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Lord Sainsbury of Turville"Cleaning Up? Stimulating Innovation in Environmental Technology" |
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I am delighted to be able to speak at this seminar and I look forward to hearing the debate on this subject. This is an important subject and it is timely that POST has produced this report. I would also briefly like to pay tribute to the work POST carries out. Thanks to their unfailingly efficient and polite service both Houses of Parliament are a great deal better informed on many complex areas of science and technology than they would otherwise be. Sustainable development is the most pressing issue we face both as a nation and as a global community. Ensuring prosperity without destroying our natural resources -without altering the earth's natural balance irreversibly -is the challenge government, business and society has to address. However, the challenge of sustainable development should not be seen as a threat to business. Rather as an opportunity. And it is science and technology which is the key to preserving the environment and delivering new opportunities for prosperity. Scientific and technological advance can begin to square the circle of growth and sustainability. Too often people regard science and engineering as the cause of environmental degradation. I believe the reverse is true. It is the scientists and engineers who will provide solutions to environmental problems and create a basis for new commercial opportunities. Only by using our science and engineering skills will we realistically be able to deliver a sustainable future. Cutting-edge science and new technology is essential to improving environmental productivity. As Minister for Science, I believe that science has a major contribution to play in identifying and solving environmental problems. Science contributes in four ways, by: detecting change in the environment; diagnosing why change is taking place; suggesting solutions, through this diagnosis, for solving environmental problems; and defining the boundaries of uncertainty in our understanding of the environment and reducing this uncertainty Let me give an example of what I mean. The hole in the ozone layer was, of course, discovered by science. In the 1970s, three chemists, Rowland and Molina in the USA and Crutzen in Germany (who shared the Nobel Prize 3 years ago), demonstrated that CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) used in, for example, refrigerators and aerosols, can cause the breakdown of ozone when they disperse into the stratosphere. This sounded alarm bells and led to discussions about the need to phase out CFCs. Then in the 1980's, Joe Farman at the British Antarctic Survey, first produced unequivocal proof that stratospheric ozone is depleted over the Antarctic. The quantity of ozone is now 40% of the levels in the 1960's. Similar depletion is also occurring over the northern hemisphere, with springtime levels of ozone down by 20-30% in recent years. Farman's observation, together with the known chemical mechanism, were crucial pieces of evidence that led to the signing of the Montreal Protocol on phasing out CFCs. The replacement of CFCs has also relied on science to produce alternative solutions to refrigeration and other uses. To make certain we remain at the forefront of scientific discoveries, this Government has committed unprecedented funds to the science base - by 2003-4 the science budget will have risen by 40% since entering office. Last week the Secretary of State announced the allocation of funds to the research councils. I am pleased to say the National Environmental Research Council's budget will increase by over 12% - much of which will be spent on modelling climate change at the new Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia.. It is imperative that we begin to make more productive use of environmental resources, and cut waste and pollution. If we are to continue to grow, and share the benefits of that growth, we must reduce the impact of growth on the environment. Businesses must improve their environmental productivity. That means getting the most out of finite resources, maximising our use of renewable resources and minimising waste. It means designing waste out. This is certainly good for the environment. But it makes good business sense - improving efficiency, cutting production costs, reducing dependency on increasingly expensive finite resources. New technologies, better design, new processes, new ways of doing things will mean major increases in economic output per unit of energy, materials or land. And that means competitive advantage for business. New technologies create new jobs. By achieving our environmental objectives we can improve quality of life, strengthen the science base and open up new job opportunities. The challenge of sustainability is to turn what appear to be threats to competitiveness into new opportunities, to create new markets, develop new products, redesign processes, increase company competitiveness, reduce the use of raw materials. Many businesses already recognise this and have made environmental considerations part of their mainstream business activity. Companies large and small have a part to play. Large companies also have influence through the supply chain, creating a multiplier effect. The chemical industry is committed to sustainable development but needs to examine new technologies and working practices. Adopting 'green chemistry' and 'green chemical engineering' approaches would reduce the volumes of materials and energy used, minimise or eliminate the production of pollutants, maximise the use of renewable resources and improve recycling rates. 'Green chemistry'is based on the fundamental premise that chemical processes and products should be compatible with the environment. The cultural shift from end-of-pipe solutions towards greener processes and products will require a level of innovation and new technology that the chemical industry has not seen in many years. With the added skills of the science community, we can not only protect the environment, but also ensure that British business wins in world markets. Creating jobs and prosperity. As the Prime Minister said in his recent speech on the environment, we can be richer by being greener. As the POST report says, there are large new markets to be won in environmental services. We must aim to be among the front runners in the green industrial revolution. The global market for environmental goods and services is currently estimated at 335 billion US dollars - comparable with the world markets for either pharmaceuticals or aerospace - and is forecast to grow to 640 billion dollars by 2010. As the department for business, DTI has a key role to play in achieving this goal. Looking at how the environmental and wider sustainability agendas can create new business opportunities. Working with business to improve environmental productivity. Last month, Stephen Byers in a speech to the Greenpeace Business Conference set out a radical new green industrial policy. It is about creating an innovative, highly competitive and resource efficient economy that delivers continually improving quality of life and prosperity for everyone. Harnessing innovation and enterprise to develop commercially viable internationally competitive solutions to environmental problems. And creating the environmentally and socially sustainable industries of the future. The Government is already taking steps to encourage this. The DTI recently produced its own Sustainable Development Strategy. It sets out our priorities in taking this agenda forward and de-coupling economic growth from its unsustainable impacts on the environment and people. Last week, I launched the Sustainable Technologies Initiative. This £30m programme is being supported by my department and the EPSRC. It is aimed at helping companies develop the technologies and techniques they will need to incorporate sustainability into their processes and products. This year the DTI and the DETR approved £30m to fund the Environmental Technology Best Practice Programme for a further 5 years. It aims to demonstrate to business that good environmental sense can mean good business sense. The Carbon Trust, being funded from the Climate Change Levy, will come into place next April. It should act as a major stimulus for innovation into low carbon technologies. The new Kyoto Mechanisms Office will also help us export carbon-cutting technologies to foreign markets. I firmly believe that there can and should be a mutually beneficial relationship between the environment and innovation. The environment can be a stimulus for innovation and innovation can help solve environmental problems. It is important, however, that environmental policies are designed and applied in such a way to encourage and not stifle innovation. Traditionally, environmental goals have been met through command and control regulations and there is no doubt that these have been able to act as stimuli for innovation, such as the development of replacements to CFCs. However, there is increasing concern that such approaches may not be the most effective way of addressing many environmental problems. For example, there is a worry that they might encourage businesses to adopt the safe but costly end-of-pipe approach and they might inhibit them from looking at more radical cleaner technology approaches. Even though the latter may be more beneficial for the environment and for business competitiveness in the long-term. This Government, along with many others, is looking at a wider range of policy approaches, including economic instruments and voluntary approaches. In developing and using all these possible instruments it is important that we take into account what effect they will have on innovation. The relationship between different policy approaches and innovation is complex but it is one which deserves study. The POST report which we are to discuss today represents an excellent analysis of the issues. I warmly welcome it and look forward to hearing your views. |
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Other speeches by Lord Sainsbury of Turville
(the following are available from the archive) |
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