Darryl Rigby, Content Executive at TradeSparky, argues that Reform UK’s promise to scrap net zero policies while increasing recycling rates is completely incompatible.
With the in-situ Labour government lagging in the polls and Reform UK surging in popularity, what was once viewed as practically impossible – a party in power outside of the Labour/Conservative monopoly – now looks increasingly likely.
With their effective messaging and high-profile leader, Nigel Farage, the Reform Party has successfully positioned itself as the political home for those disillusioned with Labour and angry at the Conservatives after their controversial 14 years in office.
However, behind all the noise, there’s a subtler and arguably more consequential story taking shape concerning the future of Britain’s environmental policy, and if Farage’s party does manage to seize the reins of power, there could be huge ramifications.
Much of the attention around Reform’s environmental stance has centred on the party’s promise to scrap net zero, a move that would dismantle the UK’s binding commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. That alone would mark the biggest shift in environmental policy in over a decade.
By contrast, Reform has promised to increase recycling and reduce the prevalence of single-use plastics. On the face of it, that sounds like an odd contradiction.
What happens to waste and resource policy if a government chooses to bin the existing net zero but also wants to tackle plastics and boost recycling?
Why net zero matters to the resource and waste sector
When the legally-binding target to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 was signed into UK law in 2019, it made Britain the first major economy to formally adopt the goal. Since then, the policy has guided decision-making in everything from energy to housing, transport and waste.
While it hasn’t been a perfect or seamless process, with progress mixed, deadlines pushed back and changing governments flip-flopping on priorities, the principle of net zero has provided a long-term signal to councils, industry and investors that Britain is moving towards a lower-carbon, resource-efficient future.
For the waste and recycling sector, this has been crucial. Net zero has underpinned investment in infrastructure, helped steer innovation in materials recovery and supported a broader shift toward circular economy thinking. Local authorities have begun to factor it into their procurement strategies, while manufacturers are slowly redesigning products to reduce waste and extend life cycles.
It also strengthened the case for reforms like Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), deposit return schemes (DRS) and Digital Waste Tracking. These are all policies that need a stable regulatory environment in order to succeed.
Take away the legally-binding net zero target, and suddenly all of that becomes much less certain. Much of the investment immediately dries up, long-term planning becomes riskier, and innovation starts to stall.
And that’s before factoring in what a Reform government would actively roll back.
What Reform is promising and what it’s not saying
Reform’s 2024 manifesto outlined the party’s stance clearly. In it, they promised to scrap net zero to ‘unlock Britain’s vast energy treasure’, reduce bureaucracy and slash public spending. They claim that the net zero agenda is hurting the economy, inflating our energy bills and damaging British industry.
As a solution, the party wants to ramp up oil and gas production in the North Sea, lift restrictions on fracking and remove regulations it sees as anti-growth.
At the same time, Reform has adopted a softer position on plastic pollution and recycling. The party says it wants to tackle single-use plastics and improve recycling rates. However, it hasn’t offered any serious details on how it would do so.
Currently, it hasn’t laid out an infrastructure plan, a strategy for funding local services or proposals for legislation or enforcement. It’s also unclear whether its possible for a government to build a stronger recycling system when its broader platform is based on cutting subsidies, deregulating industries and pulling out of climate agreements.
If these policies come to fruition, there are serious questions that Reform will need to find answers for.
Follow the money
It’s also impossible to talk about Reform’s environmental policy without looking at who’s funding them. According to an investigation by The New York Times, a large portion of Reform’s financial backing comes from people with deep investments in fossil fuels and heavy industry.
In 2024, Reform reportedly raised £3 million, with a large percentage coming from donors who either publicly deny climate science or hold significant fossil fuel assets. That includes figures like David Lilley, a metals and mining investor who gave £274,000, and Jeremy Hosking, whose firm has tens of millions in fossil fuel investments.
This comes alongside donations from First Corporate Consultants, founded by Terence Mordaunt, who chairs the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which is a group that’s often accused of pushing climate scepticism under the guise of ‘realism’.
Implications for waste and recycling
So what happens to the waste and resource sector if Reform gets into office and follows through with its pledges?
The first thing to go would be net-zero targets, along with the broader architecture that support them. Then the Climate Change Committee would likely be sidelined, while climate reporting obligations for businesses could be repealed.
Government grants and investment for green tech could be cut or even eliminated, and infrastructure projects, such as anaerobic digestion plants and electric fleet transitions, would, at best, lose momentum or, at worst, be abandoned completely. Subsidies for home energy efficiency could potentially vanish overnight, and investment in public transport and Electric Vehicle infrastructure would likely stall.
And while Reform claims to support increased recycling and plastic reduction, its economic ideology suggests the complete opposite. Deregulation rarely results in better recycling. Reduced oversight and lower standards are likely to create a free-for-all where the cheapest, least sustainable option is the most preferred.
In the absence of clear regulation and funding, local authorities could face increased waste volumes – something many councils are already contending with – along with less support for innovation, and higher costs.
This could see recycling rates, which have already plateaued in parts of the country, begin to fall, leaving the push for a circular economy in tatters due to a lack of political backing from the sitting government.
The politics of optics
Reform’s positioning reveals a familiar political tactic: promise one thing, deliver another. Scrapping net zero is a clear policy commitment. The recycling and plastics rhetoric, by contrast, feels more like an attempt to reassure voters that they’re not simply out to burn the planet.
But those two positions don’t sit comfortably together. You can’t disassemble the foundation of the UK’s climate policy and still expect meaningful progress in areas like waste reduction, materials efficiency or resource recovery. They’re all linked, and if you break one part of the system, the rest becomes harder to hold together.
All this comes at a time when global climate trends are worsening. Ice sheets are shrinking, coral reefs are dying, and extreme weather events are becoming all the more frequent and deadly. It’s abundantly obvious that none of these problems will be solved by deregulating waste or giving oil companies new tax incentives.
Economic impact
The environmental sector, including the waste and resource industries, is one of the few areas in the UK economy that has shown consistent growth, resilience and innovation in recent years. It employs more people than the oil and gas sector and has the potential to power a new wave of green jobs and exports, if it can get the support of policymakers.
Rolling back net zero in favour of short-term fossil fuel profits is not just environmentally reckless, but it’s also economically shortsighted. If Britain goes backwards while the rest of the world moves towards sustainability, we risk being left behind.
Reform’s anti-net-zero stance would represent not just a shift in policy, but also a fundamental change in direction that would affect nearly every part of the environmental sector. The recycling and plastic pledges may sound reassuring, but without credible policies or financial backing, it’s difficult to see them coming to fruition.
For those working in waste and resource management or the green energy sector, a Reform government would very likely mean less support, more uncertainty and greater difficulty achieving the goals many years of work have gone towards achieving.