There has been a lot written and said since 24th June 2016 most of which can be boiled down to ‘we just don’t know yet’. And whilst I don’t pretend to have any of the answers, it was a statement from a far wiser person than me (Dame Polly Courtice, Director of the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership) who opened an event I was attending, still shocked and stunned at 9am on 24th June with the words “we may be leaving the European Union, but we can’t vote to leave the planet”, that has rung truest.
In my view, much of what the European Union has achieved has been in a ‘common’ endeavour by which I mean the management of ‘common’ shared resources (air, water, waste) which otherwise individual countries acting independently according to their own self-interest would deplete or exploit unsustainably. This was something termed the tragedy of the commons back in the late Sixties. Avoiding the obvious reference to the current tragedy playing it in our own commons in Westminster there is an obvious need to ensure that we continue doing the right things to protect the environment.
So for Novelis as with many others it is very much business as usual. Market uncertainty and currency impacts can be unwelcome distractions from business as usual but the fundamentals are the same – we have a large UK-based reprocessing capacity to serve the UK market and wider European mainland suppliers and customers. And I don’t see that changing post – June 24th. Aluminium like politicians is endlessly recyclable.
The challenge is perhaps about leadership, even the sustainability leadership that Dame Polly was speaking about. With Andrea Leadsom recently appointed as UK Environment Secretary and the abolition of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) we will be holding our breath to see how that pans out. Never has the phrase ‘a week is a long time in politics’ seemed more true! But for those in industry, local government and elsewhere in the leadership of our Union the opportunity now exists to forge ahead with a positive, cohesive and long-term agenda for the resources economy, whether within our without the EU. Something I for one am keen to pursue. So it promises to be an interesting summer.
In time honoured fashion Novelis will be present at the RWM in September – we look forward to welcoming you to our stand there irrespective of what happens in the intervening months!”
www.novelis.com/sustainability
