Speaking at an event for
business leaders hosted by Chapter Zero in London today (Tuesday
28 February), Sir , Chief Executive of the
Environment Agency, will outline the challenges and set out his
top tips for reaching Net Zero.
He will offer advice to fellow
leaders and reflect on setting a target to cut emissions by at
least 45% by 2030 – without compromising the core mission of the
agency to protect people and wildlife and its ability to reduce
flood risk, prevent pollution and regulate effectively.
Four years into the commitment
made in 2019 to reach Net Zero by 2030 he outlines how a detailed
roadmap has supported the agency to reduce its direct operational
carbon emissions - mostly from pumping water to reduce flood risk
and pouring concrete to build flood defences - from 31,284 tonnes
in 2019/20 to 20,485 tonnes in 2021/22, a cut of more than
one-third.
New approaches for example
using natural flood management techniques such as planting trees,
restoring rivers to their natural meanders together with advanced
technology like electric plant and vehicles, hydrogen fuel cells
and the use of low carbon concretes as standard will all support
the agency to continue to reduce emissions in the future.
Sir James will reflect on the
difficulties of finding credible opportunities to offset
emissions, saying:
“We are finding it a lot more
difficult than we thought it would be to secure credible
offsetting measures for the remainder of our carbon output: there
are a lot of fake or doubtful “offset” schemes, and we only want
to invest in the ones that are real.
“Our preferred approach to
offsetting is for nature-based solutions and it will take time
for those to have effect: however innovative we are, we can’t
change the fact that trees take a long time to grow.”
Reflecting on the central
question on whether it is possible to have certainty on whether
the agency will meet its Net Zero target he will go onto to
say:
“Personally, I think we will.
But that depends on several questions to which we don’t yet know
the answer: on whether we can make deeper reductions in our own
carbon footprint than originally planned, which in turn depends
on technology not yet mainstream, affordable or even invented; on
whether we can quickly find more offsetting arrangements that
make a real difference; and on whether we can secure the funding
we need to invest in that new technology and those
offsets.”
He will note that just seven
years away from their goal:
“What matters is outcomes:
driving down our emissions and locking up the rest as fast as
possible. And to achieve that the most important thing is that we
keep the goal in sight, that we get there as soon as we can, and
that we continue to think differently about what we do and how we
do it. Because if we are to tackle the climate emergency
successfully – and I think we can and we will –– our thinking
needs to change faster than the climate.”
Notes to
Editors:
-
Chapter
Zero is a
membership organisation of non-executive directors focussed on
accelerating action to tackle climate change, including the
transition to net zero.
