Six steps to 500,000 jobs boost

Recycling more, making products easier to repair and renting or leasing rather than buying consumer goods could be the secret to boosting the UK economy post-COVID, according to experts from WRAP, the sustainability not-for-profit. And creating a circular economy where raw materials are kept in use for longer has the potential to create up to half a million new jobs.

WRAP today sets out six steps needed to set the UK economy back on track and safeguard natural resources:

1. Accelerate the move towards a circular economy, with a focus on those operations such as remanufacturing and repair which generate new net jobs and can help tackle structural unemployment.
2. Governments, regions, cities and regions throughout the UK adopting a ‘Target, Measure, Act’ approach to increasing the circularity of their activities/operations.
3. Defra and BEIS provide stakeholders with greater certainty by publishing progress reports on the implementation of the Resources & Waste, Industrial and Clean Growth strategies by the end of 2020.
4. Make UK Government support to businesses with a large material footprint contingent upon the businesses adopting a ‘Target, Measure, Act’ approach to increasing the circularity of their activities/operations.
5. Introduce targeted policy, financial and business support and citizen engagement to drive a more circular economy.
6. UK Government and the UK banking sector consider reviewing their approaches to providing financial support to businesses to ensure they are not disadvantaging circular businesses.

Marcus Gover, WRAP CEO, said: “WRAP has a 20-year history of partnering with government, but never have we seen such a need – and such an opportunity – to adopt a circular economy in the UK. We urge policy makers here and internationally to recognise its potential as a catalyst for job creation and growth, and we call on them to take immediate steps to lock in circularity to their post-COVID recovery plans.”