Industry Insights

Ian Price

CBI Wales Director

At COP26, the eyes of the world will be on the UK as we look to build a more sustainable future worldwide. While global summits attract massive attention, for most of us, the net zero journey begins at home. From government to business, NGOs to consumers, we all share a vision for a high wage, high investment, more sustainable and more prosperous Welsh economy. While the moral case to tackle climate change has always been clear, there’s also growing recognition that the net zero journey offers massive economic opportunities. Wales sits perfectly poised to capitalise on them.

Take electric vehicles for example, we seem to be seeing more and more investment in EVs in South Wales every week. That’s a great start and, with our incredible legacy in the automotive sector, it’s an area where Wales can truly be a world leader.

Similarly, with heat being the largest single source of UK carbon emissions, and the UK Government having just released its Heat & Buildings Strategy, the race is on to decarbonise heat in homes and commercial buildings. Research has shown that will create a huge number of new well-paying jobs – that’s something we can embrace as we emerge from the pandemic.

COP26 maybe, as John Kerry said recently, is the "last best hope for the world to get its act together." Time is short to deliver the positive change we need and seize the economic opportunities that come with our net zero journey.

Richard Selby

Director and co-founder, Pro Steel Engineering and National Chair of IoD Wales

Business like ours have historically gone about our work and have only had to reactively consider our environmental outputs, to a certain extent. That has rightly had to change, and so have the mindsets of directors like me. There are plenty of opportunities for businesses like ours to make small, yet very meaningful changes for the better. Ideally, we would like to be making large strides, but these things can’t happen overnight, so we need to put the necessary groundwork in place, to ensure we do it properly for the benefit of the future. As a start, we have been looking internally at how the way we operate can help to reduce CO₂ that we produce unnecessarily. By benchmarking our existing usage, and creating a roadmap to net zero, we can see the rate and level of progress as we go. By starting now and identifying supporting organisations like South Wales Industrial Cluster for the best advice, I feel we can get into a good position for future work as we can tangibly demonstrate our commitment.

We’re already hearing about the opportunities within this space coming to market and these will only increase as manufacturers get on board. Hydrogen production, offshore floating wind, Swansea Lagoon project, decarbonisation of social housing and net zero housebuilding are just a few areas we can look at working on, and these are just the ones announced in the media in recent weeks. The opportunities will come in, we just need to be in the best position and ahead of the game to be in with a good chance of demonstrating that we are the organisation committed to making positive changes, and therefore share the ethos of such projects.

Paul Slevin

President Chambers Wales

The last twenty months have been a testing time for many businesses and a period in their lives that many managers and directors have or may never experience again. The ongoing uncertainty and changing circumstances left many companies unsure about their route through or their futures. Some will say that it is the cocktail of support from Governments that has ensured that many have survived. We would suggest that much of the survival is down to the dogged determination of businesses to innovate and adapt to a fast-changing environment.

And as we emerge into the next normal, we find the need to change again, to further adapt and to take on new challenges. Fractured or slow supply chains, rising costs, the need for new skills sets and the urgent need to move to a net zero environment heaps more challenges on businesses at a time when recovery is probably the primary focus. Survival now is the mountain that many face and at a time when other issues start to crowd the agendas.

But time after time businesses in Wales demonstrate without fail their ability to adapt, to flex and to innovate. Our creative mindset allows managers and directors to steer routes though complex issues and ensure not just survival but opportunity. Now is the time to dig deep and do that again.

But this should not be done alone. Businesses must now reach out for support, for learning, for opportunity. There are some old and tired words in this area that many people shudder when they hear them. Collaboration and networking are, for some, cliched expressions of management speak. But the spirit of these activities must now form the backbone of our recovery. More than that, done effectively they can and will provide businesses in Wales with a strong competitive advantage.

The expression ‘Team Wales’ has never been more important and if we are to rise to the challenge, a challenge shared by many other countries across the world, then we need to reach out. Every business needs to link with universities, schools and colleges. They must reach out up and down their supply chains, link with their peers, explore working with their competitors and look to form solid connections with their markets across the world. This is not a time of pioneers but a time for building solid, focused and open networks that give all of its participants confidence, strength and agility.

During the height of the pandemic, we saw great examples of how businesses, governments, education, trade unions and representative bodies worked closely to achieve a shared and known outcome. That collaboration produced exceptional results and continues to do so.

Continuing this approach will help each and every business to address proactively the challenges in their supply chains, with their people and their markets. Our present and future competitive advantage is based on innovation. Our fast paced world requires and constant cycle of refreshed thinking and action. That is better done in groups of like-minded individuals. The collected brain is more powerful!

Let us not now lose that learning. We cannot afford to return to an isolationist approach to our worlds. Working together produces a stronger result for our businesses, for our people, for our communities and for Wales.