§ Linda PerhamTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what steps she is taking to raise awareness among small businesses of environmental regulations and legislation. [127838]
§ Mr. MorleyThe central thrust of the Department's efforts to raise awareness of environmental regulations and legislation is the NetRegs project. NetRegs aims to provide clear and coherent guidelines for businesses (principally small/medium-sized businesses) on environmental legislation, and how to comply with it. Sector-specific guidelines for 100 industry sectors will be available on its website (www.netregs.gov.uk) by the time the project finishes at the end of March 2004; currently there are guidelines for over 55 business sectors already published on the site. NetRegs is a partnership between the Environment Agency, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, the Environment and Heritage Service Northern Ireland, and the DTI. It is funded by the Treasury's Capital Modernisation Fund.
To publicise NetRegs to its target audience, the NetRegs team has successfully engaged the support of the relevant trade media, associations, and business support organisations in 'spreading the word' on a sector-by-sector basis, as each sector's guidelines are launched on the website. So far NetRegs has generated over 700 pieces of media coverage since October 2002 and over 180 organisations have to date actively supported and or promoted the site.
Defra also undertakes initiatives in relation to specific areas of new legislation. For example, between September 2002 and February 2003 Defra, DTI and the Small Business Service ran over 30 seminars across the UK to raise awareness of the European Directives on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), which must be transposed into UK legislation by the summer of next year.