12. Consumption and Production
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
In 2018/19 there was a total of 1,274,588 tonnes of local authority waste collected across the WM 7 Met. area, this drops down to 1,094,011 tonnes when restricting to household waste. However, when compared to 2017/18 the WM 7 Met. area has increased by 7,377 tonnes for total local authority collected waste and by 2,267 for household waste.
The proportion of local authority collected waste that is sent for either recycling, composting or reuse has decreased from 31.0% in 2017/18 to 30.5% in 2018/19. Similar patterns can be seen when restricting to households where 31.9% was sent for recycling, composting or reuse in 2017/18 to 31.1% in 2018/19.
Institutions collaborate to address the impact of Covid-19 on the Birmingham economy
The Birmingham Anchor Network –which represents seven of the City’s largest institutions, a combined workforce of over 50,000 people and budget of over £5bn –have released an Action Plan for response to the impact of Covid-19 on the Birmingham economy. This co-ordinated response is believed to be the first of its kind anywhere by a network of anchor institutions. Members include:
- Aston University
- Birmingham City Council
- Bournville Village Trust
- Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner West Midlands
- The Pioneer Group
- The University of Birmingham
- University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust
The Birmingham Anchor Network Action Plan builds on two years of work developing the Network by the economic think tank, the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, funded by the independent charitable foundation for socially just change, Barrow Cadbury Trust. Last year the members of the Network committed to progress joint action to utilise their spending power, workforces and land and assets to build a more inclusive and equitable city economy.
As well as setting out the immediate steps that the anchor institutions in the Network will undertake to address the economic and social impact of the pandemic, the Action Plan has within it a number of bold steps that will lead to long term reform of the Birmingham economy. This includes exploring how to link existing opportunities for employment in the health sector to residents who are facing redundancy due to Covid-19 and how locally-owned construction firms can access new work from the backlog in housing association building repairs created by the lockdown.