Yorkshire in prime position to lead way for Green Industrial Revolution: Dan Dickinson

Sustainability is not just about the ‘Environmental’ (‘E’) leg of ‘ESG’ (Environmental, Social and Governance), but most people’s minds go there first.

It’s understandable because there is serious activity in Yorkshire in this space, presenting significant opportunities for economic growth.

It is hoped that mega-projects such as Drax’s carbon capture fit out and the wider East Coast Cluster will add tens of thousands of jobs and billions of pounds to the Yorkshire economy whilst also aiming to capture and store over 20 million tonnes of CO2 a year by 2035.

The first phase of the Yorkshire GREEN Enablement Project was also granted a development consent order recently.

These efforts were enough for the Local Government Association to estimate that there could be up to 70,000 new ‘green’ jobs created in Yorkshire by 2050.

Beyond these mega-projects, we see weekly news of investment and innovation across Yorkshire; prime recent examples being the Yorkshire Energy Park, Hybrid Air Vehicles agreeing to locate at Carcroft Common and Green Building Renewables’ continued expansion.

Partnerships between business, local authorities and our fantastic higher education institutions offer further opportunities for innovation, skills development and economic growth.

These investments and successes are often seen as “new” industries but what about the opportunity for more ‘traditional’ businesses in Yorkshire?

Focusing on the non-services sector first, what we see is a clear desire and need to reduce environmental harm. This is driven by several factors, with the relative mix of those factors driven by stakeholder influence.

For example, we see many businesses with “net zero” targets who are well below any regulatory threshold to have such a target – often this is driven by key customers demanding such a target is set.

Other stakeholders impacting decision-making include banks, owners, investors, pension funds and employees (existing and future). Such influence is changing traditional cost-benefit analyses and causing many small and medium-sized businesses to reevaluate their investment plans.

Those that can get this right will thrive benefit from the hoped-for economic boon arising from the focus on sustainability in Yorkshire.

The financial and professional services sectors play a key role in Yorkshire’s economy as well and those businesses need to be able to adapt their offerings and approaches to support local businesses achieve their sustainability targets.

It’s not enough to just be good at ‘tax’ or ‘transactions’ anymore.

I said that sustainability is not just about the ‘E’ – I believe Yorkshire businesses have to focus on their social impact as well as their Governance to be sustainable. Businesses need to focus on their people and development strategies with a particular emphasis on Inclusion and Diversity, and demonstrating true Governance has also never been more important.

Dipping into my specialism of tax, the public’s interest in corporates’ tax affairs has never been more acute and one slip in meeting requirements can do significant damage to a company’s brand, reputation and value.

The original Industrial Revolution was driven by ingenuity, hard work and vision and that’s still here in Yorkshire. With the right focus, today’s businesses can make the most of an enormous opportunity to lead the way in the Green Industrial Revolution.

Dan Dickinson is Grant Thornton’s Practice Leader for Yorkshire