Day 075 - 17 Jan 95 - Page 36
1 Q. To make you think their concerns are consistent with your
2 own?
3 A. Right. They make -- we have a programme which is
4 directed towards local authorities and other people
5 responsible for the maintenance of -- I was going to say
6 estates, but that might be misleading -- let us just take
7 local authorities. We also do it for private sector as
8 well. We have a programme that is called the people and
9 places programme which is Local Authority led, community
10 based, involving the whole community in together developing
11 a programme that reduces environment/index.html">litter, improves waste management
12 process, reduces squalor, and so on and so forth, that
13 programme.
14
15 That programme is a contracted relationship between the
16 Local Authority and the Tidy Britain Group. The contract
17 requires that the Local Authority appoint a project
18 manager. That manager needs to be trained and equipped in
19 the particular skills that we expect to see him or her
20 discharging.
21
22 That training programme is funded by Coca Cola through the
23 Tidy Britain Group. They provide resources for us to
24 enable us to offer that to training programme free to the
25 Local Authority.
26
27 That training programme is about the management of environment/index.html">litter
28 and the rationale, if you like, is that the company in
29 recognising that it contributes to the environment/index.html">litter problem
30 should, in fact, also contribute in whatever way it can to
31 the management and solution of that problem. That seems to
32 me to be entirely consistent behaviour in recognising a
33 problem and then doing something to resource at least part
34 of the solution.
35
36 Q. What you have just described is, in effect, sponsorship, is
37 it not?
38 A. Yes.
39
40 Q. Right. What I was asking about was what have they done to
41 indicate to you that they are actually actively doing
42 something about ---
43 A. About the problem?
44
45 Q. -- about the environment/index.html">litter problem.
46 A. In the first instance, quite soon after my appointment
47 as Director General, I prevailed upon them, for instance,
48 to switch from detachable ring pulls on their cans to ones
49 that were not detachable. As a consequence of that, the
50 whole sort of soft drinks industry changed because,
51 clearly, they are one of the major commissioners of
52 beverage cans from the various metal industries.
53
54 They themselves are committed to, and though not in
55 association with the Tidy Britain Group, but very much
56 involved in the producer responsibility group that
57 I mentioned earlier about the self-monitoring of packaging,
58 and they also play a major role in the European recycling
59 programme. They also have in conjunction with the Local
60 Authority in Adur, which is in Sussex, have developed there
