The UK must harness its competitive advantage in green industries to reach net zero and reverse manufacturing decline, a report has said.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a left-leaning think tank, has found that the UK is already a global leader in producing a third of the 143 products required for technologies that will help achieve net zero. The UK has a strong base in technologies such as electric trains and their parts, components for heat pumps, and turbines for geothermal or hydroelectricity generation.
The IPPR also identified devices for monitoring, measuring and analysing the electricity grid, renewable energy generation and decarbonising industry as areas where the UK leads. The think tank is urging the Government to adopt a long-term strategy to harness these sectors, while also kickstarting domestic manufacturing of items like wind turbines, electric vehicles and heat pumps.
The IPPR believes that this approach could not only help the UK meet its net zero commitments but also boost the economy in regions that have been left behind, including the north and Midlands of England, and traditionally industrialised areas of Scotland and Wales. However, the think tank also warns against dismantling heavy industries such as steelmaking, arguing that they are vital for the resilience of the UK economy amid concerns about an increasingly volatile global situation.
The UK is on the brink of losing one of its final blast furnaces for producing raw steel from iron ore. This comes as Indian corporation, Tata, plots a switch to an eco-friendlier steelmaking process that uses scrap metal at its Port Talbot facility. Dr George Dibb, leader of IPPR's economic justice centre, said "The UK faces three generational challenges: to deliver net zero, to level up and reinvigorate our economy, and to become more resilient to future shocks."
"These challenges have a common solution seizing the growth opportunities of green manufacturing. Over the past 30 years we have slipped sharply behind our global competitors in the quantity and kinds of things we actually make."
"That's bad for jobs, for living standards, for our security and for our long-term economic strength as a country. Yet UK manufacturers still have a competitive edge in making some of the products vital for a net zero economy, and with the right Government support we have the potential to be world leading in many more."
"Our report has identified what we should target to develop in the near future; now we need Government to adopt a long-term strategy that will lead us along this path."
This plan proposed by IPPR got the thumbs up from MakeUK, a manufacturer organisation, and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Stephen Phipson, the Chief Executive of MakeUK, said "Just as the first industrial revolution provided a step change, the accelerating pace of technological change of the fourth industrial revolution, in particular the drive to net zero, gives us a generational opportunity to do the same now."
Similarly, the Chief Executive of the CBI, Rain Newton-Smith flagged the economic benefits of green growth: "Green truly is the economic growth opportunity of the 21st century, with our research showing it could deliver as much as £57billion to the UK economy."
"That's something we can't afford to miss out on, and our manufacturing sector is fundamental to helping us secure that prize. From electric vehicles to sustainable aviation fuel, turbines to onshore heat pumps, UK companies are already making and innovating for the future, with products and services that will drive the net zero transition at home and around the world."