Initial Review
From the outset, it is essential to establish how a reuse strategy will help contribute to the wider plans and priorities of the local authority, including environmental, economic, and social impact.
Identifying drivers
Identifying drivers will help to obtain support from across the authority’s departments as well as highlighting funding and wider collaborative opportunities that will help in developing a reuse service. One way to identify drivers is to conduct an internal audit of your local policy and strategy documentation, ensuring values are aligned. Once you understand your drivers, these can be promoted as benefits to colleagues and other teams to develop a reuse strategy internally.
Example drivers/benefits of reuse
- Helps local authority to meet national policy and legislation drivers such as the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act
- Reduces local authority waste management disposal costs
- Reduces scope 3 emissions
- Reduces consumption of materials and demands on finite natural resources
- Creates jobs, volunteering and training opportunities
- Reduces flytipping
- Potential to develop unused brownfield parcels of land, bringing them into economically beneficial and neighbourhood enhancing sites
Conduct an internal audit
Conduct an internal audit of your local policies and strategies to help identify the drivers that will encourage engagement and support for reuse activities. These will contribute to a business case and encourage senior management and elected members to make decisions that will enable investment in reuse.
It is normally a relatively easy task to identify how reuse will support the wider local authority strategies, however it is important to consider and assess both local and national impact.
With drivers determined, and opportunities for collaboration identified, communication across departments becomes key. Ensure that all departments that could benefit are included and kept informed as the project progresses. It is important that collaboration is maintained throughout to ensure the end product is fit for purpose.
Potential departments for collaboration
- Climate change
- Economic development
- Employability
- Planning
- Sustainable development
- Waste management
Stakeholder engagement
Stakeholder engagement is imperative for building good relationships and identifying common objectives and opportunities. Working together from an early stage, it is easier to establish what is practical and what will deliver the best benefits for everyone involved.
Engagement with stakeholders and potential partners should be undertaken as early as possible. It is important to look to stakeholders both locally, regionally and further afield to ensure that all options for materials to be reused, repurposed and recycled are maximised.
Co-designing your service with partners will bring much better results. For example, understanding your reuse partners needs for storage, collection schedules, access requirements, and materials handled will feed into the decision-making process and the final design of the site.
As noted above, engaging other departments of the council must also be done at an early stage. This will also be useful when looking to gain internal sign off and could potentially increase financial and resource support when mutual benefits are identified. The buttons below show a list of potential stakeholders and the reasons for engaging with them.
Local authority colleagues and elected members working across different departments
- Potential to support delivery across a wide range of objectives, including social, environmental, and economic ambitions.
- The creation of reuse facilities could provide employment and training opportunities to the local community, upskilling residents of the area and creating pathways to employment.
- Further to this, the obvious carbon benefits of increased reuse in the local authority allows for improved reporting with respect to Net Zero targets.
- Having a stock of reuse items also leads to the potential to provide affordable and/or free packs of household goods and furniture to local communities.
- For example, investing in improvements can make the local area more attractive for other potential inward investments, allowing for further development and positive social change. Reuse creates additional economic activity and can regenerate neighbourhoods.
Reuse organisations and community groups in local authority areas, adjoining regions, and national players
- A detailed understanding of the current reuse landscape will ensure the reuse opportunity developed by the council is appropriate. Discussions with local and regional organisations will also help to assess the potential, or appetite, for individual organisations to deliver the operational models as well as potential partnerships between reuse organisations.
- An assessment of capacity should be undertaken to include materials and items of interest, the ability to refurbish, repair and recycle items, any training opportunities, as well as their preferences with respect to working in specific local areas versus working across the full local authority area. It might be that a network of reuse organisations and community groups with complementary skills can deliver the council’s ambition.
- The resulting reuse project can grow and diversify over time, as it builds on local community capacity, and inventiveness to create new opportunities.
Economic development agencies
- When reuse is associated with significant levels of infrastructure development, it can provide opportunities for the regeneration of areas, derelict buildings, and sites.
- Economic development agencies are likely to be in a strong position to understand where there are opportunities for sites to be developed and can support work on new opportunities.
Waste management companies
- If a council has an existing contract with a waste management company, or is looking to procure new services, there could be benefits to including reuse as part of existing or new arrangements. Early discussions with the contractor could encourage them to consider implementing reuse either alone, or in partnership with existing reuse organisations or charities to achieve multiple benefits.
- Reuse can also be written in to contract tender documents and service specifications and could include a condition for the private sector waste management company to work with local reuse organisations.
