[holding answer 18 December 2007]: The Business Resource Efficiency and Waste Programme (BREW) was established in order to return £284 million of landfill tax back to business between 2005 and 2008. It provides this through a range of free advice and support aimed at increasing business resource efficiency and reducing the amounts of waste sent unnecessarily to landfill. While work is under way to plan for the goals in any future programme, there were no specific targets set for 2005-07.
The aggregated 2005-06 short-term outputs for the delivery bodies are shown in the following table. These show the impact of £18.5 million of the total £33 million funding for that year. Some savings will result from these interventions in future years, which are not counted here.
Metric In-year result Virgin raw material savings 682,000 tonnes Carbon savings 320,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide Water savings 5,630,000 cubic metres Waste diverted from landfill 675,000 tonnes Hazardous waste savings 120,000 tonnes Cost savings to business £88 million Increased sales £14.7 million
DEFRA has not yet released individual delivery body results for 2005-06. These include some selected long term results, which are not included in the table. Similarly, work is currently under way to verify BREW Programme results for 2006-07. I will deposit both sets of results in the House Library when they are available.