Business Resource Efficiency & Waste Programme (BREW)
Background to the BREW Programme
The BREW Programme
The development of this programme, which started in April 2005, has been to ensure that the additional Landfill Tax will not only incentivise businesses to reduce the amount of waste they send to landfill, but also to assist them in developing ways to achieve this. This has mostly been done through developing and expanding existing programmes that have already proven successful.
Nationally we are generating some 400m tonnes of waste each year and this is growing by 3% each year. Industrial and commercial waste accounts for around 20% of total waste and over half of this goes to landfill. Neither landfilling nor incineration provide sustainable long term solutions for dealing with the level of waste on this scale. Government introduced the Landfill Tax to stimulate reductions in the levels of business waste. This complements the work of the Waste Implementation Programme in tackling municipal waste.
For further enquiries please email waste.strategy@defra.gsi.gov.uk.
Increase in Landfill Tax
Budget 2003 (PDF on HM Treasury website) announced that the standard rate of landfill tax, which applies to active wastes, would increase by £3 per tonne in 2005/6 and by at least £3 per tonne in future years on the way to a medium to long-term rate of £35 per tonne. The Government committed to introduce the increases in a way that was revenue-neutral to business as a whole.
Landfill tax back to business
In line with this commitment the Spending Review 2004 (SR04) announced that the additional revenues will be used to fund programmes to support business in improving its resource efficiency, including waste minimisation and diversion from landfill. The funding is distributed over three years from April 2005 to March 2008. Working with BERR, HMT and business stakeholders Defra has identified a package of resource efficiency expenditure measures to use this funding. This is the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW) Programme.
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Page last modified:
4 July 2008
Page published: 27 May 2005