As a responsible and ethical compliance scheme, ecosurety has always had a strong voice when it comes to communicating our members’ interests to the regulators behind Producer Responsibility law.
The regulator can be the UK Environment Agency, DEFRA or BIS, depending on the regulation, and it can take time for proposed improvements to come to fruition. One significant improvement proposed by ecosurety back in 2013 has recently been accepted by the regulators - and it’s set to make a life easier for obligated producers.
Rolling authorisation form
In a nutshell, the annual Approved Signatory Form is now a thing of the past for both packaging and batteries producers. Instead, the Environment Agency will now accept a rolling authorisation form, which means compliance schemes will no longer be required to request one year after year.
“We’re pleased that our lobbying efforts have brought about this result. We’ve known for a long time that the sign-off of information by a director or company secretary each year creates significant burdens for our members, so this new provision is very welcome.” client services manager Lizzie Elbourn commented. “We’re hoping that amendments will be made to the WEEE regulations soon to provide producers with better coherence across all of the producer responsibility regulations.”
Influencing change
In response to this announcement Andrew Norris, PHS Group Quality & Environmental Compliance Manager said “We welcome any change that reduces the administrative burden of the regulations. Every year when we go through the process, I’ve hoped that it could be simplified. We’re glad to hear that ecosurety have played a part in influencing this change.”
ecosurety is set to continue lobbying the regulators on behalf of our members with recommended changes that will positively impact members and improve on the spirit of the Producer Responsibility Directives.
If you would like to discuss how these changes impact you, please do not hesitate to contact our team of specialists.
Robbie Staniforth
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.
Useful links
The UK does not yet have comprehensive EPR systems in place, but that is set to change. Are you ready?
Read More >>The online Report Packaging Data portal is now live for large producers to complete enrolment and nominate their compliance scheme by 1 October.
Read More >>The ZAP project, funded by the Ecosurety Exploration Fund, was launched by the Alliance for Sustainable Development (ASBP) to help reduce the quantity of avoidable packaging plastic waste in construction, much of which is not recycled.
Read More >>
