Vince Armitage, divisional vice-president, Varta Consumer Batteries UK, looks at the Batteries Directive and how it will affect retailers
We are at a crossroads for the Batteries Directive in the UK. The Government has just completed its final consultation on the legislation, a process that has caused great concern amongst producers, retailers and wholesalers.
The Government proposes that the Batteries Directive is served by a network of competing compliance schemes, much in the same format as the WEEE Directive. This is something that goes against the wishes of the industry, which believes that either one single scheme or a small number of schemes with an umbrella co-ordinating body is the way forward.
When it comes to collection, the Government will allow the individual compliance schemes to specify their collection network and are unlikely to fund a comprehensive sustained national publicity campaign around the directive, leaving communication with the end-user primarily to the producers and the compliance schemes.
The news that the directive will be monitored and enforced in the UK by the Environment Agency, funded by producers to the tune of £650,000 has left many in the industry concerned, given poor awareness of the WEEE Directive. This concern is further compounded by the fact that in the current plans laid out by the Government, there is very little transparency to show how the money generated will be used.
The knock-on effect for retailers
With this added financial levy on producers, it stands to reason that many in the industry will look to recoup this cost through raising unit prices. As a result, retailers and wholesalers will see their margins squeezed as prices rise.
To make-up the shortfall, wholesalers will be faced with having to raise their own prices to the buyer which will not only affect sales but will also have a detrimental effect on the success of the Batteries Directive.
The end-user will look towards cheaper alternatives. In the battery sector this will mean cheaper, lower quality Far Eastern imported batteries.
This defeats the purpose of the directive on two fronts. Firstly, those batteries will be poorly constructed, which reduces their performance. In today’s power hungry devices, it will mean that users will use more batteries to get the performance they require. This in turn will lead to more battery waste.
While we are looking to change the buying habits of end-users to consider the environment, we may actually be changing their buying habits for the worst.
In the current economic situation, cost is a big factor and, therefore, increased batteries prices driven by the directive may create a mindset of cost before quality which, when the credit crunch ends, may be hard to reverse by all parties in the supply chain.
The fact that the batteries are imported and often sold through market stalls or discount shops will also reduce the impact on the success of the directive. It is fair to assume that many of these retailers will not play an active role in ensuring that their buyers know about the directive and will not ensure dead units are collected and recycled.
Also, as a lot of producers will be smaller manufacturers from the Far East, many will look to avoid any kind of contribution to the cost of compliance and the majority will not have the volume needed to become liable for the cost of compliance.
Indeed, the collection of batteries is an area that still has to be resolved. In its consultation document, the Government has left it to individual compliance schemes to structure their own collection networks, which could mean compliance schemes may focus on the areas that offer the greatest volume of returned batteries, such as large urban areas, while remote and sparsely populated areas will be neglected. This will reduce efforts to hit the targets laid out in the directive. A better solution would be to follow the lead of other European countries and utilise the high footfall locations that consumers visit on a daily basis.
Across Europe, collection points are centralised in retail outlets, post offices, supermarkets, petrol stations and even schools. This means little effort on the part of the consumer but also driving footfall to retailers, encouraging the replacement of like-for-like product.
Shouting about it
While the debates around cost, collection and compliance are important, if the aims of the directive are not communicated properly then it will simply fail. In spite of the criticism around the poor publicity of the WEEE Directive, it seems the Government is set to make the same mistakes again as it has not clearly stated that it will fund an ongoing national publicity campaign to educate the end-user about the directive.
The problem will be made all the more difficult due to the proposed multiple compliance scheme structure. Multiple schemes will mean a dilution of the messages that reach the end-user. Each compliance scheme will have its own smaller PR and marketing campaigns, which will ultimately compete against each other for air time and column inches. As a result, the messages will reach a smaller cross-section of people and will not have the same impact as one universal campaign.
A Government-supported campaign would mean that a strong and consistent voice is heard by the target audience. By pooling resources, a more impactful national campaign could be run, increasing awareness and driving success. National messages could then be broken down and shared at a regional and local level – ensuring more and more people are exposed to the directives and its aims.
There is a long way to go until the format of the directive is fully agreed and decided upon, but it must be remembered that any directive will have an effect on everyone in the sector from producers to retailer to end-user. Careful consideration needs to be given so as little disruption as possible to the norm is caused.
The support and enthusiasm of retailers and wholesalers will play a large part in the success of the directive. Any legislation must embrace them, bring opportunity, not restrict it, and channel their energies to make sure the new legislation is as successful in the UK as it is in other European countries.
