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A Question of Balance - New Mass Balance Report

1st March 2006

Resource scarcity will cause the UK economic problems and affect our quality of life.

So claims a new report that calls for action in managing our resources by measuring their flow through our economy.

The Mass Balance Project Report, at the House of Commons, has been five years in the making at a cost of £10 million and examines the impact that 63 separate geographical regions and industry sectors in the UK have on the environment.

Produced by the Biffaward landfill tax credit fund, the report seeks to demonstrate to Government the structure that can be implemented for gathering information on resource use, which will help inform future waste and environmental policy. It is a marked step forward in understanding the impact that Britain has on the world's environment.

'We are shockingly inefficient in our use of resources and the UK must start gathering and using data on the amount of resources that flow through our economy if we are to better understand and manage leading environmental issues such as climate change,' Peter Jones, spokesperson for Biffaward.

'As an economy as little as 2 per cent of input resources by mass are retained after six months. The rest emerge as waste to air, ground and water. As we approach global limits to absorption of this pollution, it is no longer an option to ignore it. To manage this challenge it is the duty of Government to initiate a comprehensive data management and tracking infrastructure, which is transparent and credible. We owe it to future generations to establish frameworks as a matter of urgency.'

'It is only by gathering data such as this that industrial sectors can work to reduce resource use and waste and Government can see how to effectively target policy designed to encourage resource sustainability.'

'Just as better economic data has enabled governments to deliver stability and growth, better environmental data will put us on the right track towards better managing our resources and allow us to achieve a greater degree of sustainability.'

'Unfortunately, there is currently no systematic approach to measure this data, which means that the UK and Europe is unable to properly account for resource use and waste.'

Last week saw the release of the latest consultation on the UK Waste Strategy yet nowhere in that document is solid waste set in the context of the really big environmental issues of global warming, global dimming, acidification and dispersed pollution, yet waste is at the heart of all of these. Tracking of the Environmental Economy needs to catch up with tracking in the monetary economy.

The Mass Balance Project Report demonstrates how the Government can begin to take things forward. It isn't an answer, but it does highlight how we can begin to better manage our finite resources and account for their use.

Read the Background to the report - Click Here...

Mass Balance Web Site

You can download a copy of the report by visiting the Mass Balance Web Site