
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