The Ashdown Disagreement

Policies, bureaucracy, commercial disharmony. Gradual changes seem to mean pretty much nothing in the field of sustainability and the environment. Hopefully it can be assumed that the average reader of The Jerk isn't a climate change denier (or '”oil company sympathisers” as I like to term them), so it's time we take a quick look at the UK's “largest single source of waste arising in England”.

The construction industry has long been typecast as boorish, sometimes brash and often arrogant in its actions in the commercial sector. Industry insiders are constantly telling tales of shortcuts and back-doors, in an ironic mirroring of the growing public perception of new-build housing. During times of wanton economic hedonism, these companies were treated like stalwarts of performance; the numbers of buildings going up and government money in PFI projects, the stronger the country's position.

How else could a company valued at £26m secure backing for a £2.2bn debt? Was this because Gordon was still confident at this time that there was to be no “bust”?

I digress. With the construction industry on its knees, it should be time for regrouping and strategy building. While things are quiet, the government should look to encourage operations in environmental policy and legislate in areas of absolute necessity. The increase in tax on landfill on 1st April may actually have some sort of effect:

“...it now costs those who want to dump waste in landfills to about £80 per tonne - a figure waste professionals feel is finally approaching the level where it might have an impact on strategic decisions.”

Surely some logic would be that it should be more expensive to landfill than to recycle? And that this action should be subsidised by the construction industry and the government together? Voluntary agreements such as The Ashdown Agreement and wider recommendations such as the Market Transformation Programme are simply having no effect because not one of them addresses commercial benefit. This is the only language that is ever understood at the top of big business.

It really is that simple.