Britain’s manufacturers have warned
that the government’s green and
growth ambitions are failing to
match the ambitions of industry
through a continued pursuit of
complex, costly and incoherent
climate and environment policies
that are doing little but adding to
costs and
burdens, while
failing to
provide the
right incentives
to invest.

In response, publishing its 2012
Climate & Environment survey,
‘Managing Green and Growth’ EEF,
the manufacturers’ organisation has
called for an urgent full scale review
of the government’s climate and
environment policies ahead of the
next Spending Review. This should
provide a more strategic approach to
policy with a better of mix of
measures to realise the benefits of a
low carbon economy and to reduce
the cost and simplify the current
administrative burden.

EEF has also proposed a new
green and growth ‘stress test’. This
would require any new and reviewed
climate and environment legislation
to demonstrate a positive
contribution to the government’s
green and growth ambitions before it
goes ahead.

Terry Scuoler, chief executive of
EEF, said: “Government must now
learn from manufacturers’ own efforts
and develop policies which work with
the grain of industry, rather than
against it.”