Yesterday, I headed down to my native city of Sheffield for the first Green Finance UK conference hosted by The Sustainability Community.
The day’s discussions largely focused on financing the energy-efficient retrofit of the UK’s current housing stock, including social housing. Retrofitting council housing in Sheffield alone will cost some £2 billion, according to city council CEO Kate Josephs – but, if done properly, that will bring significant benefits in health by lowering heating costs and reducing problems like mould.
The intersection of domestic energy efficiency and health also came up at the West Yorkshire Innovation Festival‘s flagship fair the previous day, where discussions centred on ways to improve the health and happiness of folk across the region. It was great to hear about some locally-led medical innovations which exploit advanced materials or manufacturing methods, from bio-absorbable stents to bespoke 3D-printed wrist splints.
Back in Sheffield, there was much talk of new financial instruments to support both retrofit and energy- efficient new build, including mortgage-like products which are tied to the property rather than the homeowner to allow costs to be paid off over the longer term. Local heat networks and community schemes, where larger-scale facilities are shared among many households, will also need new financing models.
As Toni Roberts of the Yorkshire Building Society noted, there’s no silver bullet in financing. One of the biggest challenges is consumer awareness of what needs to be done and confidence in relevant technologies. Equally, the finance providers need clarity and consistency from government on preferred routes and support schemes.
In an impressive keynote speech, Lorna Pimlott of the new(ish) National Wealth Fund outlined their governmental mandate to invest tens of billions across key sectors including hydrogen, green steel and carbon capture. The exact direction of investment is yet to be determined, pending the long-awaited new industrial strategy, and some legal changes to allow the Fund to invest beyond its original remit as the UK Infrastructure Bank.
Despite accusations of risk-aversion, Pimlott noted that the Fund currently takes on four times the risk level of commercial banks, and twice that of the European Investment Bank – but, vitally, won’t invest if money is available in the private sector. The focus is on seeding the market, including at least £1 billion to underwrite commercial lending for the retrofit of housing association properties.
Changing government priorities also came up during the panel on hydrogen. Until fairly recently, hydrogen-fuelled domestic boilers were the next big thing (largely thanks to lobbying by the established boiler manufacturers) – now, everyone from the Climate Change Committee down is adamant that they make no economic sense. Similarly, hydrogen-fuelled surface vehicles have moved firmly down the list of priorities.
Hydrogen’s main role will be in supporting the decarbonisation of energy-intensive industrial processes. It was disappointing that the panel seemed focused on hydrogen production using established energy-intensive hydrocarbon-cracking techniques (grey or blue hydrogen in the jargon, depending on whether the associated CO2 emissions are unabated or captured). There was no representation for the green hydrogen sector, despite South Yorkshire being home to prominent companies such as ITM.
Away from the panels and speeches, I joined some highly interactive workshops with Tim Frenneaux, exploring ways to look at the environmental/social/political polycrisis from different perspectives (I am now a card-carrying Spiritual Capital Guardian!). The sessions were deliberately informal, but did uncover some dark feelings among the participants. It’s alarming but understandable how many professionals working in the sustainability space confess to serious worries and stress over the state of the environment and politics.
Part of the solution to that could lie in finding more positive and creative ways of talking about climate action, which I discussed at another event as part of the West Yorkshire Innovation Festival. That session, led by Helen Hill of Be The Future Immers[ed] involved getting hands-on with pine cones, Lego and giant cuddly bees; jumping around on interactive quiz games and virtual coral reefs; and discussing how we can avoid doom-mongering, emotional overwhelm, and the new US censoriousness over the very word “climate”.
A busy week of learning, all in all. And as ever with events, the biggest value comes from meeting new people, learning about their innovations and, in many cases, talking about how we can better spread the word about what they’re doing. If you’re bringing energy innovation to market and want some communications support, please do get in touch.