Environment 44

We often hear about improving energy efficiency or tackling the climate crisis for ‘the benefit of our grandchildren’. But when it comes to much younger generations, or generations which haven’t even arrived yet - what will they be doing to contribute to a greener, more sustainable world when they enter the world of work?

Whilst the true answer lies decades away, we’re starting to see some interesting shifts in the way businesses are set up to be more sustainable, which could give us a clue as to the shape of ESG in the future.

The rise of the Chief Sustainability Officer?

It’s no secret that businesses have begun developing their managerial structures to allow for a greater focus on sustainability - a report from Weinreb Group in 2020 stated that Fortune 500 companies hired more Chief Sustainability Officers in that year than the previous three combined, with demand up by 228% for the role. A more up-to-date litmus test (which is by no means as accurate) shows some 11,000 roles on LinkedIn with the word ‘sustainability’ in their title in the UK alone. It won’t be surprising that the vast majority of these roles aren’t in the C-suite.

And nor should they be.

We work with some of the leading names across retail, energy and manufacturing - in particular to improve their energy consumption measurement and efficiency of legacy assets - which means we’ve seen first-hand how sustainability and energy efficiency features in the workloads of a multitude of stakeholders.

A varied approach

When looking at a recent manufacturing project, part of our remit included us helping a Finance Director encourage factory employees to make sustainability a bigger part of their day-to-day.

In the Nuclear space, we have worked alongside Lead Architects and Digital Transformation Project Leaders who have various objectives such as reducing excess energy and utility bills and also tracking and tracing complex assets and systems on enormous sites.

It’s clear there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ approach to becoming more sustainable - improvements can be made across pretty much all areas of business, and therefore should reach all areas of the workforce.

Whose responsibility is it?

Ultimately, successful businesses will handle sustainability in a similar vein to how forwardthinking businesses have approached digitisation. Yes, there may be ‘Heads of Digital’ in the way we’re seeing ‘Heads of Sustainability’, but these people aren’t the difference between being a digital or sustainable business or not. Ultimately, they help guide the introduction of new technologies, processes and cultures across the estate.

Most important is taking all employees on the sustainability journey together, so they have (at the very least) a strong awareness of how their work impacts energy efficiency.

It’s easier to make this step than you might think - it might be as simple as connecting up and getting visibility across energy consuming assets for an estate, giving almost instant clarity on where efficiencies can and should be made.

JORDAN APPLESON

Founder & Chief Executive Officer Hark

harksys.com

Ultimately, successful businesses will handle sustainability in a similar vein to how forward-thinking businesses have approached digitisation.

ENVIRONMENT BANK CELEBRATES NEW CREDITS SCHEME

A Yorkshire-based business is seeking to restore biodiversity and create new wildlife habitats throughout the UK, with the help of its pioneering ‘Credits’ scheme.

New Environment Bank CEO James Cross with founder and chairman Professor David Hill.

Environment Bank has hired 20 professionals, including ecologists, marketing, operational and legal experts to work on its new product, Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) credits. This will offer developers a simple way to implement BNG and generate a guaranteed income for landowners. The aim is to unlock economic growth, while funding conservation and biodiversity projects across the UK. Housing and commercial developers, infrastructure businesses and corporates in the UK are now required by law to ensure BNG on all new projects or risk planning permission being refused. The Environment Bank’s latest recruits include CEO James Cross, formerly Chief Executive of Natural England, Ecology Director Emma Toovey, Head of Operations Dana Foster, and Commercial Director Alexis Perry. Company founder, Professor David Hill, CBE, created the concept of biodiversity net gain in 2007 and has long campaigned for it to be mandated into planning law. This was achieved with the passing of the Environment Act last November. Prof. Hill said: “We have been waiting for this moment for many years and we are incredibly pleased and proud to see it finally become law. All credit to Defra and Natural England for ensuring its inclusion in the Act.

“BNG means leaving the natural environment in a better state than before a development or infrastructure project was built. Ensuring this happens via the planning process has now been made law through the Environment Act. This presents a greater opportunity than ever before to restore nature across our country at scale. This is critical because we have seen an unprecedented 60% decline in biodiversity over the past five decades. “At Environment Bank, in anticipation of the Act we have put in place the necessary structures to allow us to deliver BNG at scale. This includes expanding our team of expert ecologists so they have a national footprint across England, strengthening our operational capabilities, and reviewing our board of directors and senior management team.” Environment Bank is currently creating its first habitat banks, tapping into thousands of hectares of land to restore wildlife habitat and support the Government’s targets for nature recovery. Founded in 2006, the Bank has evolved rapidly and seeks to be a catalyst for change in the way development is done across the UK.

CEO James Cross continued: “Having grown our team from six to 26 in the past 12 months, we are now in a prime position to help developers and corporations unlock the opportunities created through the Environment Act.” Full details at environmentbank.com.

ENVIRONMENT BANK

environmentbank.com

Environment Bank is currently creating its first habitat banks, tapping into thousands of hectares of land to restore wildlife habitat and support the Government’s targets for nature recovery.

Innovative companies often have the spark but not the resources to make the leaps in technology that are so critical to creating a greener world.

Thankfully grants are available to help businesses unlock that much-needed capital to get a project off the ground.

Millions of pounds are being handed out to companies each year, most of it awarded by the nation’s innovation agency, Innovate UK. Since 2007, it has invested around £2.5billion to help businesses across the country, with matchfunding from industry taking the total value of projects above £4.3billion.

Businesses seeking to help build a greener future are particularly in luck as the majority of grants on offer have a green dimension. That has been one of the key changes over the past decade — green technologies are at the forefront of the research & development field, a situation that’s unlikely to ever change.

These environmentally-focused grants cover all sorts of sectors, from food and drink and farming through to motoring and innovation in the renewable energy sector itself. These awards of funding are already sparking revolutions right on our doorstep from helping distilleries to decarbonise to enabling the mechanised farming of seaweed to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Smart electric vehicle charging is another area that is receiving huge support in the form of grant funding.

The Government faces huge challenges in meeting its 2050 Net Zero target, as well as its Industrial Strategy, where its Four Grand Challenges focus on AI/data, an ageing society, clean growth and the future of mobility. That’s why there has never been a better time for green businesses to seek grants — they represent the official firepower being focused on these areas.

Companies leading the way in improving energy efficiency, energy storage and working on heat pumps are just some of those facing huge opportunities as a result of the growing number of grants being offered.

Examples of funding

New grants are announced on a regular basis, and larger funding bodies with deep pockets often administer grants in rounds, with many deadlines introduced over a matter of years.

The £20m fund for the sustainable smart factory competition is one example of how grants dive into every corner of industry to drive the sustainable agenda. While this competition closed to applicants in January,

new grants are being launched all the time. Here are some you can enter right now:

The Heat Pump Ready Programme. This £60million fund is being rolled out to spur pioneering heat pump technologies, and closes to applications on February 15 and 22. It ties into the government’s ambitious target for the UK to be fitting 600,000 heat pumps a year by 2028. It is hoped that switching to low carbon heating will cut emissions, and reduce the UK’s dependency on fossil fuels — both key to meeting the government’s 2050 net zero target.

The Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator has an ongoing deadline, with a maximum grant value of £1million. This fund offers grants to tech developers targeting energy and resource efficiency in industry. The support is designed to help them bring their innovations to market. Projects should work at scale. Previous recipients included a company that delivered a 70% reduction in energy use at a landfill site.

The Automotive Transformative Fund has just closed its 17th funding round, with a closing date for Round 18 due to be published in due course. The ATF is a £1billion fund designed to accelerate the UK’s switch to electric vehicles. The fund is a key cornerstone of the government’s strategy to reach net zero and provides support for investment in the key technology areas of batteries, fuel cells, motors, drives and power electronics. The fund is designed for those businesses seeking support for large scale, capitalfocused products.

Smart is Innovate UK’s ‘open grant funding’ programme. There’s no limit to how much you can be awarded from its £25million pot and there are rolling deadlines throughout the year. The criteria for this grant are tightening after the next deadline closes on 13th April as the focus shifts to exports and getting products to market quickly. But plenty of green businesses will still qualify and it’s open to any UK-registered company.

These are just a few of many recent grant schemes, and there will doubtless be many more opening in the coming year.

How experts can help

It can be a minefield sourcing the best grant funding streams and then applying, but experts can help you navigate this field and unlock the allimportant cash to set a project on its way.

The Catax grant team will also conduct checks to ensure that you are eligible to apply and your project fits within the grant scope. This may involve a review of your finances, time-frames, internal resources, business strategy, match funding and mapping out of your technical readiness level. They may even identify the need for a project partner if you are to be in contention, all helping to craft and shape how your application will be pitched.

Applying may seem complicated, but having an expert by your side can help you to navigate the entire process and get your project moving.

@Catax_UK @Catax_Group Catax Group

No risk-service. If no grant or claim is identified, there is no charge.

The process is made simple. All we need is a couple of hours of your time, then our specialists will take care of the rest.

The experts in grants services and tax relief. The team has helped over 15,000 clients receive nearly half a billion pounds back into their businesses.

An average of £76k back into your business

Contact us on: 0300 303 1903 email: enquiries@catax.com or visit: www.catax.com

CAN HYDROGEN FUEL PROPEL FROM THE BACK OF THE LAB TO BECOME STAR OF THE SHOW?

Toby Gill, CEO of British climate-tech company IPG, argues that a holistic approach is needed to make hydrogen the ‘fuel of the future’.

Investment in green hydrogen production is on the rise: take the UK Government’s £10 million project to decarbonise Glasgow’s local transport, or even Iberdrola’s €2.3 billion “green steel” project. Increasingly, there is a renewed sense that Hydrogen could actually be the fuel of the future. So, with all these good news stories for the transportation and industrial sectors, what is preventing this same progress for distributed power generation, to ultimately bring about the demise of the diesel generator?

Why fossil fuels have remained dominant to date

To understand more, let’s take a closer look at what the diesel generator offers. Temporarily setting aside the emissions it produces, it’s a highly useful product across a huge variety of industries, from construction and mining, providing back-up power in hospitals and data centres, or even to power electric vehicles (EVs). That’s because of its ability to provide power exactly when and where a business needs it.

The large-scale investments seen in the news demonstrate a willingness to make the jump to greener energy. However, renewable fuels such as hydrogen still aren’t being adopted by businesses as a viable alternative to diesel.

The reason for this is risk. Diesel is widely accessible no matter where a company is based in the world, even if geographic location affects its cost. For businesses with a job to do, a project to build, or a service to deliver, diesel is a fuel source with as low an availability risk as there could be. The world’s largest companies can fund dedicated, renewably powered facilities and even move operations to the optimal geographic locations to do so. Last year, for instance, Amazon invested some of its $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund in Infinium, a company that uses green hydrogen to generate ultra-low-carbon fuels. Meanwhile Ikea is planning to spend £3.4 billion by 2030 to ensure its global operations use energy from available wind and solar farms, alongside funding EV charging infrastructures and hydrogen to reduce the emissions from its delivery vans. But these only represent a small fraction of enterprises that continue to burn diesel every day. Although smaller companies are willing to increase their initial outlays to minimise environmental impact, what they cannot compromise is stability. All businesses need a reliable and secure energy supply to maintain day-to-day operations – something that greener energy sources aren’t yet able to offer in the way diesel generators can. Green hydrogen, solar, and wind plants are all distributed power assets, reliant on specific conditions – such as the presence of water, sunlight or ideal weather patterns – meaning energy must be pumped in from outside industrial areas, often leading to uncertain results.

Moreover, the lifetime of diesel generators spans more than a decade, which when combined with the risk of unreliable supply of alternative fuels, results in a very slow rate of change. Instead of demonising companies that continue using diesel generators when they don’t have a true alternative,