Agenda item

Report of the Director of Environment and Sustainability.

This report sets out the Council’s responses to the Report of the Circular Economy Scrutiny Panel (November 2023) whose report was presented to the Culture and Environment Scrutiny Committee on 13^th November 2023.

The special scrutiny panel was established by the Culture and Environment Scrutiny Committee (C&E) to investigate the ‘application of the circular economy in the work of Camden Council and support for the principles of circularity in the public and private sectors in the Borough’.

The report contained 43 recommendations for the Cabinet Member for a Sustainable Camden to consider and this report provides a response to each of the recommendations.

Consideration was given to the report of the Director of Environment and Sustainability.

In response to questions, Richard Bradbury (Director of Environment and Sustainability) made the following points:

·       Officers agreed with a member’s suggestion that school children could be allowed to bring in food boxes to take leftovers home after school.

·       In terms of magic breakfast there were different products within that offer, Community Safety colleagues were doing some work around moving surplus food within the community in a more sustainable way. Officers agreed to provide the Committee with information on the work the Council was doing on the magic breakfast within the community.

ACTION BY: The Director of Environment and Sustainability.

·       With regards to food waste and most of the initiatives being on-line, the suggestion to include the information on the community recipe book and recipes in the Camden seasonal magazine to reach the digitally excluded was a good idea which could be considered.

·       In relation to food recycling, the Council was investing a lot in the collection of food recycling. The problems with these collections from flats above shops was an issue which the Council was working on with other boroughs as it was more of a city-wide issue.

·       With regards to the comment about the initiatives not reaching the north of the borough, the Council had worked where it could with all communities including Kilburn where work was carried on with the library of things.

·       With regards to textiles, the Council was working with all groups across schools to promote and encourage the school clothing initiative.

·       The food waste recycling was a separate structure to the recycling of general waste.

·       The work of the Circular Economy Panel, the process and ideas developed had been helpful for the Council.

·       As had been highlighted by the Circular Economy Panel Camden did not have all the levers to generate change, it could play an advocacy role and identify key stakeholders in the borough such as the Climate Change Alliance of which ASOS was a member.

·       Engaging at a London level by using organisations such as the World Living Project could help drive some of the initiatives suggested by the Circular economy Panel through the Council using its soft power in those conversations.

·       With regards to listing all the different charity shops on the Council’s website, it would be much better if users went straight to the general search engine on the internet rather than the Camden website. As when these things go on the Council’s website it was a huge resource issue for the Council to keep updating it. However, some thought could be put into how the Council could provide a link to this level of information.

·       The decision that food waste collections be expanded to cover all properties in 2025 was the development and evolution of the Government’s national strategy.

·       With regards to the impact of vaping legislation in Camden. from a trading standards perspective any new regulation that was introduced involved the Council working with businesses to ensure compliance and inspection.

Members referred to an email that they had received recently from Climate Emergency Camden where they had asked the Council to address a number of issues. Officers agreed to look at the issues raised and respond to Climate Emergency Camden updating the Committee.

ACTION BY: The Director of Environment and Sustainability.

Members also requested that a further update be provided in the New Year about the Council’s work towards a more circular economy.

ACTION BY: The Director of Environment and Sustainability.

The Director of Environment and Sustainability was thanked for the report, attending the meeting and his responses.

RESOLVED –

THAT the report be noted.