Danone HSW’s proposed plan to destroy an existing established woodland and replace it with a plastic bottle making facility is in direct conflict with both national and local policy. These policies include:
Local Nature Recovery Strategy
The Harrogate District Local Plan 2014 - 2035
North Yorkshire Climate Change Strategy Delivery Pathway: Supporting Nature to Thrive
The North Yorkshire Council Climate Change Strategy 2023-2030
Environmental Improvement Plan
The Harrogate District Local Plan 2014 - 2035 acknowledges that we are in a climate emergency. It states:
“7.17 In the UK the Climate Change Act (2008) sets a legal framework to deliver an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2050. In response the Harrogate Borough Council Carbon Reduction Strategy identifies that the district should make a proportional
contribution to reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and sets a local target to reduce emissions by 57% by 2030, which is in line with the UK Carbon Budget.”
“Over the last 10 years the district's CO2 emissions have decreased by 20.7%, however, Yorkshire and the Humber has seen a 26.8% reduction and England a 28% fall (DBEIS,2017).”
The expansion of Danone HSW will create a colossal carbon footprint. The business model is far from sustainable and conflicts with local and national government policies.
Allowing the production of more plastic will create more CO2. In a study recently published in Nature Sustainability, the researchers reveal that the global carbon footprint of plastics has doubled since 1995, reaching 2.2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) in 2015. The Danone HSW manufactures PET plastic bottles. It takes up to 450 years for PET plastic to break down and as it does, it releases methane (one of the most potent atmospheric greenhouse gases).
1.8 billion tonnes of carbon emissions a year from global plastic production, use and disposal
5% of the global carbon budget is expected to be spent on global plastics production by 2040
Only10% of the 142 million tonnes of plastic packaging produced each year is effectively recycled. The remainder is sent to landfill, incinerated or leaked directly into the environment representing £60 billion to $90 billion lost value
https://www.wrap.ngo/what-we-do/prevent-problem-plastics
Danone HSW is Britain’s largest independent bottled water supplier, and it keeps on growing and producing more plastic. The company’s main spring is sourced from an aquifer in the millstone grit series, below the Harrogate Pinewoods. In 2016 Danone HSW grew by more than 20 per cent, vastly out-performing market growth of around eight per cent, with sales surging to more than seven million bottles.
In 2019 the company’s sales surged by more than 11 per cent, three times the market growth for plain bottled water in the UK. In 2024, at a public consultation, Jake Carnell, Head of Public Affairs at Danone, claimed that they created and shipped 200 million bottles.
Plastics show the strongest production growth of all bulk materials and are already responsible for 4.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that the life-cycle emissions of plastics – which includes the production of the material and its disposal – was 1.8 billion tonnes. This is measured in carbon dioxide equivalents, which accounts for the various warming impacts of different greenhouse gases. Around 90% come from the production stage – that is, converting fossil fuels into plastics.
OECD writes that without stronger policies, plastics’ production and use are projected to increase by 70%, from 435 million tonnes (Mt) in 2020 to 736 Mt in 2040, with only 6% of plastics coming from recycled sources. In parallel, mismanaged plastic waste, i.e. plastics that at the end of their lives are dumped, inadequately disposed of or littered, will increase by almost 50% (from 81 Mt annually in 2020 to 119 Mt annually in 2040). Leakage of mismanaged plastics into the environment, including their release into rivers, oceans and on land, will increase by 50%.
"The key message that people should take away is that the plastics crisis is a climate crisis hiding in plain sight." Carroll Muffett, Head of the Center for International Environmental Law.
This all conflicts greatly with the North Yorkshire Council Climate Change Strategy 2023-2030. Cllr Greg White, Executive Member for Climate Change, writes:
“Together, with communities and businesses, we can take actions to tackle the causes and impacts of climate change in line with Government policy and our national legal obligation to be net zero by 2050 and local ambition to be the first carbon negative region by 2040.”
On page 6 of the strategy it states the ambition as being greater:
“The Council aims to be carbon neutral by 2030.”
North Yorkshire Climate Change Strategy Delivery Pathway: Supporting Nature to Thrive:
“Build the evidence base locally to prioritise areas (geographic and habitat) or urgent action to protect and restore nature sites, and improve air and water quality and light pollution.”
The North Yorkshire Council Climate Change Strategy 2023-2030 states:
“The food that we eat, the water we use, the clothes we wear and the businesses that drive our economy are reliant on the health of the natural world ecosystem, and this is under threat. Climate change will make this worse as animals and plants lose their habitats and cannot adapt to changing temperatures and acidity of the oceans. The numbers and variety of plant and animal life, described as ‘biodiversity’ is not just a ‘nice to have’, it is essential.”
“We must ensure that land managers in the public, private and community sector support nature in the way that the land is managed.
For NYC, this includes public open spaces such as parks and play areas, highway verges and street trees, coastal areas and the county farm estate.”
The Environmental Improvement Plan (2023) states: “We will halt the decline in our biodiversity so we can achieve thriving plants and wildlife.” Allowing the creation of more plastic bottle production and destroying an established woodland in the process is clearly at odds with national policy.
North Yorkshire Council’s declaration of a Climate Emergency (July 2022) does not support this proposed development when considering the negative implications globally. In previous LPA discussions and decisions made to refuse past Reserved Matters connected to the proposed expansion of the Danone HSW plant (19/05245/DVCMAJ), councillors referred to the global negative implications of plastic pollution. They also highlighted Harrogate’s global position in having a chance to become a town leading the fight for climate justice, as opposed to a town perpetuating the problem. This still stands to date and is more relevant in light of current scientific research on climate change (IPCC Climate Change Report 2023) in which hundreds of scientists globally state the need to ‘End Deforestation Now.’ - AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023 — IPCC