What are psychological risks?

Psychological risk factors are elements at work that can be damaging to workers’ mental health and wellbeing. Stress that is manageable in a supportive environment, where effective training has been provided and good communication is built into the culture, can have adverse health effects in an unsupportive, badly designed workplace.

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) defines psychological risks as follows.

Psychosocial risks arise from poor work design, organisation and management, as well as a poor social context of work, and they may result in negative psychological, physical and social outcomes such as work-related stress, burnout or depression.

Psychosocial risks are often the result of individual perception and not easy to define. This does not make them any less harmful.

Why address psychological risks?

Employers have moral and legal obligations to keep workers safe and healthy and this includes providing not only what the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) calls “civil and respectful” but also “emotionally safe” working environments.

Similarly, employers have a legal duty to protect employees from stress at work, which it defines as “the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them”. Stress is not itself an illness but can lead to illnesses when employees feel that they can’t cope.

Psychosocial problems are often linked to problems such as increased absenteeism levels, short-term and prolonged disabilities, falling productivity, plus higher staff turnovers and employer liability costs as more litigation cases are being settled in favour of employees. There is also growing evidence that psychosocial factors can lead to physical musculoskeletal disorders.

How to identify psychological risks

What does this mean in practice? A useful starting point is to identify primary causes, some of which can be recognised from our own working experiences. The HSE notes that many jobs are not well designed and, from an employee perspective, frequently include some the following undesirable trigger points:

• little control over their work, work methods and shift patterns
• few chances to make full use of their skills
• no involvement in decision-making that affects them
• being given only repetitive monotonous tasks
• work that is machine or system paced and badly monitored
• a lack of clarity over work responsibilities
• excessive work demands
• payment systems linked to unnecessarily fast work with few breaks
• few social interaction opportunities
• high effort levels that bring insufficient rewards.

Factors that can create psychosocial hazards also include:

• permanent work overloads
• bullying, harassment or workplace discrimination
• an absence of suitable supervision
• disrespectful attitudes among workers and co-workers
• negative work time/family time balances.

How to control psychosocial risks

The HSE suggests that key opening steps might include:

• designing out or sharing monotonous tasks, interspersed with more interesting work
• ensuring reasonable workloads, deadlines and demands
• creating good communication channels and reporting problems regularly
• encouraging teamwork
• monitoring and controlling overtime, shift work and anti-social hours working
• reducing or carefully monitoring payment systems based on piece work rates
• providing appropriate training.

As with physical risk factors, the best way to resolve psychosocial issues is through full, open consultation and workforce involvement.

Once the causes are understood, remedial steps that can follow on logically include:

• making a point of involving workers in decision-making that affects them directly
• introducing fair management styles, practices and policies
• ensuring that supervisors have suitable training in communication and people skills
• making work, work patterns and schedules more flexible
• guaranteeing better work-life balance options and arrangements
• showing appreciation and rewarding workers’ efforts
• monitoring employee satisfaction regularly and acting on findings
• providing more information to ensure everyone is well-informed
• methodically reducing work overloads.

Indications that psychological risks are not being managed effectively

A common symptom of an employee suffering psychologically is hostility towards colleagues, clients, visitors and managers, along with depression and feelings of hopelessness.

There is evidence that some common physical ailments and behaviours increase significantly as a result, such as:

• back pain
• heart disease
• musculoskeletal impairments (typically injuries to elbows, hands, wrists, forearms, shoulders and necks, plus muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves and discs)
• susceptibility to infection
• substance abuse
• episodes of violent behaviour and conflict
• certain cancers.

Consider the human factors

The HSE defines human factors as “environmental, organisational and job factors, and human and individual characteristics, which influence behaviour at work in a way which can affect health and safety”. It sees the good management of human factors as essential in reducing workplace mistakes and encouraging appropriate behaviour. Employers should work to understand the inter-relationship between the three key human aspects.

Jobs — Jobs are made up of tasks that should be designed along ergonomic principles, plus workloads, working environments, the design of controls and role of procedures. Jobs need to be matched to the physical and mental strengths of people and their limitations. Mental aspects include how jobs and tasks are perceived, how engaging work is and decision-making processes.

Individuals — Recognising that employee competence and self-esteem, skills, personality, attitude and risk perception are important. Individual characteristics influence behaviour in complex ways —some, such as personality, are fixed; others, such as skills and attitudes, may be changed or enhanced.

Organisations — Factors such as work patterns, workplace culture, resources, communications and leadership are often overlooked during the design of jobs but have a significant influence on individual and group behaviour.

Many human factors are now influenced strongly by wider issues amplified via social media.

The HSE recommends an ergonomic approach that looks for a best “fit” between the work involved, specific work environments and the needs and capabilities of individual employees.

Conclusion

Identifying and managing physical health and safety risks in the workplace is now well-established in both procedure and law. However, psychological factors, or psychosocial risks, are understood to a lesser extent even though they can contribute to physical maladies.

How will the environmental future of post-Brexit Europe be shaped? The EU has been quick to set out a new pan-European grand vision that is already causing friction between east and west. The UK, meanwhile, is rolling out the first stages of a radical new incremental approach.

Continental “Europe” sees the environmental future is a low-carbon and global warming challenge to be met by its new European Green Deal. However, it is not yet a “one-size-fits-all” policy agreed across the 27 remaining EU state members.

Which is why the deal’s new Just Transition Mechanism has been carefully designed to ensure that no part of the reduced community is left behind.

Ruling the waves

Meanwhile, on the British side of the Strait of Dover, the first signs of a new environmental approach have begun to emerge with announcements expected to accelerate in the weeks and months ahead, including full details of the Environment Bill first introduced to the Commons in January 2018.

The first hint of a radically different strategy from that of mainland Europe are contained in the soon-to-be-unveiled Agricultural Bill mentioned in December’s Queen’s Speech.

“Fog in Channel — Continent Cut-Off”

While the famous 1930s apocryphal newspaper headline stressed confident separation, most businesses are keener to see cooperation in upcoming trade talks, even though the Prime Minister says the UK will “diverge from EU rules and standards” as a “rule-maker, not a rule-taker” with a raft of changes altering 40 years of EU environmental regulations.

That probably means that the EU’s new negotiating language encouraging the UK to remain in “lock-step” with developing European environmental policies with an “ambition to improve over time” in “dynamic alignment” is unlikely to be received well at No 10.

The following is what we have learned so far.

Mind the policy gap

In a clear break from the EU Common Agricultural Policy based on land ownership, the Agricultural Bill will use financial incentives to encourage farmers to protect soil as a major and overlooked carbon sink, holding some three times more carbon than the atmosphere.

A revised grant funding system will reward good guardianship of soil threatened by intensive agriculture and deforestation. Services to society — clean air and water, flood protection and thriving wildlife — will be rewarded similarly, with changes phased in over seven years. The farming community is still anxious about future imported food standards.

Further developments

The new Environment Bill is designed to protect and improve the environment for future generations and will now include new legally-binding targets for better air quality.

The Bill will also explain how UK green standards and environmental protection laws will look post-Brexit, their effects on future trade deals, and a policy framework for a new Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) “watchdog”.

The Government has other priorities. One is a commitment to reach 40GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030. The December Queen’s Speech also called for progress towards the net-zero emissions goal ahead of the November 2020 UN COP26 summit due to take place in Glasgow.

Going further, in response to the Committee on Climate Change’s (CCC) annual progress report, the Prime Minister plans to steer a new internal committee to establish governance and enforcement mechanisms accelerating cross-government efforts to meet the net-zero 2050 target.

There will also be an additional commitment to “ban the export of polluting plastic waste to countries outside of the Organisation for Economic Collaboration and Development.”

And the Government has good post-Brexit reasons for an innovative environmental agenda. Polling figures published by The Independent show that some 70% of UK people questioned, support net-zero emissions by 2030; only 7% oppose. Views expressed crossed all ages and social groups with no regional, generational or urban/rural splits.

The Continent goes its own way

The “continental” European approach is more classic EU. Incoming EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen describes the new European Green Deal as “Europe’s man on the Moon moment” to “reconcile the economy with our planet”.

It is designed, she says, to integrate continuous economic growth with genuine solutions for the climate crisis and make the EU an international role model for countries like India and China.

The deal — EU’s largest ever policy overhaul — covers air, food, travel, construction, transport, energy, agriculture, buildings, steel, concrete, ICT, textiles, chemicals, specific manufacturing standards, generating a circular economy, plus banning unnecessary plastic and other wastes.

It aims to create a new template for Europe living healthily, working productively and consuming sustainably. More freight will be transported by “green” rail and water.

Size isn’t everything

The EU’s size will almost certainly give it global clout. However, consensus could be difficult. Eastern states object to losing coal and there are fears of new north-south and east-west divides.

The Deal aims to connect public and private sector funding; the Commission will present a Sustainable Europe Investment Plan in early 2020, plus a Green Financing Strategy for private sector funding. The European Investment Bank hopes to inject EUR 100 billion over the next seven years as a springboard for all sectors and regions to catch up and join the pan-European vision.

Total funding is estimated to be EUR 260 billion annually — c.1.5% of 2018 EU GDP. At least 25% of the EU’s long-term budget could be dedicated to climate action, including some 40% of the common agricultural policy budget and 30% of fisheries subsidies.

Follow my new leader

In March 2020, a “Climate Pact” will be launched giving EU citizens a voice and role in action plans, sharing information, launching grassroots activities and showcasing solutions. Some 77% of European citizens now say protecting the environment can boost economic growth.

Key deal elements will include: — a Biodiversity Strategy for 2030; a New Industrial Strategy, a Circular Economy Action Plan; a Farm to Fork Strategy; and proposals for a pollution-free Europe. Work is underway to upgrade Europe’s 2030 environmental targets.

Like the North of England, many EU regions rely heavily on carbon intensive activities, which means that reskilling programmes, job-creation and new commerce sectors will be a priority.

Importantly, a new carbon border tax could be levied on imports to the EU from exporters with weaker carbon targets. That is not making the US happy which sees it as protectionism.

Summary

Early-2020 has seen different UK and EU policies announced to meet the climate emergency and underpin sustainable economic growth.

New EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, describes the new European Green Deal as Europe’s “Man on the Moon moment” that will not leave any part of the EU community behind. However, it is not popular among all member states.

The UK’s new Agricultural Bill suggests a new approach to environmental policy; more details of the Environment Bill and other measures are expected in the near future.

World Cancer Day

While cancer has historically been a taboo subject, accelerating medical developments and the fact that today, many cancers are treatable and even more are preventable, make action a priority in the workplace.

World Cancer Day, led by the Union for International Cancer Control since 2000, aims to disprove misinformation, raise awareness and reduce the disease’s stigma collectively and individually under the determined banner of “I Am and I Will”. At least 60 governments took part in 2019.

This is important. Cancer kills some 9.6 million people annually, although 3.7 million of common cancers are preventable. The yearly global cost of cancer is estimated as $1.16 trillion.

Carcinogens and employer responsibilities

There is plenty companies can do to improve these statistics. Occupational cancer is usually the result of exposure to a carcinogenic substance at work in the form of solids, vapours or gases. These can be breathed in, swallowed or absorbed through the skin.

Employers have a legal duty to carry out risk assessments on all work activities and potentially hazardous substances and put reasonable measures in place to protect employees, visitors and anyone else exposed through work or a work-related process.

Almost all organisations use potentially carcinogenic substances, from ordinary paint products to bleach and cleaning materials, or dust. As an example of the scale of the threat, some 14,000 new breathing and lung problems are reported annually.

Control of Substances Hazardous to Health 2002 (COSHH)

COSHH is the legislation requiring employers to control substances hazardous to health and it is important to note that in January 2020 new or revised limits were made for 13 substances, known as Workplace Exposure Limits (WELs). Details are available in the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) publication EH40 Workplace Exposure Limits.

Before starting a COSHH risk assessment, the HSE suggests employers answer three basic questions.

1. What do you do that involves hazardous substances?
2. How can these cause harm?
3. How can you reduce the risk of harm occurring?

The hierarchy of controls

It is important to try to prevent exposure at source. For example, can a hazardous substance be avoided and/or a safer process used? A water-based paint is usually safer than a solvent-based product, particularly when applied by brush rather than spraying.

The next step would be making a safer substitute where possible — such as swapping an irritating cleaning product for something milder, or using a vacuum cleaner rather than a brush to clean up.

Using a safer form of a product helps too, such as a solid rather than a liquid to avoid splatter, or a waxy solid rather than a dry powder to avoid dust.

If, however, exposure cannot be controlled adequately, then the principles of good control protection need to be applied. The test here in terms of the word “adequate” are that risk of harm is as low “as reasonably practicable”.

That in turn means that all control measures are in good working order, exposures are below the WEL where one exists, and importantly, exposure to substances causing cancer, asthma or genetic damage are reduced to as low a level as possible.

Principles of good control protection

Eight generic principles are used to underpin good practices in the control of substances hazardous to health. Details are shown at https://www.hse.gov.uk/coshh/detail/goodpractice.htm. All eight must be applied; their principles overlap. There is no ranking — the first is no more important than the last — although there is a logical order to their listing.

Minimise emission, release and spread

This is usually more effective and cheaper than trying to recover the substance after release and dispersal. Sources of exposure should be reduced in number, size and release rate. Care is needed; it is very easy to miss significant sources and exposure causes. The worst source should be tackled first.

Consider route of exposure

All three key routes — inhalation, skin and ingestion — should be considered. Physical, chemical and infection properties in specific circumstances are important. There is nearly always some exposure. Staff eating and drinking, washing and changing facilities, laundering arrangements and day-wear/work-wear storage/handling should all be considered.

Choose control measures proportionate to the risk

The more severe the potential health effect, and the greater the chances of it occurring, mean the stricter the control measures needed — taking into account the hazard’s nature, severity, magnitude, frequency and duration.

Choose effective control options

The aim here is to minimise the escape and spread of substances.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) — the final control option

PPE needs to be suitable, fit the individual, be worn correctly every time, and be stored, checked and maintained properly. PPE can also be fragile and easily damaged, and function incorrectly if used or worn incorrectly.

Check controls and review regularly

All elements of the control measures implemented should be monitored and reviewed to ensure their continued effectiveness.

Provide all employees with information and training

Employees should be told about, and trained where relevant, on the hazards and risk from substances with which they work, and the use of control measures used by their employer to minimise risk.

Make sure controls do not have consequences of their own

Ensure that the introduction of measures to control exposure does not increase overall health and safety risks.

Practical controls

Actions to consider include good general ventilation, extraction systems such as local exhaust ventilation, enclosing sources or where air cannot be cleaned, providing refuges and respiratory protective equipment, plus spillage capture, decontamination, clean-up procedures and PPE.

Control can also depend on ways of working, including operating procedures, supervision and training, plus emergency procedures, decontamination and permits to work for high-risk tasks. Records of examinations, tests and repairs to equipment should also be kept for at least five years to help identify trends or variations in equipment deterioration.

Where control measures are in place it is important to make sure they are used properly in terms of staff:

• wearing necessary PPE correctly
• using control equipment
• following hygiene procedures
• warning supervisors if anything appears to be wrong.

Cost of the cancer burden

Occupational cancer burden research is underway to understand the economic and wider impacts of work-related cancer and help the HSE develop and prioritise practical measures to reduce its impact on individuals, employers, government, and society as a whole in the future.

World Cancer Day stresses the international need to combat the disease while recognising that a large number of cancers are now treatable and many can be avoided. In the workplace, COSHH legislation supports this by requiring employers to control substances hazardous to health, including exposure to carcinogens.

Term-time is demanding enough without the further burden of health and safety worries. Worries, however, instead of being ignored for a lack of good information, are best met head-on.

Which is why the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) (https://www.hse.gov.uk/) wants to turn what is often seen as a daunting responsibility and quasi-black art into an enriching opportunity for pupils and staff that can be implemented relatively easily by managers and employers.

Schools champion

As the government’s official health and safety (H&S) champion, HSE offers schools reliable help and advice, easily-accessed online information, links to external experts, updated news items and supporting case studies.

Yes, there are serious issues. Careful decisions must be made on a school-by-school basis based on individual personnel, skills, training, qualifications and experience, plus corporate and governance criteria. However, the regulator is also keen to debunk myths undermining staff confidence.

In HSE’s words, with misinformation removed, it is easier to “focus on real risks with potential to cause harm and not waste resources on trivial matters and unnecessary paperwork”.

HSE mission

Working with local authorities and other enforcing authorities, HSE’s mission is to encourage and ensure good occupational health and safety practice set out in primary legislation as the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, other acts and statutory instruments.

Specifically, HSE’s goal is to prevent deaths, injuries and ill health to those at work and affected by work activities. Its key tool is good risk management that measures, monitors and improves performance consistently. The aim is to promote risk awareness, not risk avoidance or eliminating all risks.

As a guide to its scope, H&S law covers all work activities carried out by schools that pose potential risks to staff, pupils and visitors – including off-site trips, but also contractors working in schools and overlooked risks such as vehicle and pedestrian movements.

This should not be confused with risks not regulated by H&S law – such as pupil welfare and wellbeing; communicable diseases; pupil behaviour and discipline; criminal record checks; food hygiene; licensing school minibus drivers; seat belt use; and waste and pollution control.

Importantly, HSE also leads discussions with trade unions and schools as employers and talks to appointed H&S representatives.

HSE and schools

In the last decade, the schools/regulator relationship has changed; HSE inspectors have not had to visit schools generally classified as a “low risk” environment routinely since 2011.

But HSE does have a duty to investigate complaints and accidents involving serious injury or fatalities and where the law is broken. It also has the right to make announced and unannounced visits where it feels relevant. In the worst cases, HSE can serve improvement notices and pursue prosecutions.

Widespread confusion over what is really required and potential penalties, made worse by credibly-sounding myths, has made many schools over-cautious and HSE is concerned that H&S is often used wrongly as an excuse to stop some totally reasonable school activities from going ahead.

This needs to change. Schools, HSE says, “are about providing children with a range of valuable learning experiences within which risks should be managed proportionately and sensibly”.

Myths and misinformation

Good risk management, it adds, is about common sense practical steps to protect people from real harm and suffering – not bureaucratic back covering – and should not stifling learning. For further clarity, it collates a Myth Busters Challenge Panel (https://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/myth-busting/education.htm).

The panel allows anyone told that a decision has been taken in the name of health and safety which they think disproportionate or inaccurate to check its credibility. Goggles, it was once said well-meaningly but wrongly, must be worn to play conkers. Other tested examples include H&S bans on sixth form students attending their last school day, babies at nativity plays and schools being prevented from heating up pupil’s home-prepared lunches.

Sensible risk management

In fact, the most common type of H&S incidents in school, as in other workplace sectors, is slips and trips that can often be prevented with simple low-cost solutions, such as timely repairs.

Other are falls from height and injuries from manual handling, vehicle and pedestrian movements, building and maintenance, plus adventure activities. Stress management and work-related violence can also be issues, as can asbestos management and legionella.

In primary school, ‘traditional’ secondary school and sixth form college classrooms with lower risk environments, H&S requirements are most probably already being met.

However, risks can increase with Design and Technology workshops, science laboratories, art studios, textiles, drama, and PE (https://www.hse.gov.uk/services/education/faqs.htm#a1). Specific risks may apply to school trips, sporting events and third parties using school premises.

More information about sensible risk management methodology is available at https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg163.pdf.

Role of school leaders – who does what?

Education leaders – head teachers, boards of governors and other staff members – have specific duties. In general, employers rather than school staff are responsible for good H&S practice.

The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 places overall responsibility for health and safety with the employer. In many cases this is the local authority. In others it is the governing body or school proprietor that have the overall legal responsibility and accountability for the health, safety and welfare of school staff and health and safety of pupils, visitors and volunteers.

However, this is an area where care is needed because the designation of employer can differ between types of school, with differences across England, Scotland and Wales.

Further variations can occur where local authorities transfer H&S-related functions to governing bodies with delegated budgets. Confusion here can lead to a failure to manage risks properly.

Keep it simple

The law requires employers to appoint a person with skills, knowledge and experience who can advise them competently on meeting their H&S duties (https://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/gettinghelp/index.htm). This can be the employer, such as a local authority or Academy Trust, a school staff member with specialist curriculum knowledge, or via external support. Most risks can often be managed by the senior leadership team with staff and school employer help.

Sensible H&S practice should start at the top and all management team members must know how to control significant risks responsibly and proportionately to create a safe learning environment where pupils also understand and can manage risks (https://www.hse.gov.uk/services/education/sensible-leadership/school-leaders.htm).

Teachers, says HSE, normally only become personally liable if they ignore clear, direct instructions about serious risks and depart from all common sense; trying to act responsibly is on the right side of the law!

Summary

Modern risk management-based health and safety (H&S) practice in schools should be based on common sense and good will rather than myths and misinformation, according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) (https://www.hse.gov.uk/). Sensible H&S in school is about “getting the balance right” so that:

• the leadership team knows how to apply safety policy practically to real school risks
• key staff have clearly established roles and responsibilities
• minimal paperwork is used to identify significant hazards with risks controlled adequately and precautions clearly documented if needed
• school leaders work with staff and employee/trade union safety representatives to find practical solutions
• a good learning environment is promoted by proportionate decisions.

The rolling shires and water meadows of ‘olde’ rustic southern England — plus the remote hills, fells and lakesides of the wider British countryside — might not be around in their present form for too much longer.

What seems permanent and natural today is already the result of continuous change. “Ancient” woodlands that thrived on the nourishing new mineral-rich soil left after the ice age’s last retreat 11,700 years ago gave way to the plough and axe long before permanent roads began to join-up newly formed market towns and industry.

Return of the trees

But the wheel is now turning faster and could go full circle for environmental and political reasons. Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens have all made tree-planting a competitive election issue, vital for the UK to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions neutrality by 2050.

The message is made more urgent by news from the World Meteorological Organization that atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ and other GHGs – that which is already there, plus what we are adding – reached new highs in 2018 at 407.8 parts per million (ppm).

Why is this important? New research shows that global warming is moving England’s arable farming northwards and westwards which will force some coastal communities to relocate, while others build on expanding flood plains. This research should make everyone think very carefully about their sustainable future.

The garden of England moves north and west

Despite flooding in Yorkshire, the Midlands and south west England, the Met Office and University of Exeter researchers predict that the worst case, but possible, scenario of 4C to 5C temperature rises with lower rainfall, could turn south and east England into drier grasslands only suitable for grazing.

Central England would then be 57% drier in summer and 33% wetter in winter, with Kent, Suffolk and even Lincolnshire too dry for arable farming without massive volumes of water piped expensively from wet areas like Scotland. Instead, agricultural output would refocus on places like the higher slopes of Wales and the North Country.

A land report published by Nature also finds that agriculture, forestry, wetlands and bioenergy could add some 30%, or 15 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO₂e), to the global mitigation tally needed annually to counter a 1.5C rise by 2050.

Farming debates

However, this also opens up heated debates, with as yet few hard answers, about the future of intensive versus extensive agriculture, and the growing sensitive ethical, political and technical debate around animal husbandry for human consumption.

Former Defra advisor, Professor Sir Ian Boyd believes that future climate policies will mean more trees and hedges but fewer grazing animals as red meat consumption falls. In contrast, the National Farmers Union (NFU) foresees more low-carbon grazing animals raised on well-watered UK land exported to less favourable places.

Sir Ian says red meat-eating must fall to meet the UK’s net-zero emissions target and adds that sheep and cattle can be reared more carbon-efficiently on intensive high-tech farms where they mature more quickly and belch methane less during shorter lives. He also notes that under international agreements, emissions must be measured in their country of origin.

The NFU counters that this means rearing livestock on water-intensive imported soya rather than “the soggy fields of Britain, Ireland and New Zealand”. Dung from grazing is also said to increase carbon stored in soils.

“The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago”

The Chinese proverb continues that the second best time is now, a fact politicians seem to be waking up to belatedly.

In November, the Conservatives promised to plant 30 million new trees annually on 30,000 hectares of land up to 2025. The Lib Dems want 60 million to increase the UK’s forest cover by a million hectares by 2045. The Greens intend to plant 700 million by 2030. Labour then said its target would be two billion by 2040 – 270,000 a day. Less than 15,000 were planted in the year to March 2019.

This parallels new studies that we have overlooked the ability of forests to adapt physiological, as in greater foliage, to cope with a warming world. But only if temperature rises steadily in line with carbon dioxide increases. Too fast a rate could trigger tree mortality.

Although the aim is to create giant carbon sinks, trees also absorb harmful airborne pollution, such as PM10 particles, reduce cooling costs and flooding risks. Europe’s peatlands lock up five times more carbon than its forests but are fragile, 40% drier than 1,000 years ago and could reverse to become carbon sources rather than sinks.

A study from the Swiss university ETH Zurich has identified 1.7 billion hectares of currently treeless land globally where 1.2 trillion saplings could grow naturally — circa 11% of the world’s land area – which in 50 to 100 years could remove 200 billion tonnes of carbon. The IPCC in contrast suggests 57 billion tonnes commensurate with a 1.5C temperature rise.

The Swiss study adds that the world currently has an estimated 3 trillion trees, half pre-civilisation levels. Two-thirds of land, or 8.7 billion hectares, could support trees. Some 5.5 billion hectares already do. Of 3.2 billion treeless hectares, circa 1.5 billion, grow crops. That leaves 1.7 billion for new forests which do not preclude livestock grazing.

Ethiopian leadership

Huge figures? Ethiopia planted more than 353 million trees in 12 hours on 29 July 2019 as part of its “Green Legacy” campaign. Danish citizens recently had a digital opportunity to “plant trees” as National broadcaster TV2 aired “Denmark Plants Trees” to raise funding to plant one million across the country.

Time and tide wait for no-one

Other topical natural forces are threatening to reshape the UK landscape — floods and sea level rises. About 10,000 new homes are still scheduled for construction on flood plains because there is nowhere else for them to go! The Government’s independent environmental advisor, Committee on Climate Change (CCC), says some 1.5 million properties could be at significant risk by the 2080s.

The Environment Agency (EA) warns that with an average 4C of global warming, sea levels accompanied by violent storms could rise by a metre in the coming century. Many communities will then have to be moved away from vulnerable coasts and rivers.

EA Chair, Emma Howard Boyd, explained recently, “The coastline has never stayed in the same place and there have always been floods, but climate change is increasing and accelerating these threats.” She added, “We can’t win a war against water by building away climate change with infinitely high flood defences.”

“Resilience includes accepting that in some places we can’t eliminate all flooding and coastal change, and so we need to be better at adapting to living with the consequences — for example, by designing homes that can be restored quickly after they’ve been inundated with water, or potentially moving communities out of harm’s way.”

Good salty news from the North

Start-up, Seawater Solutions , is showing Scottish farmers how to adapt to less rain by growing salt-resistant saltmarsh crops with tidal water seawater. “These plants can create eco-systems and promote wildlife, but they can also feed us in a sustainable way and return health to the soil,” founder Yanik Nyberg is reported as saying.

The aim is to take a piece of land yielding “a couple of hundred pounds per year” and turn it into something to “yield a couple of thousand pounds per year.” And it will be cooler up north!

Meanwhile, the UK will be wet and dry, cold and hot, but to different degrees in different places.

Summary

Climate change is transforming the British landscape at an increasing rate, leaving many property-owners and businesses with crucial sustainable investment and supply chain decisions.

The centre of England’s arable farming will move both northwards and westwards to higher cooler ground, leaving the dry southeast for grazing animals. There could also be a large increase in tree planting and reforestation to help offset flooding, absorb carbon dioxide and improve poor air quality.

Individual businesses and whole communities may have to be moved away from exposed coasts and rivers as sea levels rise rapidly and rainfall in some parts of the country increases significantly.

Key flood water management advice for site operators and property-owners is often summarised as preparation, preparation and preparation. The goal is to minimise immediate damage while planning carefully for safe emergency evacuation and long-term business recovery and continuity.

However, climate change is making more strategic approaches essential. New research suggests that northern Europe and the UK are facing growing flooding risks, plus a pincer-movement threat from torrential rains and powerful sea surges generated by intense low-pressure weather systems.

European storm clouds

Climate researchers forecast increasingly erratic, heavy and slow-moving future downpours made worse by the “atmospheric rivers” phenomena that can carry moisture for thousands of miles before dropping massive volumes of water quickly onto tarmac, concrete and saturated soils.

A Viennese research team has been studying the problem and what it means for flood protection given that globally river flooding damage is estimated to average $100 billion (£78 billion) annually.

Measurement limitations have historically made collecting flood pattern changes evidence difficult. The team, which has now isolated flood discharge trends across Europe over five decades, says they are linked clearly to changing climate.

Autumn and winter rainfall will increase flooding in northern and western Europe while southern and eastern Europe become drier. And the fact that flood risks have already changed, and will almost certainly continue to change, means that resilience must be flexible and progressive.

The study tracked more than 3,700 European measurement points from 1960 to 2010 and found that in some northern hotspots – Scotland, plus coastal France and Norway – flows increased by nearly 18% every decade. It predicts that more atmospheric moisture will make storms wetter, move them northward, and slow them down to drop more rain over river catchments.

Another finding is that benchmark 100-year floods — with a circa 1% chance of happening in any given year — are likely to become 50-to 80-year floods.

Flood pincer movement

Meanwhile, another study warns that coastal areas including Devon, Cornwall and the Bristol Channel will face additional “compound flooding” dangers as low pressure areas unleash both rainstorms on land and storm surges out at sea — particularly with high tides — at an increasing rate.

A quoted example is the Avon flooding in Bristol in 2014. Computer models show that with current climate change, some 3% of coastal areas are vulnerable to compound-flooding more often than once every six years. But that figure could rise to 11% by 2100.

Risks versus probabilities

Risks to individual properties are often assessed as a balance between the probabilities of specific flood levels occurring versus anticipated damage. Lower levels tend to cause less damage; lower defences usually cost less.

Similarly, higher levels are less likely but linked to greater damage and more expensive defences. The calculation for property-owners is then what damage they can live with versus overall costs.

However, intense damage is becoming more frequent, partly due to the random nature of where atmospheric rivers make landfall. This means that, firstly, more flexible and cost-effective tools are needed, and secondly, the concept of resilience becomes more relevant in terms of property design — ground floors as storage space, water-resistant materials, electrical layout, plus sumps and pumps.

From tactics to strategy and resistance to resilience

Planners and hydrologists are turning to more collaborative solutions to try to address the difficulty in protecting individual businesses and homes from local surface and sub-surface water flows.

One such solution is catchment-wide management systems that consider water flows in natural basins holistically. Another is upland interventions that hold back and allow potentially damaging water to dissipate naturally rather than racing down restricted channels to swollen rivers and flood plains.

In the urban environment the sophisticated use of Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDS) is also providing not only flood management benefits but also additional habitat — for plants, invertebrates and even migrating birds – plus community amenity advantages and clean water sources for drought periods.

And as future climate and weather become harder to predict, there is a gradual but crucial transition from resistance — building ever larger flood defences — to resilience — learning to live with and recover quickly from regular soakings.

Catchment-wide

The catchment flood management plan concept was introduced a decade ago to improve the understanding of flooding risks and formulate practical management policies. The aim is to design distributed flood defences as part of a broader model that accounts for all land and infrastructure areas within natural water flow systems, such as river catchments.

The Environment Agency uses the data in sustainable Catchment Flood Management Plans (CFMPs); England and Wales have 77 CFMPs for individual river catchments.

Upland intervention

With upland intervention, again, rather than hard barriers, the goal is to encourage the formation of marshes, sphagnum moss bogs, vegetation, woodlands — and perhaps even future beaver dams – to hold water back in a myriad “small places” as part of “source control”.

Both will run in combination with smaller site-based flood management solutions that can include SUDS (Sustainable Drainage Systems) which replicate natural processes.

Landscape profiling

SUDS works best where land can be profiled into shallow swales, reed beds, filter trenches, retention ponds and basins that clean and store storm water temporarily until it can infiltrate into the ground, or discharge slowly into the wider catchment. No artificial energy is needed beyond that used for maintenance and SUDS are intrinsically robust, attractive and environmentally sound.

“Leaky” SUDS solutions work best recharging local ground water and sub-surface aquifers slowly , creating a more consistent water table and base line supply for intervening drought periods. They also mean that rather than coping with, say, 1-30 year major flooding events, resilience can potentially be extended to 1-100 year events.

Rooftops of London and Manchester

Future cities will be much greener, with green roofs, strategic tree planting and specialist arboriculture helping to stop, store, clean-up and lessen the immediate impacts of flood water, absorb airborne pollution, offer shade when temperatures soar, generate important new habitat, plus biodiversity, and create attractive amenity spaces for residents. Green roofs are rapidly becoming storm water management’s first line of defence on high-density urban developments.

London is leading the way on SUDS — and green roofs — in the UK with its Urban Greening Factor initiative. Manchester is following suite with its City of Trees project and structural tree pits; the conurbation’s green infrastructure is an important part of the ambitious Northern Forest project. Across the rest of the UK, green roofs can now be seen from Southampton to Hull and Abelour in Scotland.

Legal requirement

By law, a SUDS option should be included in development planning applications. The revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) requirements expect a biodiversity net gain to be made, which on dense urban/industrial sites can be via SUDS.

The Welsh Government has taken the lead. Since 7 January 2019, all new developments of more than one dwelling house, or where the construction area is 100m² or more, have needed SUDS for surface water.

Far too often, green infrastructure-driven SUDS is omitted on the grounds of adverse site conditions, costs and barriers to adoption.

Summary

Standard approaches to flood water management are changing as research and practical experience show that flood risks are increasing across north-western Europe. Parts of the UK coast are also becoming increasingly susceptible to “compound-flooding” as intense low-pressure areas create both heavy rainfall on land and powerful tidal sea surges that hammer coastlines and estuaries.

The traditional approach of building ever-stronger “hard defences” is being replaced by “resilience” where infrastructure is designed from the outset to recover quickly from frequent soakings.

Meanwhile, catchment-wide and upland intervention strategies are being developed to provide greater protection for both individual buildings and wider communities. The creative use of Sustainable Drainage Systems (SUDS) is also becoming a more widely used feature of “green” cities.

People suffering from stress often find it difficult to talk about their problems or cope with the pressures they face, and often feel “defeated” or “trapped”. This can be a very early precursor to suicide. However, evidence shows that, with timely intervention, the spiral into suicidal thoughts can sometimes be prevented.

A supportive network at home and work can make a crucial difference as we move into dark nights and bad weather laced with social and political anxiety, made worse for many people by financial uncertainty, poverty, unemployment, traumatic events and inequality.

The figures on mental ill health

One-in-four people in the UK have, or will experience, mental health problems, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) says. Most are mild, short-term and can be treated by GPs. Public Health England (PHE) research shows that 83% of us have experienced early signs of poor mental health in the last 12 months.

Mental health is defined as how we think, feel and behave. Mental ill health can include anxiety, depression and difficulties in dealing with disturbing events such as bereavement. Work-related issues can aggravate pre-existing conditions.

Surprisingly — or possibly unsurprisingly — many people suffer mental distress regularly or at the same points in their lives.

These can be a natural response to life’s challenges but may become more serious without help. Around 27% of individuals wait for at least 6 months before taking positive steps to manage their mental health; 74% say they wished they had acted sooner. Sadly, 53% of people concerned about their mental health avoid social situations or contact with friends and family.

Poor mental health also costs business and industry between £33 billion and £42 billion a year, with an annual cost to the UK economy of between £74 billion and £99 billion. Some 300,000 people with long-term mental health problems lose their jobs each year.

The importance of work

But work is important. The mental health charity Mind says employment can be good for mental health as a source of income, for its a sense of reality, contact and friendships, a steady routine, plus opportunities to achieve and contribute.

The less positive side can be stress, poor relationships with co-workers, inappropriate work, feeling stigmatised, feeling unable to discuss problems, plus worries about returning to work after time off.

A key point here is that work-related stress and mental health problems often occur together and can share very similar symptoms. The main differences are severity, duration and impact on everyday life. Causes and treatment differ. People are affected in different ways.

The basics on supporting mental health at work

To look more deeply at the work/good mental health connection, the Government commissioned Lord Dennis Stevenson and Mind CEO, Paul Farmer, in 2017 to review the support that employers can provide in the workplace.

The result was Thriving at Work, published in 2017. This was supported by the practical advice in Mind’s How to Implement the Thriving at Work Mental Health Standards in Your Workplace, which defines a framework of six “core standards” that companies of all sizes can adopt. These were to:

• produce, implement and communicate a mental health at work plan
• promote mental health awareness at work
• encourage open conversations and offer support and workplace adjustments where required
• ensure good working conditions, opportunities for development and a healthy work-life balance
• train line managers in effective management practices and communication
• monitor employee mental health and wellbeing.

In October 2019, Public Health England (PHE) and the NHS launched a new platform to help people look after their own mental health and wellbeing, as well as to support that of others. Every Mind Matters outlines simple steps to better prepare for life’s ups and downs and even suggests apps that can be downloaded to help with different aspects of mental and physical wellbeing.

Croner-i’s Mental Health Toolkit is a useful step-by-step guide to reviewing your mental health policies.

The HSE makes the point that even if time needs to be taken off work, most people recover and return to employment. However, in many cases they return before feeling 100% ready for “business as usual”. This is a key area where employers can help in planning a gradual easing in, with support and some responsibility changes.

If they do identify a member of staff who is struggling with their mental health, line managers should focus on making reasonable workplace adjustments rather than understanding the diagnosis, says the HSE.

Also, employees off sick with no contact from their manager can feel isolated and forgotten, which makes it much harder to return to work. The advice is to keep them in the loop work-wise and socially throughout their absence, while remembering that people in a crisis may not be able to think clearly or take in complex information.

Whether a dedicated follower or not, no-one can dispute that “the rag trade” is a major generator of wealth, jobs and careers. However, it also has a controversial environmental record.

The UK fashion market has been valued at c.£66 billion — or 7% of the economy — while fashion-related industries employ some 555,000 people; comparable US figures are an estimated $406 billion, 4% and 1.9 million employees.

But as an Extinction Rebellion “funeral” march at the end of September’s London Fashion Week also highlighted, fashion creates not only waste but 10% of the world’s carbon footprint.

On the positive side, the fashion industry is also leading the way with a sustainability concept for which it is particularly well-suited, that has potential opportunities for other sectors.

On the way up

Upcycling is the idea of turning old or unwanted materials into something useful or creative with a higher value but a smaller footprint — recycling, in contrast, is sometimes described as down-cycling because reprocessing tends to decrease value at each successive stage.

In contrast, instead of breaking down items or materials into components, upcycling retains, adapts and improves them so the value of the end-product is greater than the sum of the parts. It can help to reduce air and water pollution, landfill use, greenhouse gases, waste disposal handling costs and combustion. Even cigarette butts can be upcycled into premium products.

Impacts and the rise and fall of fast fashion

A major problem is “fast” fashion — described as cheap, trendy clothing that changes by the season, or more frequently — often with vibrant colours, prints and finishes that are created with toxic chemicals. In 2000, according to an EU report, there were typically two “collections” a year — spring and autumn. This rose to five by 2011, and in some chains is up to 24 annually.

Another factor is fast production that is cost-efficient and driven by innovative supply chain management, especially with imitation styles seen on the catwalk. The presumption has been that customers want high fashion at low prices, one upshot being that many clothing items are now “nearly disposable” goods that have significant environmental consequences.

Washing problems down to the sea

For example, it is estimated that one washing load of non-biodegradable polyester clothing can put some 700,000 microfibers into the environment — circa 500,000 tonnes flow out to sea annually and have been traced around the world, including in freezing Arctic ice.

A report by The Pulse of Fashion found that in 2015, fashion put 1,715 million tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere; the UN estimates fashion uses more energy than aviation and shipping combined.

Meanwhile, the average water footprint of cotton per kilo — equal to a shirt or pair of jeans — is some 10,000 to 20,000 litres.

Solutions

Tackling the environmental impacts of fashion is not a passing fancy. Over the summer, the Commons’ Environmental Audit Committee wanted to impose a 1p levy per garment on fast fashion items, or to ban burying or incinerating clothes that can be recycled — some 300,000 tonnes went to landfill in 2016, according to WRAP. But there are potential circular solutions too.

One suggestion is to develop microbes that “eat” and break down petroleum-based polyester cheaply into a basic raw material that can be recycled. Another is to make use of up to 25 million tonnes of wasted citrus peels and seeds that can be transformed into raw materials used to spin yarns.

One very pragmatic suggestion is for a database that tracks the circa 15% of fabric-ends left after clothing manufacture, for other producers to use.

Upcycling is personal and industrial

Much of fashion’s new upcycling drive is based on individual designers and makers inventively incorporating used items into their clothing; the fact that this is done on an individual basis is attractive to many customers. Upcycling can also reduce waste by reusing ‘deadstock’ or ‘gently used fabric’.

But upcycling is also being carried out on an industrial scale. Plastic bottles are being turned into yarns and materials for everything from jackets and t-shirts to shoes and accessories. Closed-loop plastic material recycling technology allows plastics to be returned repeatedly into consumer products. ‘Electrospinning’ can turn plastics, including ocean microfibers, into fabrics and more attention is being paid to the circularity of fibres.

Adidas Parley already upcycles ocean plastic into shoes; Adidas has made six million pairs with upcycled ocean plastic uppers. Another thought is that young designers as ‘waste engineers’ should be taught about zero waste pattern cutting, following waste-streams, using second-hand clothing at scale, asking for factory remnants, plus taking garments apart and using them for something else.

More industrial processes

However, some problems need industrial-scale solutions. Cotton used extensively in denim creates a large fraction of textile waste but is land and water intensive. Converting waste denim into reusable cotton fibres efficiently has proved elusive. Ionic liquids — salts that are liquid — have been used in research to dissolve cotton textiles into cellulose building blocks which can then be spun into new viscose-type fibres. This is expensive and difficult. But a new process is said to cut solvent costs by 77% and, by retaining colours, also cuts water and energy use that would be needed for dyeing.

Away from textiles, US coffee chain Starbucks recently signed a deal with Pentatonic to make its hallmark “bean” chairs from used plastic bottles and discarded coffee cups following a pilot project making tables and counter tops from Starbucks paper cups.

Procter & Gamble has created the world’s first recyclable shampoo bottle partly from upcycled beach plastic. Coca-Cola recently unveiled proof of concept plans to use ocean plastics in food and drink packaging to show what upcycling can achieve; the company is focusing on using previously unrecyclable plastics and lower-quality recyclables to help make single-use plastic redundant.

Elsewhere, Finnish university researchers are making clothes from trees; Finland’s first lady has worn a birch tree dress to a state gala. Burberry revealed designs in August using recycled nylon woven from plastic fibres in discarded fishing nets, industrial plastic and textile scraps including carpet. Gap Inc. says it will use 100% renewable energy globally by 2030. Italy’s luxury brand Gucci says it is now an entirely carbon-neutral company.

Meanwhile, in September The British Fashion Council announced plans to launch the Institute of Positive Fashion on the basis that there is “… an urgent need for industry-wide coalition to help set industry standards in a new way, embrace innovation and develop the need for leaders to create green businesses fit for the future and enable positive change.”

Summary

Fashion may be transient but it has far-reaching impacts. The global fashion industry as a major GDP and jobs generator is working in a number of ways to reduce its environmental footprint.

One important concept with important implications for other industries is upcycling which aims to turn old or unwanted materials into useful or creative products with a smaller footprint where the value of the end-product is greater than the sum of the parts.

Forget absent-minded professors — although deeply pensive academics do qualify. Innovation that breaks the mould of what has gone before cannot be left to chance and a great deal of thought at many levels is going into making sure that it isn’t.

The drive to produce an uninterrupted stream of original and advanced technologies is accelerating as the global economy faces mounting economic pressures, the UK revises its relationship with Europe and other leading nations, and the world trade pecking order realigns.

Product and business innovation

Innovation is, however, about more than new technologies and products. To help improve productivity, the focus needs to be less on product innovation and more on business innovation — the way we do things — in the view of Harvard and Stanford high-performance entrepreneurship and venture financing expert, Dileep Rao.

He thinks a key problem lies with many business start-ups, business schools, consultancies and universities that over emphasise product innovations which are vulnerable to being copied and improved long before development and manufacturing costs have been recouped. Commercialising ideas can be a long journey where many third parties have to be convinced, from investors to producers and end-users

Meanwhile, some 99% of “unicorn” entrepreneurs with $1 billion sales succeed, not because of product but, because of business innovation — their business strategies are stronger than their competitors’ powers to imitate.

For small companies that need to create a business around new products, successful innovation can be an all-or-nothing policy. There also needs to be enough fat on the carcass to design, test, manufacture, market, learn and move on positively from plenty of mistakes. Having a portfolio of innovations can be a safer strategy; collaboration reduces risks and boosts success ratings. It is important not to be insular.

Small can be good

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) identifies the slow diffusion rate of innovation as a key cause of lower productivity and believes that small businesses can play a critical role in speeding this up. SMEs innovate regularly, it adds, but need more support to introduce significant “new-to-firm” innovations, including leadership, management capabilities and digital technologies.

FSB research shows that 76% of SMEs have used some form of innovation in the last three years; 95% installed new-to-firm innovation, which is defined by the OECD as “an existing product, service, process, organisation or method, whose performance has been significantly enhanced or upgraded”. It also notes that 30% of SME suppliers receive innovation productivity improvement help from their larger customers.

FSB also sees the UK’s Industrial Strategy as extremely important in raising public/private R&D spending to 2.4% of GDP by 2027 and 3% in the longer term. However, it says 40% of its incorporated members using new-to-market innovations were unaware of R&D tax credits, what they mean and how they work, with system simplification, less administration and clear sign-posting. The “go-to-agency” for all sectors in “new-to-market” innovation is UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

UK Research and Innovation

Working closely with universities, research organisations, businesses, charities and Government, UKRI’s mission is to create an environment in which research and innovation flourish — while also delivering parts of the Government’s “no deal” Brexit planning. With a budget of more than £7 billion, UKRI brings together seven research councils, Innovate UK and Research England.

Specifically, it supports, and helps to connect, UK researchers, innovators, customers, end-users and the public to push the frontiers of human knowledge and deliver economic growth/prosperity, plus cultural gains in an “enriched, healthier, more resilient and sustainable” society.

The UK’s innovation agency

As the UK’s innovation agency and part of UKRI, Innovate UK’s delivery plan includes pointing funding towards de-risking, enabling and supporting innovation. To date, it has helped circa 8500 organisations create some 70,000 jobs in more than 11,000 projects to add an estimated £18 billion to the UK economy. Its particular mission is embedded in four grand challenges defined by the Government.

The first of its four main priorities addresses problems of an ageing society, with the aim of enabling people to enjoy five more years of healthy independent life by 2035. The second looks at the future of mobility, with transport now a major area of household spending that must meet economic, environmental, health, housing priorities.

The third priority, of clean growth, is a wide-ranging area. It includes transforming construction from a labour-intensive low-productivity sector by learning from strong areas like the UK automotive sector. The fourth is the AI and data economy — examples quoted recently include robots working in nuclear waste environments or thousands of metres underwater, plus many cross-cutting aspects of machine learning.

In May 2019, the UCL Commission on Mission-Oriented Innovation and Industrial Strategy (MOIIS) released a report setting out how these systemic problems can be met by Government acting as the “investor of first resort rather than just … a lender of last resort”.

This report also looked at crowd-funding, a digital low risk innovation helping new inventors to circumvent traditional financing obstacles. Scottish design engineers, Andrew Flynn and Martin Keane, were reported in August to be using it to launch their flat pack self-watering plant pot made from 100% recycled materials which they say is 100 times more carbon efficient than traditional pots and can be delivered by post. They add, “We’re always thinking about the next idea in the pipeline.”

The Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund

Through the challenge fund the Government aims to raise UK productivity and wage-earning power by increasing R&D funding by £4.7 billion over four years to strengthen UK science and business.

Listed challenge areas include faster disease detection, commercialising quantum technologies, digital security, the electric revolution and future of flight, industrial decarbonisation, smart manufacturing, sustainable plastic packaging and transforming foundation industries.

Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds and the North

In July, the Oxfordshire Local Industrial Strategy announced aims to create a global top-three innovation hub by 2040 supporting scale-up businesses (with average annualised growth greater than 20% per annum) through enhanced science and technology parks and potentially a new Global Business District in the Oxford Station quarter. Buckinghamshire, South East Midlands, plus Cambridgeshire and Peterborough local strategies also emphasise the economic potential of the Oxford-Cambridge Arc area.

A recent Northern Powerhouse independent economic review focused in on the North’s prosperity, productivity gaps, competitive advantages and sector strengths. In terms of innovation, it identified that the North has primary strengths in advanced manufacturing, energy, health and digital technology. While the region is too large to be treated as a single cluster, individual clusters are taken into the national funding model.

Meanwhile, Leeds has been chosen to host a major international innovation programme in January 2020 with the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); the programme has already helped Beijing, Tokyo and Qatar shape their economic and societal policies. MIT has identified the Leeds region as being “significant strategically” for the UK economy.

Summary

Innovation is essential for UK economic success and meeting wider environmental and societal challenges. SMEs have a high rate of innovation implementation but need to be more aware of R&D grants, plus how these can be accessed and used.

REACH is the European Regulation 1907/2006 covering chemicals and their safe use. At present it applies to all 28 EU Member States, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway in the European Economic Area (EEA). However, that will change with Brexit.

The REACH Regulation is designed to improve the protection of both human health and the environment through a system of registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals.

Since 31 May 2018, companies producing or importing chemical materials — known generally as substances — falling under the REACH Regulation in volumes of between 1 and 100 tonnes per annum have had to complete the European Chemical Agency’s (ECHA’s) registration process.

However, if there is no orderly EU exit this autumn, the REACH Regulation will be brought into UK law via the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The regulation and related legislation will then be retained in the UK with changes needed to make it work within a domestic context.

Key principles remain

Leaving the EU and being outside the Single Market will take the UK out of the scope of the ECHA. In this scenario, UK chemical companies wanting to work in the EU will be seen as part of a non-EU country and non-EU manufacturers.

Instead of registration taking place in the UK, this will be replaced by registrations carried out by EU importers, or “only representatives” (ORs) in the EEA. UK-based ORs will no longer be able to make registrations for non-EU manufacturers. This represents an estimated 40% of UK registrations.

The Government says the UK will keep the key principles of the REACH Regulation, including the fundamental concept of “no data, no market”, plus its provision for ORs. For clarity, the amended REACH Regulation is now referred to as the UK REACH Regulation; in parallel the regulatory system it creates is known as UK REACH. The new regulatory framework will allow new chemicals to be registered through a UK digital system similar to the existing EU digital registration system.

In the event of a “no deal”

In the case of a “no-deal” scenario, the UK and the EU regulatory agencies will operate independently from each other. As a result, if companies are supplying, purchasing or importing substances, mixtures or articles between the EU/EEA and the UK, they must ensure that these are registered separately with both the ECHA and the UK Agency (effectively the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)) by a Lead Registrant (LR) in their supply chain to keep or gain access to both markets.

At the same time, the UK will increase its ability to carry out the functions currently performed by ECHA to monitor and evaluate chemicals in the UK to reduce risks to human health and the environment. A parallel aim will be to minimise disruption to the supply of chemicals. Existing standards of protection of human health and the environment will be maintained.

HSE and Defra guidance

As soon as the UK leaves the EU, the HSE will become the UK’s lead regulatory authority. It already plays a key role in the UK’s chemicals regulatory process, working closely with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment Agency (EA). As a responsible regulator, the HSE provides support and guidance for all possible Brexit outcomes, including a “no deal”, see www.hse.gov.uk.

Defra has also published guidance updated in 2019 on both UK REACH and UK REACH IT in the case of a “no deal”, although it points out that this is not a definitive statement of the law or its interpretation and could be tested in the courts.

The HSE and EA will have sufficient regulatory and enforcement powers to recommend controls in response to the hazards and risks of substances. Defra and the devolved administrations will have necessary policy powers.

Implications for individual businesses

The role of businesses within REACH may change with Brexit, in some cases significantly. A phased approach for the UK market is designed to minimise disruption and ensure continuity. However, to help individual companies make the transition and take actions needed, the HSE provides detailed information in the following categories.

• UK-based REACH registrant.
• UK-based downstream user or a distributor of an EU REACH registered chemical.
• Existing UK-based importer or distributor of substances sourced from outside the EU/EEA.
• UK-based REACH authorisation holders.
• UK downstream users of a REACH authorisation held by an EU/EEA-based company.
• Exempt for the purposes of product and process-orientated research and development (PPORD).
• Awaiting an ECHA or EU Commission decision for a registration or authorisation application.

In March 2019, the HSE also published a scenario summary table explaining what companies need to do, depending on their objective, and the timeframe allowed.

Reasons for REACH

REACH is a continuously evolving process designed to guarantee a high level of human health and environment protection from possible risks posed by chemicals. It applies to both industrial and domestic substances and promotes non-animal testing methods.

In addition to the free circulation of fully compliant substances in the EU internal market, further goals include a focus on innovation, commercial needs and competitiveness. REACH makes it the responsibility of industries and individuals to assess and manage risks, and provide safety information to all handlers, storers and users. Extra precautionary measures can be taken for highly dangerous substances.

REACH legislation

REACH legislation text is organised into 15 titles: the first eight refer to REACH processes; the next seven detail REACH administration elements such as the ECHA’s roles, data confidentiality and enforcement issues. Within each title are chapters with 141 Articles setting out legal obligations. Many amendments have been added to the regulations.

There are also 17 Annexes outlining technical details to the obligations which are updated and adapted as legal positions change and are interpreted, plus new or amended legislation. Legal text is supplemented by guidance documents, factsheets, guides and extensive user manuals; unless an organisation has an in-house expert, specialist advice is strongly recommended.

REACH affects phase-in substances used in quantities of 100 tonnes per annum or more, or those carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction (CMRs) supplied in quantities of 1 tonne per annum or more.

Conclusion

REACH, the European Regulation covering chemicals and their safe use in EU Member States plus European Economic Area (EEA) countries, will change after Brexit. The Government will keep REACH principles post-Brexit. However, in the event of a “no-deal” departure, to continue buying and selling with Europe and the EEC, UK companies must follow new procedures for both EU and UK registration.

The HSE will become the UK’s lead regulatory authority post-Brexit. Working closely with Defra and the Environment Agency, the HSE has made extensive detailed guideline REACH information available for businesses.