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London Climate Action Week: we talk green finance and sustainability

Rain Newton-Smith Chief Economist

The CBI’s Chief Economist, Rain Newton-Smith, previews London Climate Action Week and CBI events to look forward to.

01 Jul 2019, 3 min read

From today and up until Monday 8 July, businesses, civil society and City Hall will be providing a variety of events to mark the inaugural London Climate Action Week. The week will bring together London’s climate change expertise across sectors to show how London is addressing climate change.

In his Environment Strategy, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, committed to making London a zero-carbon city by 2050. To reach this target, the Mayor’s office has introduced key actions such as, Minimum Energy Performance Standards for all rented properties, which aims to improve the energy efficiency of properties. The Ultra Low-Emission Zone, which came into effect in April this year, and the Mayor’s new electric vehicle infrastructure plan, aim to clean up London’s toxic air. These are just some examples of how London is tackling climate change and improve the environment.

Business will play an integral role in ensuring that London is a zero-carbon city by 2050. So far we have seen businesses of all sizes take action to tackle climate change. For example, Centrica’s distributed energy and power business is helping deliver a range of on-site energy efficiency, generation and optimisation services for larger businesses.

The week ahead

The CBI will be holding two key events. On Tuesday, the CBI will host an event with Accenture on the competitive advantages of a circular economy business model. The event is aimed at firms who are interested in improving sustainability in business and learning best practice from a range of companies who have already implemented circular economy business models. Alan Whitehead MP, Cory Energy, Simply Sustainable, Hirecar and JLL will be speaking throughout the question time style event.

To end the week, we will be hosting a panel discussion on ‘What the Government’s Green Finance Strategy means for business’.  I will outline the key points from our position paper on green finance and I’m delighted to be joined by Dr Rhian-Mari Thomas, CEO-elect of the Green Finance Institute and Kate Levick, Program Leader (Sustainable Finance) at E3G to discuss how to turbo-charge green finance in the UK. We will be delving into the government’s Green Finance Strategy, published this week, and discussing what the strategy means for the business community. It is only by developing our strength in green finance with business and government working in partnership to deliver our clean growth strategy that we will set the UK firmly on the road to becoming a net-zero economy by 2050.