Delivering Scotland’s circular economy: a consultation on proposals for a Circular Economy Bill

Context and Purpose

The Environment Strategy for Scotland  creates an overarching framework for Scotland’s strategies and plans on the environment and climate change.  It sets out a guiding vision for Scotland’s environment and our role in tackling the global climate and nature crises.  One of the outcomes supporting this vision is that we use and re-use resources wisely and have ended the throwaway culture. Scotland’s circular economy and waste policies will play a key role in achieving this.

Making Things Last: a circular economy strategy for Scotland  was published in 2016. This integrated elements of the Zero Waste Plan (2010) and Safeguarding Scotland’s Resources (2013). It also set out a range of priority areas, namely:

• Food and drink, and the broader bio-economy.
• Remanufacture.
• Construction and the built environment.
• Energy infrastructure.

We believe there is merit in strengthening this strategic approach by placing a duty on Scottish Ministers to publish or refresh a Circular Economy Strategy every 5 years. This would bring together policies beyond legislation and give a clear indication of priority sectors and direction of travel for businesses and wider stakeholders. This would sit within the framework of Scotland’s Environment Strategy, supporting the delivery of its vision and outcomes, and also link to the forthcoming Biodiversity Strategy and Route Map.

Example

A Circular Economy Strategy would also need to meet the requirements outlined in the Waste Framework Directive and The National Waste Management Plan for Scotland Regulations 2007. Such a strategy could include national objectives and detail on plans to:

• Reduce consumption.
• Mainstream circular economy principles across sectors, for example through the development of Resource Reduction Plans (which could set out how individual sectors will work to reduce resource use), or similar, for priority sectors.
• Develop a monitoring and indicator strategy.
• Develop targets in relation to different aspects of the waste hierarchy and individual sectors (in line with proposal 2 below).
• Report annually on progress.

Context

The Scottish Government recognises that sustainable consumption and production are essential for our transition to a low-carbon and green economy, which will meet our obligations to tackle the climate emergency and the biodiversity crisis. In our response to Scotland’s Climate Assembly and Children’s Parliament recommendations in December 2021, we outlined the need to reduce consumption and waste by embracing society-wide resource management and reuse practices. Responses to the previous consultation on proposals for Circular Economy Bill legislation in 2019 also noted that there should be greater ambition in the field of consumption reduction targets.

At a European level, in 2021, the European Parliament called on the European Commission to consider EU targets for 2030 to significantly reduce the EU material and consumption footprints and urged the European Commission to introduce a suite of indicators to measure resource consumption (Link). Subsequent research by Zero Waste Scotland has highlighted that there is currently no consistent approach to measuring consumption in other countries and consumption-based targets are rare.

In May 2021, Zero Waste Scotland also published Scotland’s first Material Flow Accounts . This is one of a number of potential existing high-level indicators that could be used to measure consumption. These include:

• The Material Flow Accounts (the flow of resources into, within and out of Scotland);
• Material footprint (raw materials used per person, tonnes per capita); and
• Carbon footprint (greenhouse gas emissions on a consumption basis).

Whilst these indicators provide an economy-wide view of material use (or carbon) in Scotland, these indicators may not be the best mechanism to drive consumption reduction in Scotland. This is because they do not track the wider impacts of our consumption, and may not reflect the effects of specific changes in policy due to their high-level nature. For example, as these indicators are weight-based, they can be quite crude; we cannot compare a tonne of sand to a tonne of gold as they have different impacts. In addition, the newness of the material flow account and material footprint may make it challenging to set appropriate targets at this point in time.

Example and Evidence

Developing a ‘monitoring framework’ would allow for more holistic tracking of Scotland’s consumption levels and wider measures of circularity (e.g. reuse, recycling and disposal) whilst ensuring that the wider social, economic and environmental impacts (such as biodiversity and land use impacts) are taken into account.  A monitoring framework would sit alongside the Environmental Strategy Monitoring Framework  and allow us to inform policy choices and prioritise action on areas of consumption that are most damaging in terms of climate change or wider environmental impact, and to design specific targets to tackle these things.

We propose taking powers to set statutory circular economy targets through secondary regulations. We believe that there is merit in developing statutory targets to tackle consumption reduction as well as other aspects of the circular economy, including reuse, to create a focus for action and maintain alignment with the direction of EU policy. 

Context

The Circular Economy as a professional sector is one that is growing both in Scotland and internationally, with increasing relevance and importance in all settings.

Delivering a circular economy will require us to further build on partnerships and continue to provide leadership across sectors and across society. This can be achieved in different ways.  

Currently, Zero Waste Scotland, a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, exists to lead Scotland to use products and resources responsibly, focusing on where they can have the greatest impact on tackling climate change. In its unique role as Scotland’s circular economy expert, Zero Waste Scotland works with citizens, businesses, academics, public sector and community organisations to reimagine the way we live, work and travel and to embrace the environmental, economic, and social benefits of a circular economy.  Zero Waste Scotland is a significant delivery partner for the Scottish Government, in receipt of grant award funding to deliver a range of strategic Circular Economy programmes. In addition, Zero Waste Scotland has also received European Regional Development Funding of approximately £6m per year (£43m since 2015), which has been used to deliver the priorities set out in Zero Waste Scotland’s Corporate Plan.

The introduction of a Circular Economy Bill provides an opportunity, if deemed necessary, to establish a public body to help realise our Circular Economy ambitions and to perform relevant statutory functions.

Public bodies play an important role in the delivery of public services in Scotland and are funded to promote, deliver, fund and scrutinise public services, or to provide impartial expert advice to Ministers, the Parliament, the public and other organisations that deliver public services.

Example

In the context of the Circular Economy, and by way of an illustration, a dedicated public body might perform the following statutory duties:

• Provision of expert advice to Scottish Ministers and leadership in the development of Circular Economy priorities and strategies.    
• Pro-active support in the form of funding and advice to stakeholders in meeting national Circular Economy targets and ambitions, particularly cross-sector stakeholders.
• Where appropriate, delivery of key Scottish Government initiatives and programmes to progress Circular Economy ambitions nationally.
• Commissioning and/or production of progressive and leading research that will support and inform the strategic direction of Circular Economy policy in Scotland.

One of the primary advantages of a public body structure relates to governance and the high levels of assurance which public bodies are required to meet, particularly in relation to effective delivery and stewardship of public funds.

A circular economy public body would be accountable to Scottish Ministers and/or the Scottish Parliament and have to meet public sector accountability requirements, such as compliance with the Scottish Public Finance Manual and key public sector legislation including the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, which ensures transparency and access to information held by Scottish public authorities.

Given the need to build on work to date and to deliver the policies and legislative proposals outlined in both this consultation and the Route Map, we would be interested in views on establishing a public body to deliver our circular economy ambitions.

Responses to this consultation will inform our view on the necessity of a public body for the Circular Economy and help to identify the primary functions of any such body.