Notification of project commencement: Standardisation Roadmap to support

Waste Regulations

This statement is in response to an open letter from Lord Henley (Parliamentary Under-Secretary) and Mark Prisk MP (Minister for Business and Enterprise) regarding the Government’s intentions to review waste policies. The British Standards Institution (BSI) have engaged with the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the Environment Agency (EA), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) and Waste Watch as a first step in a project to produce a Standardisation Roadmap to support Waste Regulations.

This project team, headed by BSI, will look to answer the following questions to ascertain exactly what role standards should play in helping industry demonstrate compliance with the current permitting regime (i.e. Environmental Permitting Regulations) in an efficient manner:

•  What standards exist that do and/or could support compliance with waste regulation and waste permits?

•  What schemes already exist to support compliance with waste regulations and waste permits?

•  What are the standards gaps?

•  What standards could be developed to assist industry in demonstrating compliance with waste regulations and waste permits?

•  How can standards further support waste regulation and enable industry to comply with it effectively and efficiently?

•  How effective are the existing tools and mechanisms with regards to advising waste management permitting?

•  What specific compliance issues faced by industry can be resolved with the aid of standards?

•  What cost savings and other benefits can be achieved according to industry?

To meet the above objectives, BSI will undertake extensive research into applicable standards, schemes and regulatory initiatives in conjunction with the project partners. The information generated as a result of this research will be used to engage with individual industries across the wider waste management operations sector, selected on the basis of agreed selection criteria (e.g. amount of waste produced, amount of regulation in the sector and current usage of standards and certification).

High priority operations will form the topic of 3 industry-specific workshops with the goal of obtaining the viewpoints of those directly affected by waste regulations and permitting.

The overall objectives of this project are:

•  Promote adherence to standards as a means of providing a high degree of assurance of compliance with waste regulations

•  Lower the burden of regulation on compliant businesses

•  Identify which waste operations may be suitable for “lighter touch” regulation with support from standards, certification and accreditation

•  Help the EA to focus on poor performance and illegal activity rather than well managed businesses

•  Work with industry to identify and realize cost savings, reputational and other benefits.

At the project’s conclusion, BSI will provide a report encompassing key findings from the above research and stakeholder engagement activities and providing recommendations on the way forward.

For further information concerning this project, please contact:

BSI – Matt Bonnamy ()

BIS – David Styles ()

DEFRA – John Galvin ()

EA – Duncan Giddens ()

UKAS – David Hayward ()

Waste Watch – Claudia Kuss-Tenzer ()