Major companies involved in the electricals sector have signed up to a new plan from WRAP that will see them working collaboratively across the product lifecycle.
A total of 50 companies, including Beko, B&Q, Dell, Home Retail Group, Microsoft, Panasonic, Sainsbury’s, Samsung and Sky, have signed up to the Electrical and Electronic Sustainability Action Plan (esap).
Led by WRAP, esap will help organisations that design, manufacture, sell, repair, reuse and recycle electrical and electronic products to work collaboratively across the product lifecycle.
Signatories will look at actions including implementing new business models such as take-back and resale, extending product durability, and gaining greater value from reuse and recycling.
With it estimated that the UK market for trading pre-owned equipment is worth up to £3 billion, encouraging the trade-in of used TVs alone could grow UK GDP by over £750 million per year by 2020.
WRAP chief executive Liz Goodwin (pictured) said: “I am delighted with the take up of esap from the electricals industry, which has the potential to revolutionise how we design, manufacture, sell, repair, reuse and recycle electrical and electronic products. By making better use of resources, businesses can better safeguard their future through creating new opportunities for economic and environmental benefits, while saving consumers money.”
Kingfisher (owner of B&Q) director of corporate social responsibility Matt Sexton said: “Our work with WRAP on alternative business models validated many of our initial assumptions, with data and customer research that was detailed, comprehensive and gave us all we needed to be able to present the case for change credibly within our business. Subsequent discussion with potential service providers have proved our data to have been extremely accurate, which I think reflects well on WRAP’s methods and choice of consultancy partners.”
The full list of signatories so far is:
ADISA Arrow Value Recovery Axion Consulting Beko B&Q CCL Datec Technologies Limited Dell Domestic Appliance Service Association EEE Safe Electrical Safety First EnvironCom ERecycler Ltd ERP FRN GlobeChain Happus Home Retail Group (parent company of Argos and Homebase) Homedics iFixit Keep Britain Tidy LG Electronics London Re-use Network Loughborough University Metech Recycling UK Microsoft Next Oxfam Panasonic RDC Recipro8 Recycling Lives Repic Resolver Resource Renew Re-Tek RETRA S2S Sainsbury’s Samsung Sky Techtronics The University of Northampton Track2000 Valpak Veolia Vestel WasteSavers Xpoit IT Services Zerobin
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