The Environmental Industries Commission [1] is today launching its 2011 “Manifesto for Driving Growth and Competiveness in the UK’s Green Economy”. The Manifesto will be launched in the House of Commons Members’ Dining Room, with a keynote speech from Mark Prisk MP, Minister for Business and Innovation.
This environmental industry policy manifesto sets out a series of recommendations on how the Coalition Government can establish a world-leading environmental industry in the UK - with thousands of new businesses, hundreds of thousands of new jobs and huge export potential. This Industry Manifesto has been prepared by leading business people and policy experts in the UK’s environmental industry, which has a value of £112 billion, an export turnover of some £10 billion and employs just under one million people.
Key recommendations in the manifesto include:
- Ø Introducing a National Framework of “Low Emission Zones” - with minimum emission standards for on-and-off road vehicles - to support local authorities in taking action to tackle poor air quality in hotspot problem areas
- Ø Increasing the ambition of the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme
- Ø Redefining the waste agenda towards resource efficiency
- Ø Urgently setting legal limits for land contamination for local authorities to use to define “unacceptable risk” to human health or the environment from contaminated land and, therefore, the trigger point at which land must be remediated.
- Ø Ensuring forthcoming water white paper addresses OFWAT’s regulatory role to prevent the “boom and bust” five-year funding cycle of water companies and ensure sustainability and employment in the supply chain.
- Ø To bring forward proposals for the Green Investment Bank to have borrowing powers to help facilitate and accelerate private sector investment in environmental innovations
- Ø Maintaining and enhancing resource efficiency in all Government procurement and implementing a number of mechanisms to achieve these outcomes, to act as a driver for the private sector to follow suit.
- Ø That Government economists must ensure that their Impact Assessments assess the economic benefits of environmental policies (in particular, the job creation and export potential for the UK’s environmental industry)
Launching the document , EIC’s Executive Chairman Adrian Wilkes said that:
“EIC welcomed David Cameron’s post-Election statements about the business opportunities for British companies in the emerging "Green Economy". We endorsed the goal of the Coalition’s ‘Programme for Government’ to ‘promote the green industries that are so essential for our future”.
”However, there has been increasing frustration within the environment technology and services industry of the lack of policy detail and engagement of Ministers to address certain concerns of the industry - which would help and accelerate green jobs, innovation, investment and accelerate growth in the green economy.
We challenge the Government to see the green economy as an investment not a cost. The Coalition Government need to realise that every supportive policy for the UK’s environmental industry it will see many more dividends in return through investment, innovation, and new green jobs The Government has the opportunity to drive a new green economy in the UK and so enable British companies exploit the £3 trillion export market."