Changes to SWMP

By Lachlan Fulton

From the 1 December 2013 there will be no legal requirment to prepare a site waste management plan (SWMP).

The repeal of the legislation was proposed in 2012 by Defra in response to the Government’s Red Tape Challenge (an initiative designed to remove the burden of ‘unnecessary’ legislation on business). 

A consultation followed and in August 2013 it was concluded that as the majority of respondents indicated they would continue to use a SWMP in some form, it made sense to remove the legislation for the few who found the process unwieldy.

Although not a legal requirement, a SWMP will however continue to be a tool that can be applied to any project to help identify both financial and environmental savings. The financial argument will grow with the increase in the Landfill Tax scheduled in April 2014. This increase will see the cost for disposing active waste* to landfill reach an unprecedented £80 per tonne and will not fall below this until at least 2020.

In addition to the escalating financial costs, it is worth noting that there are also no plans to remove the production of a SWMP as a measure in BREEAM or SKA.*Active waste (opposed to inert waste) includes wood, ductwork, piping and plastics.

Counting our carbon

By Lachlan Fulton

Despite the uncertainty over carbon policy in the UK, Rider Levett Bucknall has developed and launched its first Carbon Management Plan to steer the company to a low carbon future.

With questions over the future of ECO, the carbon floor price, the CRC, and the fourth carbon budget, it is clear that government is conflicted about the best strategy to rescue the economy whilst meeting our national carbon reduction targets. This debate rages against a backdrop of warnings from Nicholas Stern that his 2006 review 'The Economics of Climate Change' underestimated the cost of climate change and the IPCC's fifth report stating that they are now 95 per cent confident that people are the main cause of current global warming.

At Rider Levett Bucknall these warnings are enough to trigger action and we have set ourselves some ambitious targets to demonstrate our conviction. Reducing our absolute CO2 emissions by 20 per cent by 2014/15 (against 2010/11 base year) represents a significant challenge for us, especially considering the company's forecasted levels of growth. We are however confident that this target is achievable through the delivery of our carbon management projects.

For more information on what is included within our 20 per cent reduction target and how we will meet it, please access our Carbon Management Plan here.