Is the coalition the greenest government ever?

Energy secretary Ed Davey accused “Tea Party Tories” of blocking the green economy at this week’s Lib Dem conference. His comments will have done nothing to assuage growing fears within the food and drink industry that the coalition’s commitment to green growth has evaporated into thin air.

What happened to David Cameron’s pre-election pledge to lead the “greenest government ever”? Has any progress been made? At the mid-point in this coalition government, the sense of frustration in the industry is near universal. “They went back on solar panel feed-in-tariffs, and now they might go back on the third runway at Heathrow,” says Robyn Kimber, impact and sustainability at Cafédirect.

“There’s a palpable feeling the environment is playing second fiddle to the economy,” adds Liz Barling, head of communication at the Food Ethics Council.

But perhaps the greatest frustration is in the lack of progress in terms of the food and drink industry itself. And all the more so because, when it comes to reducing their environmental impact, many are trailblazing (see p58). As Craig Simmons, a Defra adviser and founder of sustainability specialist Best Foot Forward puts it: “The leaders in the field are doing it off their own back. But while the industry is leading it is searching for the government to provide some guidelines, whether that be positive or negative, to improve sustainability.”

Dan Crossley, principal sustainability advisor at Forum for the Future, a not-for-profit organisation working on sustainability polices for companies including Unilever, Sainsbury’s and The Co-Operative, is even more damning. “If I was to give them a score it would probably be an E minus and that would be generous,” he says. “They haven’t shown the leadership or ambition that any of us had hoped for. Every now and again there have been glimmers of hope, but like the Green Food Project, they have been short on detail and short on actions.”

A Defra-led initiative bringing together disparate groups including the FDF, BRC, NFU, WWF and RSPB the Green Food Project was split into four sub groups, focusing on wheat, dairy, bread and curry [sic]. Solutions included, controversially, ramping up the use of GM foods.

But a source working for a major supermarket firm involved in the talks, said he was shocked at the government’s lack of interest. “We were proposing some potentially radical ideas, involving whole sections of the supply chain, but when it came to the prospect of government incentives, it was obvious there was going to be nothing on the table,” says the source.

The government’s failings were further highlighted in a series of damning Green Food Project progress reports published in July this year. The wheat sub group slammed the “extremely tight timescales and lack of resources” which limited the scope of the proposals, despite the group reaching a strong consensus on the way forward.

And Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the BRC, is calling on the Prime Minister to use the cabinet reshuffle to kick-start a cross-departmental drive. “If you want to be the greenest government ever you have got to show leadership,” he says.

But the arrival of Owen Paterson at Defra, interpreted by some political pundits as a signal that the Prime Minister wants more action and less talk, is not regarded that way by Asda head of corporate affairs Julian Walker-Palin.

“We are struggling for clear leadership, and when you look at the re-shuffle, you have to question how seriously the government is treating the green agenda.”

Martin Chilcott, founder of 2 degrees network, a consultancy spearheading the supply chain sustainability agenda for companies including Tesco and Asda, believes the lack of certainty is as damaging as the lack of tax incentives. “Uncertainty is a terrible thing. No-one has any faith the coalition government will hold to any position it takes. The basic problem is they are broke. The Treasury can’t make commitments and has not realised the huge benefit of a green revolution to UK PLC.”

The situation in waste is even worse. When Defra’s Waste Review was published last year, experts felt the review failed to set a strong enough framework for industry or local authorities to abide by, allowing huge variation on areas such as household waste collections, compounded by a lack of clarity on incentives, which Defra promised to further explore.

A progress report on the plans, released in March this year, revealed there had still been only “initial explorations” of the idea , while a National Waste Prevention programme, supposedly to look at ways to incentivise businesses, will not get off the ground until at least the end of 2013.

“Uncertainty is a terrible thing. No-one has any faith the coalition will hold to any position it takes”

Martin Chilcott, founder, 2degrees network

In the meantime, there are growing fears the coalition could limit its efforts to a plastic bag tax. supermarkets in Wales reported a reduction of up to 90% in their use since a 5p charge was introduced last October, and the pressure on the coalition to follow suit is mounting, as the latest Wrap figures reveals the UK’s overall carrier bag usage figure was up more than 5% last year. But to go down this route would be missing the point, according to the sustainability chief from a leading fmcg group.

“Changes need to be far more fundamental. Carrier bags are a tiny proportion of the impact and charges won’t get us any closer to our strategic objectives for a more sustainable economy.”

The sustainability boss at one of the world’s largest food and drink companies concurs, adding that the lack of concrete plans on waste once again boils down to a lack of funding from central government.

“I feel there are actually some quite big ideas coming out of Defra but they are being stamped on by the Treasury, while other departments like Biz are not coming up with big ideas at all,” he says. “There is a fundamental misunderstanding of what companies like ours want. Ministers often assume we want light touch regulation whereas actually sometimes what we’re crying out for is a framework to work with and a level playing field.”