ESA Involvement in Government Workshops

ESA participated in recent Government workshops regarding innovation in services and on advice and guidance strategy for businesses.

BERR’s recent workshop on Innovation in Environmental Services provided leading practitioners in waste and resource management with the opportunity to exchange views with Government on how innovation in the sector should be supported. Part of its “Innovation in Services” initiative, during 2007 BERR commissioned a report by UK Centre for Economic and Environmental Development (CEED) on the environmental services sector, with a particular focus on waste management and consultancy. The draft report provided the backdrop for discussions at the workshop.

ESA welcomed UK CEED’s work and BERR’s commitment to bringing greater coherence to the Government’s policies on waste and resource management. ESA further emphasised the importance of effective regulation to the environmental services sector and its ability to deliver against the Government’s environmental aims.

An Environment Agency workshop was designed to help to develop the Agency’s advice and guidance strategy for businesses. The proposed strategy is intended to apply to both regulated and non-regulated sectors. The Agency hopes that the strategy will help businesses to do more for the environment, complementing existing resources which exist to help business.

The strategy will adhere to the Government’s ‘Golden Rules’ for developing guidance, which are designed to ensure that full input is received from audience representatives so that guidance contains a good understanding of the audience. The Agency recognises that its guidance strategy should not encroach onto areas where existing bodies provide help to business and that it should work closely with organisations such as Business Link to reach the SME sector in particular.  The Agency is hoping to finalise an action plan during 2008, with a guidance strategy embedded and in operation by April 2010.