Reduction through Production: Sustainable Design, IPR, and the Waste Reduction Report

15 October 2008
House of Commons

Speakers:

Lord Haskel - House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee
Terence Ilott - Head of  Sustainable Products and Materials, Defra
Peter Calliafas - Chairman, Envirobusiness
Peter Evans - Senior Environment Advisor, Sony
Professor Stephen Evans - Professor of Life Cycle Engineering, Cranfield University
 

Chair:

Dr Alan Whitehead MP

Of the three ‘R’s – reduce, reuse, and recycle – reduction often seems the most neglected, yet it offers significant potential for ‘quick wins’. Improved design can tackle the problem of waste at its roots, and reduce the residual waste generated by a product over its lifetime.
The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report Waste Reduction recommended a dramatic shift in government priority, from re-use and recycling to reduction, with many proposals on how this might be achieved. This successful event served to launch the report, and a detailed debate took place on the implications of such a shift.