Tina Benfield, CIWM’s senior technical advisor, attended an EU Green Week ceremony in Brussels last week to pick up a Best LIFE Environment award on behalf of the edoc project, one of 25 projects chosen as winners in the three strands of the LIFE programme – Nature, Environment, and Information & Communication.
The European Commission awards recognise the most effective and inspiring LIFE projects, which, if replicated, have the potential to have a significant positive impact on the environment, boosting economic growth and providing benefits for European citizens. Selection criteria for the Best Projects focus on their contribution to both immediate and long-term environmental, economic and social improvements; their degree of innovation and transferability; their relevance to policy; and their cost-effectiveness.
Accessible at www.edoconline.co.uk, the four-year edoc (electronic duty of care) LIFE+ project developed an innovative online system for recording waste transfers designed to save businesses across the UK time, resources and money, and improve data and information about commercial and industrial waste. It was led by the Environment Agency with partners CIWM, Reconomy, WRAP, Northern Ireland Environment Agency and Welsh Government. It also had the full support of Defra and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).
Launched fully in January 2014, the new paperless electronic system is already being used by nearly 5,000 businesses, including major retailer CarpetRight and waste management company Bagnall & Morris. The Environment Agency is encouraging every business to follow suit and register to make the transition over to edoc and Scotland is currently considering making it mandatory. More information on edoc can be found at www.edoconline.co.uk
Speaking on behalf of the project team, Tina Benfield said: “We are delighted to have won this award, it celebrates the strong partnership approach of this project, good support from industry, and government interest and involvement. edoc offers the potential not only for businesses to comply with their Duty of Care responsibilities easily and cost effectively, but also to benefit from better data and understanding on waste arisings in the future, and reduce the opportunity for waste crime. The learning and outputs from this project could easily help other EU Member States to develop similar systems.” ENDS Notes to Editors:
LIFE has already co-funded more than 650 projects related to the circular economy, with a total budget of over € 1.6 billion. The majority of these projects have tackled waste, with water efficiency as another important priority.
The awards press release from the European Commission can be found here
Press contact: Pat Jennings Head of Policy & Communications Tel: 01604 620426 Mob: 07912 228260 E-mail: pat.jennings@ciwm.co.uk