CRN UK has a long and distinguished history of representing the community sector involved in sustainable resource management. Set up in 1989, CRN was a programme within Friends of the Earth and became independent from them in 1991.

For the past 20 years we have campaigned for funding opportunities and on legislation, supported and provided advice to our members, local authorities and government on issues affecting the sector.

But our most important function is acting as a facilitator for groups to communicate, learn from each other and share experiences, knowledge and trials and tribulations of running a community waste organisation.

Networking

The CRN has run numerous networking events, from our 19 Annual Conferences to 1 day events looking at specific topics and areas of particular interest to our members.

Our conferences have included keynote speeches from politicians and Government ministers, inspiring international casestudies and leading thinkers on environmental, social and economic issues.

In addition to this there are always lots of networking opportunities with smaller break-out groups or round table sessions enabling sharing of experiences and adding to new ideas, innovation and the sense of collaboration between members.

Our one day events have included site visits to view interesting projects which have always proved very popular. We have run a wide range of events from making projects financially sustainable and procurement, to learning about setting up a Wood Recycling Scheme and Textiles recycling.

A list of some the events we have run along with any presentations from the day are available in Previous Events.

Our monthly members' newsletter and our e-publication - The Waste Paper is a key method of keeping members up to date with news, activities and achievements within the sector.

Representation

The CRN UK has always highlighted the many strengths of the community waste sector to the waste and resources industry, regional agencies, and local and national government.

The CRN UK continues to promote the benefits of the sector - its innovative nature, small scale and localised solutions, the benefits to the communities they serve, the focus on social impacts as well as environmental actions, working with disadvantaged or hard to reach communities and local training, volunteering and employment opportunities.

Through lobbying the CRN was successful in getting the Community Recycling and Economic Development (CRED) Fund from the National Lottery. The CRED programme provided £33 million of funding to community waste projects between 2003 and 2007. It created 1,400 jobs and over 14,000 training and volunteering placements and diverted around 166,000 tonnes of waste. A copy of the evaluation report can be downloaded from http://cred.rswt.org/files/uploaded/download.php?filename=CRED%20Evaluation%20Final%20Report%2025%2003%2008.pdf.

In addition to the CRED fund the CRN lobbied government for the Community Sector Support Programme which provided a small amount of grant funding and also funded the Regional Development Programme which funded Regional teams in 4 of the English regions who were able to provide direct support to groups.

The CRN UK has represented the sector by responding to numerous consultations to influence government policy. In response to the Animal Bi-Products Regulations, the CRN was instrumental in setting up the Community Composting Network (CCN) to dedicate its work to supporting groups affected by the regulations and to campaign on behalf of community composting groups on the negative affects of the legislation.

The Friends of the Earth campaign to introduce a Recycling Bill was strongly supported by the CRN. The campaign was successful and the Household Waste and Recycling Bill of 2003 oblige all local authorities to collect at least 2 recyclable materials from every household by 2010.

The CRN UK has also supported Local Works on the campaign to implement the Sustainable Communities Act which gives bottom-up powers to communities if their councils choose to adopt it.

More recently the Campaign for Real Recycling is a consortium of community groups and material reprocessors concerned with the quality of recyclable materials and source separation. CRN has spearheaded this campaign and is continuing to influence the recycling collections agenda.

Support

Information provision has always been a key feature of the CRN support provided to its members, largely through its publication The Waste Paper and more recently through email bulletins e-newsletters and the website. The CRN offers an Information Service to its membership, and sends relevant updates on funding and tender opportunities, collects documents (eg job descriptions and policies) and publications relevant to the sector.

As part of the CRED fund, the CRN managed the Business Support Team. The Team was available to advise and support groups through the application process and during the project.  They ran events focusing on elements of the programme including reporting procedure, Furniture and white goods, Commercial Waste Collections and more. The Business Support Team received very positive feedback and helped many organisations develop their applications and business plans. The team also produced a series of fact sheets including one on state aid and another for developing business plans.

The Community Sector Support Programme provided the opportunity to give further direct support through the establishment of Regional Teams in 4 of the English regions: Yorkshire and the Humber, the North West, the South West and the East of England. The teams, like the CRED programme, worked on behalf of the sector (CCN, Furniture Re-use Network (FRN), London CRN & CRN UK) and were managed by CRN UK.

The teams were able to provide one to one localised advise and support to groups in these regions, they produced dedicated newsletters and were able to represent and support organisations in speaking to local authorities and regional bodies. One of the most notable projects to come out of the regional programme is Resource Saver. This was started in the Eastern region but has now been replicated in the North West. Resource Saver link businesses with wasted resources to community groups who could re-use them in some way.

The legacy of this support and collaboration between the CRN UK, CCN, FRN and London CRN has lead to a new organisation - REalliance CIC. REalliance is owned by the 4 networks and is one point of contact for WRAP and Defra. Its remit is initially to build the capacity within the sector through the WRAP funded Third Sector Capacity Building Programme. CRN UK is providing support to organisations on behalf of REalliance and working to help REalliance meet its aims in building capacity within the sector.

REalliance targets larger organisations and those with the capability to divert a significant amount of tonnage. Whilst CRN helps these organisations we also recognise that there are a large number of organisations that are providing vital services to there community but are unable to generate the tonnage required to qualify for support from REalliance.

The CRN UK is dedicated to supporting all sizes of community waste organisations and continues to provide a dedicated networking, representation and support service to the sector.