Briefing paper No 9

The Hampshire Natural Resource Initiative

Summary

The Natural Resources Initiative (NRI) is based on the principle that society’s consumption of natural resources is unsustainable in the long term and that action at a local level can play an important role in achieving change. This type of approach is urged on local authorities by central government through a range of means including the provisions of the Local Government Act 2000 and guidance on the role of local government in sustainable procurement.

The fundamental issue is about sustainability issues not being ‘nice to haves’ but building them into a change process at the heart of local authorities, becoming part of the culture when dealing with the community and the provision of all services.

Thus NRI is a non-statutory service that exerts the County Council’s leadership and influence in the community.

Introduction

The Hampshire Natural Resources Initiative was launched at Southampton football club in September 2002, after 18 months of public consultation.

The small NRI team, based at Hampshire County Council is attempting to influence the behaviour of businesses, the community sector, and the public sector Hampshire, to achieve the vision which was agreed through the consultation.

The HNRI team cannot achieve much on its own, the team is seeking to act as a catalyst to draw together networks and partnerships to achieve real change

Key Objectives

The Vision for the Hampshire Natural Resources Initiative was decided following 18 months of consultation and is as follows

By 2012 the Hampshire community is acclaimed for its achievement through local action in conserving and using natural resources more efficiently;.

Maximise the role of commerce and industry in driving forward the more efficient and cost effective use of natural resources
Promote the concept of ‘consumer responsibility’ by ensuring that people have the information to make informed lifestyle choices
Reduce the impact of natural resource consumption on Hampshire’s environment and climate change
Establish public sector as examples of best practice in natural resource use
Influence change at EC/UK government levels

Why was it developed?

The initial focus of NRI has been on materials that end up as waste (household, commercial and industrial), but there are clear links with the full NRI vision that includes energy, water, soil, etc in addition to waste as these elements are inter-linked and many initiatives will relate to more than just waste.

The aim of the materials focus is to shift the emphasis over time from the current ‘throw away’ approach to managing waste (waste management) to a ‘circular’ model (resource management) that seeks to minimise resource use in the first instance and then returns unavoidable waste to the production cycle. This requires a proactive approach with an integrated programme of measures to influence production efficiency, lifestyle choices and consumption at one end of the chain and maximise recovery, reprocessing and recycling at the other.

Where does HNRI fit in with other key organisations and departments?

The small HNRI team has a major impact across all departments of the County Council, and is very much a corporate approach rather than just affecting the Environment department within which it is based.

The HNRI has links to many of the major organisations within Hampshire through the Advisory Group, and through other networks and produces a newsletter which is distributed to around 1000 people each month, and also maintains the HNRI website (www.hnri.co.uk)

The HNRI maintains a link with the community through the 15 member HNRI advisory group. This is made up of community, industry and public sector organisations working together to steer the direction of the NRI.

In parallel with this the Hampshire Natural Resources Trust has been set up, which allows a variety of external funding to be applied for and to provide the formal decision making body for the Hampshire Natural Resources Initiative.

Other networks which the HNRI team facilitates include

The Hampshire and Isle of Wight Business Environment Forum

The Hampshire Public Sector Sustainability group

South East Region NRI network

European Natural resources Network

Changes that the HNRI have implemented both past and present

HNRI actions are delivered through a range of programmes, more details of which can be found on the HNRI website

the material resources strategy,
the sustainable construction framework,
developing EU natural resources networks,
the Business Environment Forum,
the development of new resource management infrastructure.
Influencing regional and national strategies

Although all of the HNRI objectives are focused upon results, the key short term target is part of a public service agreement with the Government which Hampshire County Council has made.

This PSA agreement has provided some pump priming finance for the Hampshire Natural Resources Initiative, in return for aiming for the stretching target of diverting 40,000 tonnes of material from landfill from industrial and commercial waste by the end of 2005 / 6.

The Future of HNRI

The HNRI advisory group and trust meeting every 2 months to help deliver actions falling from the HNRI business plan.

Most of these actions will have to be delivered with the help of external partnerships and networks – what can the networks which you are part of do to help?

This business plan has already delivered a substantial amount, if you wish to help deliver this change in the use of natural resources in Hampshire please contact the HNRI team on 01962 845281 or look at www.hnri.co.uk.

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