Green buildings and hybrid cars are not enough

ACCORDING to the draft waste tyre regulations published on August 12, the funding of the waste tyre stream management plan will go into the fiscus on October 1. This means that the fledgling waste industry led by the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of SA (Redisa) will be knocked back before it has had an opportunity to establish a strong foundation.

Not only will those within Redisa’s structure be negatively affected,but industry players such as retreading companies will be hit even harder, resulting in job losses and the associated socioeconomic impact in communities.

We face massive unemployment and shrinking economic growth, and at every turn the government calls for business to create jobs, drive an entrepreneurial spirit and empower previously disadvantaged individuals. What is often ignored is that the government needs to create an environment where small businesses can develop and thrive, not create jobs itself or even manage the process. This is outlined in the National Development Plan adopted by the government.

The implementation of the Redisa plan is an example of the perfect collaboration between the government and private industry. A platform is provided to Redisa as a nonprofit organisation to operate, be accountable to and report back regularly to the Department of Environmental Affairs.

This unique approach has been praised by the World Economic Forum in Davos and the EU as a success — a South African solution to a global environmental concern.

By moving to a tax-based collection, there will be a large number of job losses and the potential closure of many small businesses, something we can ill afford in the current economic climate. WHAT

has made the Redisa plan successful over its three years of operation is its funding model: the fees are paid directly to Redisa and spent in an accountable fashion.

We have seen failure when waste management fees are injected into the fiscus. Since 2004 South Africans have been paying a levy on plastic bags to encourage reuse and recycling while mitigating the environmental impacts of pollution. A study by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research reported that in the 2006 financial year only 7% of the levies collected were paid to the implementation arm, Buyisa-eBag, and the organisation shut down with little to show.

In contrast, when the Redisa plan was legislated, Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa emphasised that the waste management fee would not end up in the general fiscus and that it would be the responsibility of tyre manufacturers and importers to pay for the remediation of the resulting waste.

Without the waste management fee being used as prescribed in the Redisa plan, the tyre recycling industry would not have been established, and the creation of jobs, small businesses and other socioeconomic benefits would not be possible. Redisa has created an insurance policy for the environment, which ensures that those who create the environmental problem pay to fix it and factor the cost into their manufacturing cost. The benefit of this approach is that a product’s total cost to society, including remediation, is made visible to manufacturers and consumers; manufacturers are incentivised to make more environmentally friendly, longerlasting products built to be recycled, and with recyclable packaging.

The lower the environmental impact of a product, the less environmental “insurance” the manufacturer will need to pay in the long term. Much like the insurance industry is regulated, so should environmental insurance be regulated, but by an independent regulatory body and not directly by the government.

Understanding the difference between the Redisa waste management fee and a tax is critical to ensuring the ongoing success of this new tyre recycling industry’s development. A

TAX is a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers’ income and business profit, or added to the cost of some goods, services and transactions. Money collected from taxes goes into the general fiscus.

The waste management fee is paid by producers to offset the cost of dealing with tyres once they reach the end of their lives. A critical difference is that this money is directly and specifically applied to dealing with the product and building the recycling industry. These funds are managed responsibly, in an audited and accountable fashion, making it far more effective than a tax-based system where funds are diluted into the general Treasury pool without being ringfenced.

The Redisa plan has proved to be a solution that provides the government with a solution at no cost to the fiscus. The Institute of Race Relations and McKinsey have released reports showing that Redisa drives GDP and employment growth.

If the fees currently collected by Redisa move into the fiscus, it will bring to an end the significant headway that we have achieved within three short years.

Small businesses rely on the mentorship, support and assistance made possible by the Redisa plan. Waste pickers are working in the Redisa microcollector programme and rely on the income provided. University students are benefiting through Redisa bursaries, and jobs rely on the network that has been created.

We are in consultation to make written submissions to the minister within the 30-day time frame allowed, and firmly believe that the independent integrity of all waste management plan implementation and fee collection should remain just that — independent.

■

Erdmann is CEO at Redisa. THE word sustainable is in vogue these days and used for so many things, from economic plans to cooking recipes. Not surprisingly, it is also in the world of architecture and urban planning.

Within a few years, the world has gone from science fiction to ecoimagination. The most radical idealists are already imagining green villages, vertical farms in the middle of big cities and plant-covered towers.

People want to build with recycled materials, reduce their building’s carbon footprint and recover the lost balance between nature and man.

The politically correct frenzy provides fertile ground for marketers and opportunists who have emerged to promise paradise. In the US this sustainable talk is called "greenwashing”.

It describes everything businesses and corporations do to present themselves as environmentally friendly (without actually being so). Because “greening” sells.

Efforts to turn buildings into environmental pumps or engines are filling rooftops with grass and walls with plants, whether they be banks, shopping malls or museums.

For the landscape gardener Wade Graham, author of Dream Cities: Seven Urban Ideas That Shape the World, the green cities people dream of today are too closely tied to the idea of controlling nature.

The alternative, he writes, must be to delve into the real causes of our environmental and urban degradation.

Apple’s signature building in Silicon Valley is an example of the green dream. Designed by the architects Norman Foster and Partners (designers of the new Buenos Aires city hall), the premises leave 80% of the 175-acre lot free, all at the cost of $5bn, which means that such buildings are only for the wealthiest companies.

Graham, who is also a historian and lecturer at Pepperdine University in the US, observes that despite the best intentions of Apple and Foster, the project will just help further expand San Francisco’s suburban sprawl. It will, he writes, be another big building beside a highway, requiring heaps of parking space for its drive-in employees (even if mostly underground to reduce the environmental impact).

Leed is one of the world’s best-known environmental certificates, awarding points to buildings for their environmental qualities and use of responsible material and construction systems. A building with 40 points wins a Leed certification, 50 earn it Leed Silver and 60, Leed Gold. Leed Platinum is for buildings with 80 points or more.

What the categories do is ensure more companies are willing to pay more for the space their premises use, though many of the

Green cities people dream of are too closely tied to the idea of controlling nature

points are easily acquired without contributing real sustainability. Their norms reward particular types of air conditioning, for example, but not windows that can open. There are also points for bicycle racks or electric-car parking spaces.

Christopher Cheatham, a partner in Cheatham Consulting, says green certificates have become a problem worldwide.

They are not working as foreseen, he says, citing examples of buildings that had 40% energy savings rates according to certificates, but which in practice saved 20% or less.

Graham says that driving hybrid cars or making green buildings is not enough to save the planet, notwithstanding all the pollution cars and buildings do indeed cause.

The solutions lie far beyond.

The real problem, Graham argues, is an economic system based on destroying nature and transferring the costs of our destruction onto future generations and the poor. New York Times