At the recent inauguration, the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management’s new president Tim Walker called for the UK to “turn off the resources tap”. In the CIWM’s annual presidential report, Mr Walker stressed a need for the sector to accelerate a rebrand from waste managers to “guardians of raw materials” which are vital for the UK economy.

Within the report, entitled ‘Turning off the Tap: Why better design can increase resource resilience and reduce consumption’, Mr Walker explained that those working in resource and waste management see the results of overconsumption every day. “One of the issues however,” He added. “Is that we have become too good at managing this waste and in doing so we have taken our focus off what’s really important – stemming our wasteful behaviour.”

CIWM’s new president is currently Chief Executive of the arc21, a local authority partnership in Northern Ireland, and is also a visiting research fellow looking at circular economy with Queen’s University Belfast. He believes CIWM needs to advocate for changes at the beginning of the life cycle of “stuff”.

It’s time to seriously address the role of design and development in the creation of ‘stuff’ and recognise how the resources and waste sector, which is at the nucleus of circularity, can support better decision making to effectively protect our precious resources.

According to the EU, over 80% of the environmental impact of a product is determined at the design stage. Mr Walker’s report also cited a statistic from the Architects Journal which says that architects have “196 times” more power to cut carbon through work than lifestyles alone. The presidential report says that good practices in sustainable design should be amplified so others follow suit and contribute to a more circular economy.

The report had several recommendations, including:

• Recognising CIWM as the trusted professional body for circularity
• Supporting collaboration by facilitating cross-industry best practice
• Identifying opportunities for regulation to stem the flow of resources
• Challenging the sectors’ role in increasing consumption
• Calling out / providing feedback to brands/retailers on problematic items to support the reduction in single-use items
• Working with other trade organisations to promote the benefits of circularity.