International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

60.12 Lessons Learned
The Flemish Prevention Stimulating Programme (PRESTI) highlights the following
lessons learned:
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� Surveys show a general raise in consciousness regarding waste costs and the
environmental impact of products, particularly within industry.
� The impact of the different awareness and education programmes and
instruments is difficult to measure. Often no clear targets are set;
� SMEs are a central target group because they often lack knowledge and knowhow
and they are responsible for a large fraction of the industrial waste;
� The effectiveness of the instruments largely depends upon their practical
nature and the ease-of-use;
� The largest motivating driving force for preventive actions is the saving of
costs, more than the environmental awareness; and
� Strict monitoring and continuous improvement remains necessary to keep the
instruments successful.
Prerequisites for introduction of PRESTI are considered to be:
� Waste prevention should be embedded in the legislation;
� Good monitoring structures are required;
� A strong administrative backbone should support the instruments; and
� Support from the industry intermediates is necessary.
Rather few good examples of evaluations of other award programmes could be found.
60.13 Concluding Comments
The weaknesses of grant funding streams tend to be as follows:
� Frequently, grants are awarded hastily and without sufficient consideration of
the time required to prepare quality bidding documents and to allow for the
support to have its effect. This can result in low quality bids being prepared;
� Awarding bodies rarely hold on to their money. Awards making bodies are
often under pressure to disburse the whole pot of money. However, in our
experience, it would often be better for award making bodies to hold on to
their money where bids / applications are of low quality. Such bids rarely result
in quality projects. The corollary of this is that award making bodies should not
be under pressure to disburse money at all costs. Rather, care should be
taken to structure the process such that the chances of receiving quality bids
are maximised;
� In line with what is suggested in the OECD Principles, insufficient additionality
is obtained for the spend. In other words, the projects funded may have gone
ahead anyway, or could have done so without grant funding;
� Grant funding is sometimes used for projects which should not be supported
by grants. This may even place a break on policy development if it implies that
the polluter pays principle is not respected;
International Review of Waste Policy: Annexes