A WRAP spokesperson said,
Many of us will have spent the morning digesting the contents of the Climate Change Committee’s Progress Report, and the stark warning that current policies require radical action if they’re to be successful in limiting climate change. As Lord Deben commented today – the UK’s targets are the most ambitious and necessary in the world. But we’re failing to turn them into reality, and time is running out to turn things around.
The headlines have naturally focused on insulation of homes and energy, but the range of measures identified for urgent action in the report reach way beyond that.
It is imperative that any actions we take on climate change should tackle the cost of living crisis in tandem. Today’s report highlights the huge untapped potential in greater resource efficiency and the need to change the way we make, use, and design products to cut our carbon emissions much further and faster. Our recent report shows how resource efficiency also contributes to the levelling up agenda through job creation and economic growth: Levelling up through a more circular economy | WRAP.
There are also several recommendations around cutting food waste from farm to fork. We need to accelerate progress on helping people to reduce food waste at home, where 60% of food waste occurs, protecting stretched household budgets as well as the planet.
It’s another reminder than none of us can tackle this in isolation. Governments and businesses need to act with urgency and bring citizens along the journey so that they understand where they can act too. Changing ingrained behaviour is notoriously difficult, but it can be done, and I’m grateful that we now count our colleagues at Behaviour Change as partners in tackling this.
At WRAP we have our vision of a thriving world in which climate change is no longer a problem firmly in our sights, and we’re more than up for the challenge.