How has the environmental industry evolved since you began your career and what opportunities do you see for newcomers to make a real impact?
My career started in the waste sector in the late 1990’s. Clearly at that time the established practice was very much based around the linear economy and landfill was unquestionably the preferred route for many waste types. Over the last quarter of a century that approach has slowly, and in many cases reluctantly, changed towards recycling and recovery and trying to create a circular approach. Landfill has diminished significantly (from 22 million tonnes to under 6 million in 2023) but sadly often times that was simply replaced by incineration (EfW) which has served useful purpose in many instances but as we work through climate ready solutions EfW, ironically, may exacerbate emissions versus landfill, especially where plastic features heavily in the waste mix.
The next frontier is very much centred around waste minimisation and re-use. It’s a difficult conversation for businesses whose model is predicated on collecting waste generated by producers but it is a reality that needs to be faced with fresh thinking and energy. There is still lots of work to do, recycling rates in English Local authorities are still languishing at below 50% on average. We need energetic , passionate people in the industry who genuinely care about the environment and want to effect change. We have been guilty as an industry of waiting to change, waiting for legislation & regulation to force us to change rather than being proactive, innovative and seeking a point of difference from competitors.
You’ve operated across waste management, renewable energy and sustainability. What initially inspired you to enter this sector, and what keeps you motivated today?
I started my career in the environmental services sector working in the Public Analyst laboratory in Manchester, then environmental consultancy in Birmingham. I guess I have always cared deeply about protecting our natural environment. Unlike many young people today, who seem much clearer in their thinking, I fell into wate management. My first job was working for a Yorkshire Water SPV incinerating cattle that were over thirty months old and couldn’t go into the human food chain (remember BSE?). A pretty steep learning curve for a desk jockey used to writing technical reports but like many colleagues over the years once you are in this industry you tend to stay.
It can be a very fulfilling place to be. There are real opportunities to influence change and to demonstrate unequivocally that there are compelling commercial, as well as clear environmental reasons, to make that change. This is what motivates me today. I have operated as an independent consultant now for over 8 years and have worked with many private and public sector clients. My job now is to showcase the art of the possible, to help businesses understand what impact they are having on the climate and how that can be ameliorated without hitting their bottom line. I try and do this, using my experience as an operator, in a pragmatic way. I want my report to be a working guide not a dusty tome full of fancy infographics.
Circular economy initiatives are gaining traction, but measuring success can be challenging. What key performance indicators should businesses and municipalities use to track progress?
Circularity can be a nebulous subject and pinning down quantitative progress isn’t always easy as it often overlaps heavily with other metrics eg recycling rate. For me its about following downstream progress and finding a way to capture that. Although I have a confirmational bias towards carbon accounting this can often be a way of doing just that. For example I work with an innovative disruptor that has a system designed to significantly improving waste segregation and thus recyclate volumes. Following through where that recyclate goes and what products it creates can be mapped out from carbon emissions perspective and contextualised against conventional approaches to show a carbon benefit which could be considered a quantified circularity benefit. For example where a business captures its waste aluminium cans these cans can be baled and reprocessed thus preventing the need to mine virgin aluminium from bauxite; a very carbon intensive process involving mining/ refining/ smelting etc. Every tonne baled saves around 9 tonnes of carbon hitting the atmosphere!
Ultimately its about reducing waste in the first place but where it is produced minimising the residual fraction regardless of where that goes. Innovation premiums can flow for the reuse of seemingly unusable waste streams. I have worked with a business in the past that has a unit that specializes in transforming a recalcitrant waste product into a feedstock for another industry, once again this can be measured and managed using carbon accounting or simple mass balance. Coffee cups are an ongoing challenge that highlight this issue perfectly.
What low carbon transport innovations hold the most promise for large-scale waste collection and processing fleets, and how close are we to seeing these solutions implemented nationwide?
A key point to remember here is that there is no one size fits all when it comes to decarbonising transport fleets. Too often I hear the cry “let’s go electric” from senior managers when in many instances battery electric vehicles (BEV) are not the answer.
In the short – medium term for heavy duty transport biomethane can often represent the best option. It doesn’t carry new tech risk (it has been established for many years), it offers good ranges, it is offered by numerous OEM’s and it doesn’t carry a significant capex premium like for example BEV does for 7.5t and upwards. Refuelling infrastructure is growing too through businesses like CNG Fuels that have done an excellent job at building out a national footprint at key modal points.
The debate about using hydrogen as a transport fuel of the future rumbles on. Certainly its early promise has diminished significantly. Access to green hydrogen remains very challenging and investment seems to have softened recently. I still believe hydrogen will have a role to play in low emission vehicles of the future but it may well now be in the next decade. Interestingly hydrogen internal combustion engines (HICE) may well end up out-pacing hydrogen fuel cells (FCEV). Certainly OEM’s like Cummins, Volvo and JCB are advancing development in this area at pace.
How effective are current UK policies in supporting the AD sector and what policy changes would you recommend to accelerate progress toward Net Zero?
Transforming food waste into renewable energy has been a passion of mine since 2009 when we built some of the first plants in Scotland and London. The sector has been supported in many forms over the years and incentivised to produce renewable electricity and then green gas. With the benefit of hindsight I’m sure we’d all agree it should have always been about gas, AD’s real USP versus other renewable technologies.
Feedstock supply has been a key consideration for AD operators (using food waste) over much of the past decade or more. In lieu of the impacts now being felt ,and yet to be felt, from the Simpler Recycling regulation, we all hope that this issue is replaced by one of creating capacity to service incipient demand. It is quite notable that some areas of the UK are well served by AD facilities and some less so. It would be great to see some strategic thinking around where to build and how to optimise access to feedstock across county and other boundaries in order to deliver world class facilities with optimal economies of scale.
The projections for the creation of biomethane from all sources including food waste, crops and sludges vary wildly to 2050- from 13 TWh to 130 TWh. But what seem unequivocally clear is that the relative cost and benefit of producing biomethane make it a more attractive decarbonisation option than many other options eg Direct CCS.
Support from Government for gas production doesn’t stretch beyond 2028 which will undoubtedly impact investment decisions. Biomethane seems to be increasingly recognised as a key product in the facilitation of the UK’s net zero ambitions to 2050. Can the sector stand on its own two feet without support> Is that equitable or desirable versus other sectors? One key change must be the recognition of biomethane as a means to reduce emissions from (natural) gas combustion in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
Once we have created biomethane then the debate will be what is the optimal route for its use- certainly it will be diverted away form direct injection into the gas grid as the UK moves ponderously towards heat pumps for domestic heating – use in hard to decarbonise industries and within the transport sector (including SAF) and marine transport will feature in my view.
Finally it has been an ongoing challenge to place digestate which is the often overlooked byproduct of the AD process. His liquid soil conditioner is a useful replacement for synthetic fertilisers and an incentive mechanism here would help stimulate more enduring interest in the agri sector in my view.
Looking ahead, how do you envision the waste management industry evolving and what will be the biggest drivers of change?
The desire to reuse products will eventually refine the idea of “waste” out of the equation entirely. Waste will hopefully become unacceptable in business and the wider civil society. The future will be around designing products that can be reused or if not the producer will pay towards there disposal. Waste clearly becomes a resource and a feedstock into other processes as we try to move away from using finite resources like wood and oil (plastic) and instead use recovered materials from other activities.
Policy and ambition is clearly signposted – UK waste minimisation objectives include halving residual waste per person by 2042, achieving a 65% municipal recycling rate by 2035, eliminating avoidable plastic waste by 2042, and halving food waste per capita by 2030. These goals are part of a broader strategy to achieve zero avoidable waste by 2050, reduce landfilling, and support resource efficiency and the circular economy.
Facilities like landfill & incinerators will gradually be phased out in a landscape that seeks to embed circularity in day to day activity. How long before we reach this utopian vision is hard to know but I would predict within two decades the waste sector will look very different from today with the major players success being coupled closely to how quickly they can adapt and reinvent themselves.
Finally the waste sector (maybe it will be rebranded the resources sector) will start to widely adopt a carbon based approach to decision making. How policy will drive this change of mindset is yet to be determined but certainly there is a window of opportunity to get ahead of the curve and transition away form a slavish dedication to diesel and petrol and move towards sustainable waste collection and treatment services.