Source: BusinessGreen

Businesses and enviromental campaigners will today call on the government to strengthen its plans for greater resource efficiency, warning the UK is facing a looming natural resources crisis that will drive up costs and “pile pressure on already fragile and depleted ecosystems”.

Friends of the Earth and EEF, the manufacturers association, will today send a joint letter to the government warning that if the UK does not develop an urgent and ambitious strategy to keep valuable raw materials circulating within the economy the consequences for UK industry will be “severe”.

The cost of raw materials such as steel, wheat, and rubber has skyrocketed in recent years, and the recent rises are expected to escalate as three billion people join the global middle classes over the coming decades.

A recent EEF survey found 80 per cent of senior manufacturing executives considered limited access to raw materials was already a business risk and a threat to growth. One in three companies identified resource shortages as the top risk they faced.

Specifically, the organisations are calling for the creation of an Office of Resource Management, which could co-ordinate activity across Whitehall to boost resource efficiency.

They will also launch an action plan, calling for a ban on recyclable materials being sent to landfill or energy from waste plants, and arguing that the government should establish a task force to review its existing targets on recycling and resource management.

Together, they argue, these actions could help create tens of thousands of jobs, protect the environment, and help revitalise the economy.

“We live in an age where demand for resources is surging with prices increasing and concerns about shortages mounting,” said Gareth Stace, EEF head of climate and environment policy.

“Government must now step up its ambitions and produce a wider plan of action that deals with the challenges not just now but in the longer term. This is vital not just from an environmental perspective but to ensure the long-term sustainable future for manufacturing and the wider economy.”

His comments were echoed by Friends of the Earth resource campaigner Julian Kirby, who urged ministers to respond to calls from businesses for a more co-ordinated resource management strategy.

“The UK buries and burns at least £650m a year of valuable materials – wasting billions of pounds of business and public money,” he said. “David Cameron must address the incoherent approach to resource security his government has taken so far. A new Office of Resource Management would ensure all departments create jobs and boost the economy by slashing the waste of natural resources.”