The European Union introduced a Directive in 1999 requiring all Member States to reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste disposed in landfill, with targets set for the years 2010, 2013 and 2020. Failure to achieve the targets will result in fines being levied by the European Commission. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is responsible for ensuring that these landfill targets are met at a national level. As part of this, Defra is overseeing a programme of new locaI authority PFI contracts for the construction of waste treatment facilities. The review focuses on Defra's role in seeking to promote the achievement of value for money from the waste PFI programme, the progress being made in delivering new local authority waste projects and good practice in the development of these programmes.

The amount of harmful business waste sent to landfill has fallen, but it is not possible to say how much of this reduction is down to the £240 million government Business Resource Efficiency and Waste Programme which ran from March 2005 to April 2008. The NAO is unable to conclude whether the spending was value for money because the Department had not set specific, quantified targets for the Programme and it lacked reliable information on performance. The businesses that received support from the Programme's initiatives have reported benefits in terms of both cost and environmental improvements, and there should be longer term gains. But the NAO's survey of businesses found low awareness of the services available under the Programme. There has been no evaluation of the Programme to date. Most of the reduction in landfill related to construction, excavation and demolition waste which is less harmful to the environment. Commercial and industrial waste is more likely to generate harmful greenhouse gas, but the amount sent to landfill fell by only 2.3 million tonnes (11 per cent) between 2005 and 2008. Given this rate of progress, the Department may not meet its expectation, set in 2007, of a 20 per cent reduction by 2010. The Department does not have up to date information on how much business waste there is, or how much is being recycled, which makes it difficult for it to target its activities.

Decommissioning nuclear facilities is a relatively new field, which has developed rapidly in the last ten years. It involves materials that may be highly radioactive and therefore require sophisticated methods of containment and remote handling. The wastes arising from decommissioning are hazardous and have to be stored or disposed of safely in order to protect the environment and future generations. Nuclear decommissioning work must be carried out to the highest possible standards to protect workers, the general public and the environment. This book describes the techniques used for dismantling redundant nuclear facilities, the safe storage of radioactive wastes and the restoration of nuclear licensed sites.* Describes the techniques used for dismantling nuclear facilities, safe storage of radioactive wastes, and the restoration of nuclear licensed facilities. * Provides the reader with decommissioning experience accumulated over 15 years by UKAEA. * Contains valuable information to personnel new to decommissioning and waste management.

The global financial crisis hit the world in a remarkable way in late 2008. Many governments and private sector organizations, who had considered Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to be their future, were forced to rethink their strategy in the wake of the crisis, as a lot of the available private funding upon which PPPs relied, was suddenly no longer available to the same extent. At the same time, governments and international organizations, like the European Union, were striving to make closer partnerships between the public sector and the private sector economy a hallmark for future policy initiatives. This book examines PPPs in the context of turbulent times following the global financial crisis (GFC). PPPs can come in many forms, and the book sets out to distinguish between the many alternative views of partnerships; a project, a policy, a symbol of the role of the private sector in a mixed economy, or a governance tool - all within a particular cultural and historical context. This book is about rethinking PPPs in the wake of the financial crisis and aims to give a clearer picture of the kind of conceptual frameworks that researchers might employ to now study PPPs. The crisis took much of the glamour out of PPPs, but theoretical advances have been made by researchers in a number of areas and this book examines selected new research approaches to the study of PPPs.

This book examines some of the key policy, financial and managerialaspects of public-private partnerships within the context of theglobal spread of this form of procurement. The chapters investigate political and institutional issuessurrounding PPPs, together with the financial and managerialstrategies employed by the private sector. Adopting across-disciplinary perspective, the book highlights the oftenpolitically sensitive nature of these projects and identifies aneed for the private sector to investigate a broad set ofparameters which relate to the particular political economy ofindividual partnerships. Policy, Finance & Management for Public-Private Partnershipscovers a range of specific issues, including: partnerships indeveloping countries; innovation in partnership-based procurement;government and business interaction; institutional andorganisational approaches to facilitating partnership; project andcorporate financing; risk and value management; market analysis,modelling and forecasting; capital structure decisions andmanagement; investment theory and practice; pricing and costevaluation; statutory regulations and their financial implications;option pricing; financial monitoring; syndicate funding; new rolesfor the financial and insurance sectors; institutional andmultilateral funding; payment mechanisms; concession perioddetermination; risk analysis and management; whole life valuemethodology; cost comparators and best value; team building, teamwork and skill development. Contributions from Australia, Europe, the Far East, South Africaand the United States together present the current thinking andstate-of-the-art approaches to public-private partnerships.

The Principles of Project Finance reviews the technique of project finance. It explores, step-by-step, the key ingredients of the concept. The book is aimed at a business savvy audience, but one which is not necessarily up to speed on the concept, and has a global reach by covering both OECD countries and the emerging markets. Project finance is positioned at a key point between the global capital markets and the energy and infrastructure industries. To explain and illustrate the ideas behind project finance, the book is made of chapters written by a range of leading players in the market from around the world and is split into four sections: ¢ The first reviews various themes and issues key to the project finance market - views from bankers, lawyers and advisers plus chapters on bank, bond and multilateral finance and a look at environmental, insurance and construction market issues. ¢ The second section looks at how project finance is used in various sectors of the energy and infrastructure market - renewable energy, oil and gas, mining, PPPs and roads and transportation. ¢The third then takes an in-depth look at various projects finance markets from around the world - Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Turkey, Russia, Africa, France, USA and Brazil. ¢ Finally, the fourth section presents a series of Top 10 deal cases studies from the pages of Thomson Reuters Project Finance International (PFI), the leading source of global project finance information.