A Green Industrial Strategy for the UK? Ish.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May has a reputation as something of an inscrutable sphinx and we only get glimpses of what makes her tick. When she stepped up to the hot seat, there was none of the husky-hugging of her predecessor and she abolished the Department of Energy and Climate Change to the dismay and anger of the green commentariat. However, I was less worried about that as DECC had been folded into the new department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy where arguably it could be better integrated into business as usual rather than being treated as a special case – and BEIS Minister Greg Clark is a champion of carbon reduction.
So today, we get an insight on progress as the Government publishes the 10 pillars of its Industrial Strategy. And one of the pillars is rather encouraging:
Delivering affordable energy & clean growth: We will keep energy costs down, build the energy structure we need for new technologies, and secure the economic benefits of our move towards a low carbon economy.
Added to this is various public statements by the PM and BEIS ministers over the last 48 hours singling out electric vehicles, battery technology, ‘smart energy’ and nuclear as areas they would like to boost. I’m very pleased with this as I’ve long called for Government intervention to accelerate the smart grid as a way of unlocking more, and greener, growth, than the usual road building.
So far, so good, but what’s not there?
The big omission is the circular economy which as usual has to play second fiddle to low carbon energy. For as long as I’ve been in the sustainability trade, this has been the case – ‘waste’ is simply not seen as sexy enough. I think it is time for a rebrand, focussing on technologies such as bioprocessing, smart disassembly, automatic sorting technologies and using big data methods to facilitate reverse logistics. More white coats and coding, a bit less in the way of tipper trucks, in other words. A circular economy would also boost the robustness of a post-Brexit UK economy – a key way of selling it to the green-sceptic amongst May’s backbenchers.
The other problem is that the industrial strategy launch has been overshadowed by news of another – a misfiring Trident missile last year which hit the headlines yesterday. Events, my dear boy, events…