Commenting on the first day of COP26, East Midlands Chamber (Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire) chief executive Scott Knowles said: “The world’s focus will be on events in Glasgow over the next two weeks and the outcomes could well shape the future landscape for businesses in our region.
“We have already seen some key commitments at the G20 summit in Rome, including an end to international coal finance and a pathway laid out for transitioning towards a green economic recovery post-Covid, and we expect to see further key announcements made that will affect the private sector in the short, medium and long term.
“It’s clear that sustainability will be a hugely important consideration for investors as we move forward from the pandemic and we believe the East Midlands has the raw ingredients to play a central role in the future low-carbon economy given our manufacturing heritage, innovative businesses and academic base.
“While climate change is a significant threat to our way of life, companies should see the sustainability agenda as an opportunity to take a lead in creating the next generation of products and services – not to mention making significant cost and energy savings – which is something we are highlighting via our Sustainable East Midlands campaign, launched a year ago.
“Research carried out by East Midlands Chamber and the University of Derby shows the proportion of businesses in our region that derived turnover from low-carbon environmental goods and services has grown from 16% in 2015 to 37% in 2021. Meanwhile, 36% of companies have wholly or partly integrated clean growth into their business strategies, up from 29% last year.
“This signals we’re heading in the right direction as firms increasingly understand the need to embrace sustainability – not only from a commercial perspective as it can open up new avenues for revenue, and help to attract and retain staff, but the regulatory landscape will soon make it essential to do so.
“However, there is a huge disparity between large and small firms – while 62% of companies with more than 250 staff have begun integrating clean growth into business plans, only 27% of those with fewer than 10 employees had done so.
“Also, 42% of firms still don’t feel well informed about support for clean growth, which indicates there is a huge amount of work to do in raising awareness.
“We hope COP26 will go some way to addressing this. After the struggles of the past 18 months, businesses desperately require some certainty and signposting of where they ought to invest.
“It’s therefore of vital importance that our global leaders can come to an agreement of where our priorities lie in the fight against climate change because it will ultimately be in the private sector where the innovation and transformation takes place.”
