Delivering Scotland's circular economy - route map to 2025 and beyond: consultation

Chapter 5. Next steps: How you can get involved

Through this consultation we have set out our proposals for the Route Map to 2025, our strategic plan to achieve Scotland's zero waste and circular economy ambitions.

We are seeking your views on the feasibility and ambition of these proposals in order to reach our 2025 waste and recycling targets, and to achieve our long terms goal of net zero by 2045.

5.1 Responding to this consultation

We are inviting responses to this consultation by the closing date of 22 August 2022.

Please respond to this consultation using the Scottish Government's consultation platform, Citizen Space. You can view and respond to this consultation online. You can save and return to your responses while the consultation is still open. Please ensure that consultation responses are submitted before the closing date.

If you are unable to respond online, please complete the Respondent Information Form (see 'Handling your Response' below) to:

circulareconomy@gov.scot

Or

Handling your response

If you respond using Citizen Space you will be directed to the Respondent Information Form. Please indicate how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to published.

If you are unable to respond via Citizen Space, please complete and return the Respondent Information Form included in this document. If you ask for your response not to be published, we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.

All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Government is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

Next steps in the process

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public, and after we have checked that they contain no potentially defamatory material, responses will be made available to the public at Scottish Government consultations. If you use Citizen Space to respond, you will receive a copy of your response via email.

Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other available evidence. Responses will be published where we have been given permission to do so.

Comments and complaints

If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to:

circulareconomy@gov.scot

Or

Scottish Government consultation process

Consultation is an essential part of the policy-making process. It gives us the opportunity to consider your opinion and expertise on a proposed area of work.

You can find all our consultations online. Each consultation details the issues under consideration, as well as a way for you to give us your views, either online, by email or by post.

Responses will be analysed and used as part of the decision-making process, along with a range of other available information and evidence. We will publish a report of this analysis for every consultation. Depending on the nature of the consultation exercise the responses received may:

• indicate the need for policy development or review;
• inform the development of a particular policy;
• help decisions to be made between alternative policy proposals; and
• be used to finalise legislation before it is implemented.

While details of particular circumstances described in a response to a consultation exercise may usefully inform the policy process, consultation exercises cannot address individual concerns and comments, which should be directed to the relevant public body.

5.2 Interaction with the Circular Economy Bill

We are consulting on the Route Map in parallel to the Circular Economy Bill. The Circular Economy Bill sets out the legislative powers we are proposing to take to deliver a circular economy , which includes some of the interventions explored in this Route Map consultation. Where there are direct links to the Circular Economy consultation these are denoted by the symbol.^[†] The Circular Economy Bill consultation can be accessed online.

5.3 Impact assessments

We are committed to assessing the impact of proposals. This consultation marks the start of a process to assess the potential impacts on equality, socio-economic considerations, island communities, business and regulation, and the environment. This is accordance with our legislative requirements and, importantly, to inform the policy development process.

High-level partial and screening impact assessments have been developed to accompany this consultation:

The publication of the Route Map itself will not result in direct impacts. However, it is expected that, depending on the design, specific interventions may have an impact if they are introduced.

We aim to use this consultation process to highlight potential overarching impacts for sectors or themes. The feedback we receive will be used to update the initial impact assessments accompanying this consultation. We will also incorporate feedback to inform future impact assessments for specific interventions, as required.

Question 16. Please provide any further information or evidence that should be considered in the accompanying Equalities Impact Assessment

Question 17. Please provide any further information or evidence that should be considered in the accompanying Fairer Scotland Assessment

Question 18. Please provide any further information or evidence that should be considered in the accompanying Island Communities Impact Assessment.

Question 19. Please provide any further information or evidence that should be considered in the accompanying Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment.

5.4 Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)

The Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Act 2005 requires those plans, programmes and strategies that are likely to have a significant impact on the environment to be assessed and measures to avoid, prevent or reduce adverse effects are sought, where possible, prior to implementation. In consultation with statutory consultees, it is our view at this stage that the cumulative environmental effects from the Route Map are likely to be significant and a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) would therefore be required.

Through this consultation we would welcome further evidence regarding the environmental impact of proposals, which will help inform the strategic environmental assessment process for the Route Map, in line with legislative requirements.

Question 20. Please provide any further information or evidence that should be considered with regards to the environmental impact of proposals outlined in the Route Map.

5.5 Development of the final Route Map

To support the consultation process, we are looking to maximise engagement from the widest possible range of stakeholders across Scotland on the proposals presented here. This will include specific workshops with key groups, as well as wider engagement approaches to ensure people who would not normally participate in a consultation are included and that views of people across Scotland are gathered.

We will undertake analysis of consultation responses in autumn 2022 in order to understand the full range of views on proposals, and identify any additional actions that have not been considered in this consultation.

Alongside the consultation, we are convening a panel of independent experts to estimate the likely impact of each package of interventions. This will better quantify how our current and proposed measures will help us reach our waste and recycling targets.

Finally, we will conduct cost-benefit analysis for proposals, to the extent that this is achievable where the full package of measures is still to be developed or is still to be investigated. We will take into account the feasibility and affordability of any proposals, including the costs and benefits it may generate for Scottish households and businesses, before taking forward any measures.

Based on consultation feedback and the additional evidence outlined above, we will further refine proposals alongside ongoing assessment of impacts, with a view to publishing the full Route Map in early 2023.