CBI picks family favourites for low carbon future

'Joining The Dots: Making The UK The Place To Do Low Carbon Business' suggests the Government should work more closely with business as it drafts its Low Carbon Industrial Strategy that will select a limited number of low-carbon technologies with the potential to add value to the UK economy. The CBI has called for a strategy that identifies families of technologies – including biofuels, carbon capture and storage and marine power – and backing them with the necessary funding and other Government interventions to maximise the commercialisation of these industries. It has also called for a coordinated approach across national and local government, and other public bodies, in order to attract the necessary levels of private investment at a time when public finances are going to be stretched.

With the global market for low carbon and environmental goods and services estimated to be worth £3 trillion and growing rapidly, there are huge opportunities for UK businesses. But almost every developed country is looking to embrace the low carbon economy to its own advantage. The CBI therefore argues that it is neither possible nor desirable for the UK to actively compete in every low carbon solution. Instead, Government should focus on technologies where the UK can build on existing strengths, enabling focused support for key low carbon technologies, while allowing the market to deliver low carbon growth in other sectors.

The CBI has its favourite ‘sons and daughters’: front-end design and process engineering and research strengths in, for example, developing technologies such as the next generation of biofuels. The CBI states that a robust assessment of these and other areas of strength, to determine which ‘technology families’ will be supported, must be completed without delay. This will provide a clear signal to business and investors, as soon as possible, on where the focus will be that, will in turn, secure market confidence.

The CBI’s strategy of favouritism will raise concerns that certain sectors will be overlooked for investment, while others benefit from focused Government support, but the brief concludes that focusing on a limited number of technologies will make coordination across Government – preferably through one department, for example the Department of Energy and Climate Change – easier, something the CBI believes needs to happen if a successful low carbon industrial strategy is to be achieved.

Commenting on the report, Rhian Kelly, CBI head of Climate Change, said: “As we move closer to climate change talks in Copenhagen later this year, other countries are looking at how they can lead the field in developing low-carbon technologies.The Government’s Low Carbon Industrial Strategy needs to lay out how the UK can get ahead and become a low-carbon leader, not a laggard.

 “We need to build a consensus across Government departments so that low carbon policy becomes embedded across the economy, making it easy for investors to see that the UK is the place to do lowcarbon business. We have to focus on developing the right technologies that build on the UK’s existing strengths, and this has to be supported by research, development and deployment, and through smarter public procurement.”