A UK charity based in Banbury, Oxfordshire, that works with governments, businesses and communities to cut food, plastic and textile waste and make better use of the planet's resources.
WRAP, whose full name is the Waste and Resources Action Programme, is a charity that helps the UK and other countries use resources more sensibly. It works with governments, businesses and communities on practical ways to waste less, in areas such as food and drink, plastic packaging, and clothing and textiles. If you have ever seen the Recycle Now logo on a bin or packaging, or come across the Love Food Hate Waste campaign about cutting food waste at home, you have seen WRAP's work. It also runs voluntary agreements, where companies promise to hit shared targets, such as the Courtauld Commitment on food and drink.
WRAP was set up in 2000 as a not-for-profit company and became a registered charity (number 1159512) in late 2014. Its stated vision is "a world in which all resources can be used sustainably". In its own words, its mission is to speed up the shift to a resource-efficient economy by rethinking how products are designed, made and sold, how people use them, and how reuse and recycling can go further. Its newer public pages talk about embedding "Circular Living, for the benefit of climate, nature and people", and describe it as a global environmental action organisation working in more than 40 countries. Its charity description says it wants to "make the world a more sustainable place".
WRAP's registered office is in Banbury, Oxfordshire. Its 2015 annual report says it brought its Banbury staff into one building that year and also had offices in Cardiff and Belfast, so it works across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with government support from each nation. Zero Waste Scotland became a separate organisation in 2014. It has run regional projects such as work in Wales, Rethink Waste in Northern Ireland, and a partnership called Resource London with the London Waste and Recycling Board. These are the 2015 details; WRAP's current office list was not confirmed.
The values WRAP set out in that report were evidence, independence, collaboration and delivery on the ground, with a stated commitment to excellence. It described a health, safety and environment committee, benchmarked pay, and an environmental management system following the ISO 14001 standard. The report names Julie Hill MBE as chair and Dr Liz Goodwin OBE as chief executive at that time; those roles may have changed since. These are the organisation's own statements and are several years old.
A charity like this employs people in many different jobs. WRAP's work spans research and data analysis, such as its published data stories on food waste, textiles and plastics, campaign and communications teams who run public campaigns, programme managers who work with businesses and local councils, and the finance, policy and operations staff that support them. If you enjoy numbers, science, geography, business or communication, and want your work to cut waste, there are places for each of those interests. WRAP's own website is the place to look for current roles.
Website: wrap.ngo
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