The government considers that most of the damage to the environment from waste could be avoided at the design and production stages by considering the materials used in production and the ease with which products can be reused or repaired. It has an ambition to double resource efficiency (the use that is drawn from raw materials before they are discarded) by 2050. The Department considered setting a long-term statutory target for resource efficiency in 2022. It decided not to because it did not yet have a reliable way of measuring such a target. The Department also recognised it had more to do to build its understanding of the impacts and risks of potential policy interventions to ensure that a target in this area would be achievable.35