UCL ISR Director Paul Ekins contributes to new Green Alliance report

In a new collection of essays, published by Green Alliance today, eight leading business and policy voices, including UCL ISR Director Professor Paul Ekins OBE, say the government must embed low carbon development and resource efficiency in a truly modern industrial strategy; and that failure to do so risks wasting the opportunities the UK has to capitalise on the green economy. 

This publication brought together respected thinkers [1] from politics, business, trade unions and academia to give their views on the kind of economy the industrial strategy should be building and the role low carbon and resource efficiency can play.

Professor Ekins draws attention to the often overlooked role of resource efficiency and productivity in business competitiveness and the additional rewards there could be for water and agriculture businesses from a more coherent approach to investment.

Paul Ekins, Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy, said:

"Increasing resource productivity across the economy has the potential to be a major driver of new competitive advantage for the UK. BEIS and the Treasury need to give resource productivity as much policy emphasis as they do labour productivity if the UK is to fully realise the competitiveness benefits to which a more productive use of natural resources could give rise." 

Click here to read the paper

Notes
[1] Industrial strategy fit for the future: Perspectives on building a competitive UK economy is published today by Green Alliance. The contributing authors are:

Sir Vince Cable, former secretary of state for business, innovation and skills
Carolyn Fairbairn, Director General of the CBI
David Brown, Chief Executive of Transport for the North
Baroness Brown of Cambridge, Committee on Climate Change
Juergen Maier, Chief Executive of Siemens UK and Northern Island and chair of the North West Business Leaders Team
Professor Paul Ekins, Director of the Institute of Sustainable Resources at UCL
Paul Nowak, Deputy General Secretary of the TUC