Food Supply Chain Governance And Public Health Externalities: Upstream Policy Interventions And The UK State

Contemporary food supply chains are generating externalities with high economic and social costs, notably in public health terms through the rise in diet-related non-communicable disease. The UK State is developing policy strategies to tackle these public health problems alongside intergovernmental responses. However, the governance of food supply chains is conducted by, and across, both private and public spheres and within a multilevel framework. The realities of contemporary food governance are that private interests are key drivers of food supply chains and have institutionalized a great deal of standards-setting and quality, notably from their locations in the downstream and midstream sectors. The UK State is designing some downstream and some midstream interventions to ameliorate the public health impacts of current food consumption patterns in England. The UK State has not addressed upstream interventions towards public health diet at the primary food production and processing stages, although traditionally it has shaped agricultural policy. Within the realities of contemporary multilevel governance, the UK State must act within the contexts set by the international regimes of the Common Agricultural Policy and the World Trade Organization agreements, notably on agriculture. The potential for further upstream agricultural policy reform is considered as part of a wider policy approach to address the public health externalities issuing from contemporary food supply chains within this multilevel governance context.     

The UK national obsession with energy supply

Whilst the European Union is proposing a Directive on integrated resource planning and leading cities in both Europe and America are investing in demand side measures, the UK electricity industry seems to be obsessed with building more supply capacity. Recent developments in Leicestershire emphasise this obsession with energy supply.

There is an alternative and local government should be vigorously pursuing this by both a close liaison with local utilities and by increasing public awareness of the social, economic and environmental benefits of reducing energy demand and providing energy services.     

Fuel poverty and vulnerability in the EU low-carbon transition: the case of renewable electricity

The European Union (EU) and member states alike are following a tradition of addressing fuel poverty and vulnerability at the point of purchase by final consumers by seeking to influence the impact of income, energy price and the built environment on the ability of household consumers to access the energy that they need. By focusing on the conditions of energy transmission in the most rapidly growing renewable electricity sector in the UK – offshore wind – this paper aims to question whether the regulatory socio-technological framing of renewable electricity transmission is reproducing conditions for fuel poverty and vulnerability in the UK. By drawing a comparison with renewable electricity transmission in Bulgaria, this paper argues that the problem might be symptomatic of the EU as a whole. While not arguing against the proliferation of renewable electricity and its importance in meeting the 2020 targets, this paper calls for expanding the scope of fuel poverty alleviation policy throughout the whole renewable electricity supply chain, building on Helm's argument that energy companies at the middle of the supply chain are better suited to deliver fuel policy.     

The UK national obsession with energy supply

Summary

Whilst the European Union is proposing a Directive on integrated resource planning and leading cities in both Europe and America are investing in demand side measures, the UK electricity industry seems to be obsessed with building more supply capacity. Recent developments in Leicestershire emphasise this obsession with energy supply.

There is an alternative and local government should be vigorously pursuing this by both a close liaison with local utilities and by increasing public awareness of the social, economic and environmental benefits of reducing energy demand and providing energy services.     

Water Companies' Service Performance and Environmental Trade-offs

Water companies have to ensure that supply and demand for water are kept in balance. This can necessitate the development of new sources of supply that may conflict with local wildlife interests. The paper reviews the policy background to this problem in the UK. It then presents an appraisal of a project to artificially recharge an aquifer with river water during the winter period, and abstract the water in the summer to augment shortages during drought conditions. The research investigates the preference trade-offs of water company customers between increasing security of supply and potential environmental impacts on local wetland sites and river flows. A cost-benefit analysis of the project is presented. The study also reveals a disparity between the site-specific valuation and that generated using the Environment Agency's approved benefit transfer guidelines.     

Aggregates in England—Economic contribution and environmental cost of indigenous supply

Aggregates represent one of the largest material flows in the UK economy; however, the importance of these minerals in underpinning economic activity is frequently not recognised. Features such as the spatial imbalance between resources and demand centres, exacerbated by changes in demographics and public perception, are placing increased pressure on the planning system to maintain supply. This paper sets out the direct and indirect economic contributions made by the indigenous aggregates industry to the English economy through Gross Value Added and employment sustained. It describes the key role of aggregates in construction activities, assesses the links between infrastructure development and economic growth. In 2005, aggregates extraction directly contributed £810 million of Gross Value Added to the English economy. Primary aggregates are, however, extracted at a cost to the environment and this cost, based on amenity value reduction, is estimated by updating previously published contingent valuation data. Estimates for the costs associated with carbon dioxide emissions are derived from values published by the European Union and, separately, by the UK Government. These two elements combined result in an environmental cost of indigenous extraction of £445 million in 2005. Additionally, an examination of the potential for a significant increase in the level of aggregate imports into England is made and the consequences assessed. This includes an evaluation of shipping costs and port capacity, and concludes that there are significant barriers to any substantial increase in the level of aggregate imports into England. As a consequence, indigenous supply is likely to predominate into the foreseeable future.     

EQUILIBRIUM AND TRANSIENT GLOBAL WARMING SCENARIO IMPLICATIONS FOR WATER RESOURCES IN WALES1

ABSTRACT: A methodology has been developed to predict the responses of a range of water supply sources in Wales to global warming scenarios. Hydrologically effective rainfall is predicted from temperature and precipitation for each season based on site specific formulae developed using the Meteorological Office Rainfall and Evaporation Calculation System (MORECS) and UK Surface Water Archive databases. Comparisons are then made between the effects predicted for the scenarios established from equilibrium simulations and the new Hadley Centre High Resolution Model (UKHI) transient mode results. Though very different, both suggest increased stress on water resources late in the hydrological year.     

The causes of food waste in the supplier-retailer interface: Evidences from the UK and Spain

Food and drink waste is a significant problem for economic, environmental and food security reasons. Government efforts have focused on diverting waste away from landfill through regulation, taxation and public awareness. However, efforts to understand why waste occurs have been limited, particularly in the interface between retailers and suppliers. This research aims to address this problem by identifying the main root causes of waste in the supplier-retailer interface.The research is exploratory in nature as there is a paucity of studies focusing on food waste across the supply chain. Data were collected through 43 interviews with managers in food manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing in two countries: the UK (24) and Spain (19). Data from the interviews and supplementary documentation were analyzed using causal maps. This approach helped to identify the main root causes of waste which were categorized into three groups: (1) mega-trends in the marketplace, (2) natural causes related to the products and processes, and (3) management root causes on which practitioners have a direct impact.The paper discusses the root causes of food waste and good practices identified from the interviews. Differences between the UK and Spain are discussed, presenting potential learning opportunities for practitioners in these countries and highlighting opportunities for further research.     

An environmental assessment of food supply chains: a case study on dessert apples

The contemporary food system provides consumers with convenience, extensive choice, and the year-round availability of fresh produce. In this paper these achievements are recognized within the context of the associated environmental impacts. While many analyses have considered the energy and material efficiency of various options for food production and packaging, very few studies have investigated the environmental impacts of the transport components of food supply chains. This is surprising, given that the global sourcing of food produce, centralized distribution systems, and shopping by car have become prevalent in recent decades and have contributed to an increase in the distance between producer and consumer or “food miles.” In a case study the transport energy consumption is calculated for all possible ways in which dessert apples can be supplied to the UK consumer. The aim is to assess the environmental performance of the predominant fresh produce supply chains and to investigate claims that localized systems are more environmentally efficient. The main criteria used to compare the environmental efficiency in alternative food supply chains are the transport-related fossil-fuel energy consumption and associated carbon dioxide emissions. Analysis of the empirical data shows that transportation is now responsible for a considerable fraction of the total energy consumption in the life cycle of fresh apples, and in most cases exceeds the energy consumed in commercial apple cultivation. By developing local production and marketing systems for fresh products, transport demand can be reduced and many of the environmental impacts associated with existing supply chains can be avoided. The results of the study are then discussed in relation to the wider issues of transport policy, international trade, food security, and product-related environmental information for consumers.     

From Environmental Auditing to Integrated Environmental Management: Local Government Experience in the United Kingdom and Japan

Local authority experien ce with state of the environment reporting in the UK is discussed and com pared with the Japanese approach to integrated environmental management. Two case studies are presented, Lancashire County Council and Osaka Prefectural Government, and the progress made by each authority is examined. The paper argues that two very different approaches to local environm ental m anagement have evolved in the UK and Japan. The Japanese approach is essentially technocratic and pre-occupied with pollution control issues. In contrast, the UK approach has evolved out of the town planning tradition with its emphasis on conservation and am enity issues. Local authorities in Japan have greater jurisdictional powers, financial and technical resources to devote to environmental management. This allows them more direct control over the policy-making process. Constraints on local authority financial resources in the UK, and fragmentation of environmental responsibilities between various organizations, have resulted in a form of environm ental management which is based on interorganizational co-operation.     

Conservation and development

Summary This, the Second World Conservation Lecture, was presented at the Royal Institution, London, UK on 18 March 1982. The lecture organized by World Wildlife Fund, UK, concerns itself with Conservation and Development from a developing country point of view. Published with the kind permission of World Wildlife Fund UK.     

A comparison in water quality: The UK and the CIS

Summary A comparison is made of major issues relating to drinking water and river water quality in the UK and the CIS (USSR). Historical and legislative aspects are briefly reviewed. In both countries there is an imbalance between the location of fresh water sources and the distribution of the population. In each country standards are used to define water quality. These standards tend to be more exacting in the CIS. In the UK derogations are used to produce a more relaxed standard. Failure to comply with drinking water standards is common in the CIS (on average 20 percent of samples). In the UK, data are recorded on a different basis, but it appears that deviations from nitrate and pesticide standards are common. In both countries' water supplies, pollution appears to be extensive with few overall signs of significant improvement. This is attributable partly to lack of effective enforcement and weak penalties for transgressors. There is a high level of public concern regarding water quality and health in both the CIS and the UK. As a consequence there are increasing signs in each country of a national determination to implement the legislation more effectively. Needs for further actions are identified.Dr Olga Bridges was born and educated in Russia. Since coming to the UK she has held posts on Soviet Studies in various universities. Dr Bridges' early research was in attitudes to languages and nationality, but more recently it has centred on attitudes to environmental issues. To further her knowledge of scientific aspects of environmental problems, Dr Bridges is currently taking the Advanced Diploma in Environmental Practice at Farnborough College of Technology, UK.     

From Spatial to Local: The Impact of the European Union on Local Authority Planning in the UK

In 1998 the Minister for the Regions, Regeneration and Planning issued a statement which argued that the European context for planning had been largely missing from the planning system in England. This paper explores the impact of European Union (EU) membership on the practice of local authority planning in the UK. The research was based on nine local planning authorities in England, Scotland and Wales. The results indicate that EU membership has exerted a direct and indirect influence on planning at the local level. A classification of EU influences on local planning activities is developed. The research also indicates that the scope and structure of the UK planning system are being influenced by EU membership. There is considerable emphasis on the role of planning as a tool for sustainable development, and the development of environmental quality standards, coupled with existing policies in the sphere of nature conservation, present a challenge to the traditional approach of the UK planning system of balancing all material considerations.     

Confronting flood risk: implications for insurance and risk transfer

The UK floods in late 2000 reinforced an emerging awareness which questioned the long-term sustainability of an exclusive reliance on hard-engineered flood defences to protect the UK population against increased flood risk. The debate has subsequently focused on a broader interpretation of the risks associated with flooding. This paper explores the notion that, although social and technical issues are already being integrated to understand and manage flood, practitioners are now realising the importance of accommodating public hazard understanding and perception of risk into their management models, and there remains a need to fit such ideas to the insurance-based system of flood management in the UK.     

The Prospects for Improved Energy Efficiency in the UK Residential Sector

The perceived threat of climate change has become an important global issue of the 1990s, with measures to limit its ramifications now commonly linked to mainstream policy agendas. Reducing carbon intensity can be achieved through both supply and end-use energy strategies, though improvements in end-use efficiency are said to offer the best opportunities both in terms of effective investment and producing results in the short to medium term. UK policy makers have stressed that energy use in the home is a pressing area to be addressed. This paper reviews the myriad of efficiency options available, assessing the effectiveness of national and supra-national strategies in encouraging technical efficiency and stimulating beneficial behaviourial changes. Findings indicate that the range of (and commitment to) current efficiency measures, reinforced by a lack of policy coherence, ensures that future prospects remain ambiguous. Initiatives, though conceived at a variety of spatial scales, tend to be implemented at a localized level and it is the actions (and interactions) of local actors that may well determine the shape and success of sustainability measures.     

Questioning the local: environmental regulation,shale gas extraction,and the politics of scale

ABSTRACT

The exploration and potential extraction of shale gas – better known as fracking – has emerged as one of the most contentious dimensions to local environmental politics in the UK. Local residents and environmental activists have raised concerns about health, noise, ground water contamination, seismicity, environmental amenity, and other impacts of the industry on communities. Despite the complexities of shale gas extraction, an emphasis on the local has shaped key dimensions of the debate around the appropriate location for well pads to the relative exclusion of other issues. This paper draws on fieldwork in Lancashire, UK, to reflect on the political construction of scale in order to explore how an emphasis on “the local” can restrict political debate over shale gas to narrow concerns with land-use planning thereby obviating a fuller engagement with wider questions concerning risk, energy policy, and climate change. It is concluded that a more nuanced conception of scale is necessary for understanding how concerns with shale gas are diminished rather than strengthened through the current planning policy and regulatory regime operating in the UK.     

Household Willingness to Pay and Farmers' Willingness to Accept Compensation for Establishing a Recreational Woodland

The UK Forestry Commission's recently implemented Community Woodland scheme sets out to provide new recreational woodland facilities near to towns and cities where such resources are in short supply. This study examines household willingness to pay (WTP) for such a proposed woodland by means of the contingent valuation (CV) method. A stratified sample of 325 households in Wantage, Oxfordshire, was interviewed and asked to state both their annual and per-visit WTP. Analysis of a number of recognized potential biases suggested that the results obtained must be treated with caution although we argue that the CV provides a useful ballpark indication of preferences. A simultaneous CV survey of farmers' willingness to accept compensation for converting agricultural land into woodland proved to be far more robust, despite a small sample size. We conclude that farmers are more familiar with the concept of assessing potential compensation than are households with estimating hypothetical payments for increased provision of public goods.     

Post-Project Appraisals in Adaptive Management of River Channel Restoration

Post-project appraisals (PPAs) can evaluate river restoration schemes in relation to their compliance with design, their short-term performance attainment, and their longer-term geomorphological compatibility with the catchment hydrology and sediment transport processes. PPAs provide the basis for communicating the results of one restoration scheme to another, thereby improving future restoration designs. They also supply essential performance feedback needed for adaptive management, in which management actions are treated as experiments. PPAs allow river restoration success to be defined both in terms of the scheme attaining its performance objectives and in providing a significant learning experience. Different levels of investment in PPA, in terms of pre-project data and follow-up information, bring with them different degrees of understanding and thus different abilities to gauge both types of success. We present four case studies to illustrate how the commitment to PPA has determined the understanding achieved in each case. In Moore's Gulch (California, USA), understanding was severely constrained by the lack of pre-project data and post-implementation monitoring. Pre-project data existed for the Kitswell Brook (Hertfordshire, UK), but the monitoring consisted only of one site visit and thus the understanding achieved is related primarily to design compliance issues. The monitoring undertaken for Deep Run (Maryland, USA) and the River Idle (Nottinghamshire, UK) enabled some understanding of the short-term performance of each scheme. The transferable understanding gained from each case study is used to develop an illustrative five-fold classification of geomorphological PPAs (full, medium-term, short-term, one-shot, and remains) according to their potential as learning experiences. The learning experience is central to adaptive management but rarely articulated in the literature. Here, we gauge the potential via superimposition onto a previous schematic representation of the adaptive management process by Haney and Power (1996). Using PPAs wisely can lead to cutting-edge, complex solutions to river restoration challenges.     

Contamination, Crop Trials, and Compatibility

This paper examines the ethical andsocial questions that underlie the present UKdiscussion whether GM crops and organicagriculture can co-exist within a given regionor are mutually exclusive. A EuropeanCommission report predicted practicaldifficulties in achieving sufficientseparation distances to guarantee lowerthreshold levels proposed for GM material inorganic produce. Evidence of gene flow betweensome crops and their wild relatives has beena key issue in the recent Government consultation toconsult on whether or not to authorizecommercial planting of GM crops, following theresults of the current UK farm scale trials.The admixture of imported Bt transgenes intolandrace varieties of Mexican maize alsopresents difficulties. An ethical evaluationis made of the claim that organic growersshould expect protection from adventitioustraces of GM constructs in their products. Towhat extent – on either side of the debate –can any particular group in society set upagricultural standards for itself that mayeffectively restrain others from an otherwisejust business? The assumptions behind notionslike ``purity'' and ``contamination'' areexamined, together with their underlying viewsof nature and human intervention. The 2001UK Agriculture and Environmental BiotechnologyCommission report is relevant to theseissues. While the Government wishes to promotethe UK biotechnology industry and is underpressure from US claims of trade restraint, astrong organic lobby demands purity from GMcontamination. Does this adversarial framingof the issues reflect broader public opinionin the UK public consultation? Inarriving at policy decisions, the role of thevirtue of tolerance is considered inpost-modern and Christian ethical contexts.