Business Resource Efficiency & Waste Programme (BREW)
Budgets for activities on business resource efficiency in 2008/09
Following the settlement for the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 period (2008-11) Defra's allocations for 2008/09 were announced by Hilary Benn on 21 February 2008. This note sets out allocations for activities on business resource efficiency in 2008/09.
Business and the environment
Improving the efficient use of resources and reducing carbon emissions is central to Defra’s work. Businesses have a vital role to play by cutting their waste and reducing the amount of materials that they use in their operations. By getting involved, businesses of all sizes can boost profits and create jobs by reducing environmental impacts.
Defra helps businesses by funding a range of delivery programmes that provide resource efficiency advice. Between 2005 and 2008, part of this support has been provided under the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW) Programme, which has been returning landfill tax to business.
Defra’s delivery programmes are delivering major environmental benefits and substantial costs savings for business. Over the Spending Review 2004 period (2005-2008), Defra has provided well in excess of £650 million to the range of delivery bodies and the public in the drive to a low carbon, resource efficient future. This includes £284 million of funding that was provided by the BREW Programme.
Future support to businesses
In the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 period, Defra will continue to fund programmes to help businesses in their drive towards a lower carbon, more resource efficient future. Funding will be focused on providing the necessary evidence to encourage businesses to change behaviour, rather than funding profit-making business beyond that point.
This move – to concentrate on developing the evidence base for improving businesses’ resource efficiency – forms part of a purposeful strategy by Defra towards behaviour change for a low-carbon Britain.
As a result, the BREW Programme will be amalgamated into a single, more focused approach of allocating Defra funding to increase resource efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.
Why Defra is changing its focus
In the three years since the BREW Programme was established, the rationale for Government intervention has evolved. The business community increasingly understands the case for integrating environmental and business objectives, with Government policies such as the Landfill Tax, the Climate Change Levy and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme ensuring shorter pay-back periods for business in implementing environmental improvement projects.
Defra has undergone a challenging process in order to determine individual allocations for continued business resource efficiency activity in 2008/09. This planning has involved working with a range of delivery bodies to establish priority areas for intervention and potential efficiency savings.
Having considered the issues, Defra has decided that it will now refocus its funding through delivery programmes to provide evidence to the business community at large in order to maximise influence and catalyse action. This will entail a shift from funding environmental support to individual companies, to influencing the wider business community to take action. Whereas previously individual companies were given free or low-cost environmental support that reduced costs, increased sales and in time raised profits for the companies concerned, in the future companies will increasingly be supported by an improved evidence base for change. Defra will be taking forward this change in approach in discussion with its delivery bodies.
The above is part of a wider strategy to drive forward the low carbon, low waste economy. Government is investing in the following ways:
The future of the BREW Programme
From April 2008, the BREW Programme will be amalgamated into a single, more focused approach of allocating Defra funding to increase resource efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.
Funding to delivery bodies working on business resource efficiency will continue in the next spending period, beginning in 2008/09 as set out in the table at the bottom of this page.
Although the BREW Programme will no longer exist as such, Defra will look to embed more widely in its work some of the disciplines that the Programme has established, such as the development of metrics to measure performance, and stakeholder engagement on priority areas for activity.
Delivery landscape review
With the above changes in mind, we have established a review of Defra’s delivery landscape for providing support to organisations and consumers in the drive to a low carbon, resource efficient future. The review will look closely at the overarching principles in respect of public funding in this area and at the roles, responsibilities and relationships of the relevant delivery bodies to ensure that we can deliver coherent, effective and efficient support. The review will be considered in the context of the Government’s Business Support Simplification Programme.
Funding allocations
Delivery bodies sponsored by Defra will continue to receive substantial amounts of funding in 2008/09 to tackle climate change and improve resource efficiency. Defra’s budget announcement on 21 February 2008 provided allocations for arms-length delivery bodies.
The change to our approach on engaging with individual businesses will, compared to recent years, lead to a lowering of overall receipts for delivery bodies working on business resource efficiency. Therefore we will be working closely with our delivery bodies to seek that funding is applied in the most effective manner to bring about improvements to business resource efficiency and to tackle climate change.
The table below sets out Defra’s allocations for 2008/09 for delivery bodies working on business resource efficiency. Except where indicated (see note 4), the allocations in the areas listed were previously provided through the BREW Programme.
Funding to delivery bodies working on business resource efficiency 2008/09
Activity (1) |
Resource and capital funding for 2008/09 (£m) |
Action Sustainability |
0.300 |
BREW Centre for Local Authorities (2), (3) |
0.800 |
Carbon Trust (4) |
89.063 |
Centre for Remanufacture and Reuse (Oakdene Hollins) (2) |
0.500 |
Construction Resources and Waste Platform (AEA Technologies and the Building Research Establishment) (2) |
0.500 |
Environment Agency |
2.750 |
Envirowise |
9.390 |
Implementing Energy White Paper Commitments (Market Transformation Programme) |
2.750 |
National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP) |
5.025 |
Business Reuse Fund (Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts – RSWT) (5) |
0 |
Technology Programme (6) |
0 |
Waste Data Strategy |
1.325 |
Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) (4) |
43.223 |
Notes
(1) Also relevant is funding to the RDAs, which have received ringfenced BREW Programme throughout the Programme period, to co-ordinate business resource efficiency activities at the regional level and to conduct various regionally-specific projects. This was in addition to the Defra contribution to the RDA single programme (“single pot”), which gives RDAs the ability to address national priorities, on which they are tasked by Government (including activities to promote business resource efficiency), as well as regional objectives. With Government tasking and funding now fully aligned through the single pot, RDAs will no longer receive separate funding for resource efficiency activities. Total funding for RDAs from Defra in 2008/09 is £53m.
(2) In 2006/07, Defra funded nine pilot projects to conduct innovative work in the area of business resource efficiency. Seven of these activities were scaled up in 2007/08. Following a review of the activities, the three identified activities will continue to be funded by Defra in 2008/09, with the remaining four no longer receiving specific Defra funding. Defra is working with the latter four projects, listed below, to ensure that learning is embedded in wider activity on business resource efficiency.
(3) The title of the BREW Centre for Local Authorities is under reconsideration, given that the BREW Programme has been amalgamated into a single, more focused approach of allocating Defra funding to increase resource efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.
(4) Activities undertaken by WRAP and the Carbon Trust cover a range of areas, including but not restricted to business resource efficiency. For example, in the case of the Carbon Trust, £47.4m is being provided from the domestic Environmental Transformation Fund to support the development and deployment of low carbon technologies. Defra is in discussions with WRAP and the Trust about the appropriate spread of work between these various areas.
(5) In 2006/07 and 2007/08, the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts has managed the Business Reuse Fund, which provides grant funding for activities involving the third sector to promote materials re-use amongst businesses. Following discussions with Defra, RSWT chose not to bid for future funding for the continuation of the Fund.
(6) The Technology Programme, overseen by the Technology Strategy Board, has received funding throughout the period of the BREW Programme. The funds have been used to promote research and development into environmental technologies. BREW funding is additional to funds provided by DIUS (the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills), the sponsoring department of the Board. From 2008/09, Defra will no longer provide funding to the Programme, but will work with DIUS to seek that opportunities are sought for integrating environmental sustainability considerations into the work of the Programme.
SCP Programme Management Office
Defra
28 February 2008
Page last modified: 29 February 2008
Page published: 29 February 2008