The benefits of business investment in home-grown energy solutions

Promoting business investment in home-grown energy solutions not only drives green growth, it also improves prosperity for all through skilled employment opportunities and lower energy prices.  

This is something demonstrated in the latest research from CBI Economics, which was commissioned by energy-from-waste firm enfinium to assess the economic, social and environmental contribution that the company makes across the UK.  

We found that enfinium creates high-value economic opportunities up and down the country, supporting employment in more than half of the UK’s local authorities and helping to develop transferable STEM skills amongst local young people in some of the most deprived parts of the country. 

Other key findings show that: 

• enfinium's energy from waste activity provides high quality employment, with each job at enfinium typically 15 times more productive than the Yorkshire and the Humber regional average where the bulk of their activity is located.  
• For every enfinium job, we found a further three jobs were supported throughout the wider UK economy. 
• Over 600 businesses across the UK benefited from enfinium’s operations, with a geographical spread spanning more than half of the UK’s local authorities.  
• The company’s contributions are highly localised to each site, helping to create high-value employment opportunities in some of the most deprived communities – such as North East Lincolnshire, Kingston upon Hull, Redcar or Cleveland. The company actively engage with local schools and colleges in the area to encourage youth into the industry and provide STEM opportunities to young people. 
• Their activities support the circular economy by capturing by-products from the company’s processes, recycling materials and diverting waste from landfill.
• Through this work, the company delivered significant carbon emissions savings to the UK economy in 2022 – a reduction equivalent to the carbon footprint of over 113,000 individuals. 
• From the waste they process and the by-products they capture, enfinium also generates baseload electricity – one of the most reliable sources of renewable energy – which is exported to the national grid. By the end of 2025, their facilities will generate 358 megawatts (MW) of electricity from the waste processed, enough to power all households in Birmingham. 

Our research shows that the UK has much to gain from capitalising on the work of companies like enfinium and their contribution has never been more important. Energy resilience is now mission critical for the UK economy. And with business investment like this, it’s easy to see the benefits we can all realise by backing green growth.

About CBI Economics: 

At CBI Economics, we have a team of dedicated economists with wide-ranging experience in evidencing policy recommendations. We can help you calculate the fiscal costs of your policy ideas, demonstrate their economic impact, and even help you to best articulate the issues you face through economic evidence. Read the CBI Economics insights for the latest examples of our work.

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