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Is green the new blue?
How cleantech could be our latest industrial revolution
I know that it might look like I’m jumping on a bandwagon, in the wake of Copenhagen, but I really do believe that this carbon reduction business has potential to be good business. Last week I attended a very promising event hosted by the Met Office and organised by the South West Regional Development Agency (responsible for the first Low Carbon Economic Area designated by UK government) and the South West Science and Industry Council. There were good speakers, most of whom were already developing products and breaking into the new markets which the low carbon economy is bringing forward. The delegates were an eclectic mix of public sector purse holders, academics, and businesses, small and large, generating turnover from inspirational new technology.
The final question of the day was asked by a delegate from Government Office SW conscious of the poverty of the region and wondering how, in these straitened times, we can justify investing so much public money to encourage and support the development of businesses of this type. My thoughts on this, offered rather boldly on the day, are that the investment isn’t just for high flying businesses, it’s for a whole industry sector. If we get this right we are looking at the best opportunity to generate jobs for people at all skills levels since before we became dependent on the low wage, seasonal economies of agriculture and tourism.
The trick of course, and I use the term advisedly since the climate change email spat, is to ensure that we don’t contract out all of the low skill elements of the business to China or elsewhere. It may not be very high brow, but the one thing that the manufacturing sector can do for us is provide year round employment and a range of job opportunities and progression routes. It allows us to value those that can make things and mend things, those that can work it out and work out how to make it better. And sitting it out in the classroom all the way to a modern degree isn’t necessarily the best route for some people, or for the economy.
Sure there is value to working in collaboration with overseas partners, but what may appear to be a cheaper route to market in the short term may cost us in taxes to support the long term unemployed at home if we are not careful. New technologies will demand new skills both to develop and to install products, if we are to get it right we will need to be ready to get from idea to market-ready product with the speed that the IT industry does. Those that work the production line are often those who watch and think and work out a better way of doing things day after day after day, so isn’t it worth keeping those ideas close to home?
Repair and local production are all very well, but we also need to address the issue of the energy requried to support local production and manufacture. We should be looking at small scale energy production from sustainable resources to reduce our dependence on carbon-heavy fuels and massive construction projects to feed our ever-increasing appetite for all things electrical. For example, anyone visiting the beaches in Devon next year should be asking themselves why we pump our sewage into our holiday resorts rather than using it to generate power and fertilise our crops.