Why joining the government Advisory Committee on Packaging matters

I was honoured to have recently been appointment to the ACP - here's why the committee is needed now more than ever.

There could not be a better time to join the Government’s Advisory Committee on Packaging. While stalwarts of packaging and resources industries have kept the creaking Packaging Recovery Note system going through troubled times over the last decade, now is the time for the committee’s advice to look beyond operational aspects and create an improved system that delivers better outcomes.

After much discussion, since the launch of the Government’s Resources and Waste Strategy in 2018, the country is now into the business-end of the decision-making process. The expert committee must help to guide the Government through the tricky terrain of setting up a whole new regulatory environment for packaging.

Governmental advisory groups have earned much greater acclaim in the last year as the need for expert advice was heightened in the response to COVID-19. From the reaction of the public, it would appear that citizens have not “had enough of experts”, as one former Environment Minister put it.

Although the importance of an advisory committee on packaging is not nearly as acute the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), the tendency to demote environmental issues in the policy pecking order is an entrenched governing principle that must be urgently addressed as climate issues themselves become of critical importance.

Impressive breadth and depth of expertise

I have been impressed so by the breadth and depth of expertise within the committee and the collaborative approach taken towards gaining consensus on key issues. However, as with any advice-giving group, the recommendations are only as good as the data they are based on. To put it simply, the quality of data relating to packaging and recycling is simply not good enough and will have to form a major part of the new and improved regulatory system in the UK.

The major shift in the estimated cost of policy changes between the Government’s impact assessments of 2019 and 2021 shows the difficulty in obtaining reliable data from which to base evaluations. Given the rigorous assessment criteria for committee members, there will simply have to be room for expert opinion in the absence of good data.

Due to the time commitments of the committee, I will step down as Chair of the Packaging Scheme Forum from 1 July 2021. Having led the collaboration of expertise and ideas within the packaging compliance scheme community for the last few years, I will miss the facilitative duties that I am so passionate about. Good collaboration is powerful but not easy, even more so when the collaboration is between competing companies in a market context.