Meacher asks businesses to sign up to waste, water and greenhouse gas reductions

UK Environment Minister Michael Meacher marked UK Environment Week by re-launching a corporate energy efficiency programme from the early 1990s. The new programme will require signatories to set targets to reduce their water consumption, waste production and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.


Making a Corporate Commitment 2 (MACC2) is open to English companies. In addition to specific targets for GHG, waste and water, participants will also have to undertake at least one of the following:

  • implement a green travel plan
  • implement a biodiversity action plan
  • reduce use of raw materials
  • reduce emissions of other gases

“I want to see MACC2 surpass the earlier energy efficiency commitment campaign which attracted some 2,000 signatories,” said Meacher, in a speech at the Environmental Technology 2000 conference in Birmingham.

The London area MACC2 co-ordinator, Peter Brittain, told edie that the first companies that will be asked to join the programme will be those who have already shown an interest in energy efficiency. “We are going to contact MACC1 participants to encourage them to go that little bit further,” says Brittain. “But we also want to look at a whole range of other businesses that didn’t sign up to MACC1 and get them to go straight into MACC2.”

MACC2 co-ordinators won’t target specific industrial sectors at the outset, says Brittain. “Sustainable development is applicable to all sectors of business. We’ll want to monitor take-up carefully, though, and if there are some sectors that are lagging behind then we may have to adjust our targeting.”

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