Greencore Construction was pleased to add its name to a list of signatories in response to the government’s Industrial Strategy consultation.
The letter was sent to government on behalf of a group of organisations, companies and individuals engaged in the UK bioeconomy.
Read the full letter to government below.
Dear Industrial Strategy Team,
This is a response to the government’s Industrial Strategy consultation from a group of organisations and individuals engaged in the UK bioeconomy.
In our view, development of a viable and competitive UK bioeconomy can contribute to a wide range of strategic Government objectives, bringing benefits to the economy, environment and society alike. These can be broadly summarised as:
• Improving economic competitiveness through the development of innovative high value added products, combining natural diversity with the UK’s world class science and technology base to generate new business and high skilled jobs
• Benefiting the environment and human health by helping to mitigate and adapt to climate change, cutting waste and pollution, helping biodiversity and contributing to resource efficiency, particularly by reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and encouraging circular economy friendly models.
• Producing wider social benefits by stimulating rural and urban economies, to establish globally competitive industries, providing improved employment opportunities and increased consumer choice.
We hope that Government takes account of the views from emerging technologies and new value chains and will take this opportunity to announce a series of commitments towards building a sustainable bioeconomy.
We call on you to take a lead in delivering the following general commitments:
1. Create a cross government bioeconomy team to reduce regulatory barriers (Pillar 10). This will require a holistic, forward thinking approach and will need to address areas of tension and conflict. It will also enable government to consider further the role low carbon renewable materials can play in meeting GHG reduction targets. We see the need for agreement across Government to address these key opportunities and priorities instead of the current fragmented approach.
2. Encourage inward investment in smart materials through tax benefits: (Pillar 6,7) as stated on page 15 of the green paper ‘we have not been as successful at commercialisation and development as we have been at basic research’. A review of the EIS , especially in the light of changes to state aid rules that will arise from Brexit, could make the UK as attractive to invest in as the USA. This will create an opportunity for the UK to accelerate development of smart materials from biobased feedstocks which are multi-functional and have viable end of life solutions.
3. Use our existing resources better by driving innovation (Pillars 1, 5, 8) Sustainable use of resources requires innovation and fresh approaches. Development of sustainable yet high value products and support for regional/ local bio based supply chains is needed.
For example, identification and development of new protein sources and products for the human and animal food chain will have the added benefit of improving health and wellness, creating new technologies and reducing reliance on less sustainable imported material. This will allow the sector to build on current expertise in agriculture, food, industrial biotechnology, processing, engineering, nutrition and consumer acceptability.
Innovation funding calls need to be wider and less specific to capture all areas of the bioeconomy. The recipients need to be more diverse as we are aiming for global products.
4. Support a government biobased procurement policy (Pillar 5). Government could stimulate market pull through reviewing procurement and introducing criteria like whole life cycle evaluation to assess the optimal end of life options for products used by government departments. It will also stimulate business models that will support the bioeconomy/circular economy (for example if different companies need to work together to be able to access each other’s waste streams).
Commitments such as these will not only send a clear message about the UK’s commitment to the bioeconomy at home, but will demonstrate the level of UK ambition to the Commonwealth and other future trading partners and inward investors.
Yours sincerely,
List of signatories