Steve Howard, chief sustainability officer at IKEA, has called on the government to introduce “clear policy signals” which he said could unlock “tremendous amounts of decarbonisation”.
Howard was speaking yesterday at this week’s Business & Climate Summit in London and said that his firm had been calling on government support of clean energy projects to be “long loud and legal”.
“We want clear policy signals long term enough to allow you to invest against and they can take many different varieties.
“There’s now an outstanding number of businesses and institutions that are behind stronger carbon pricing so firming up carbon pricing and signals however that is done, whether through taxation or emissions trading, can unlock tremendous amounts of decarbonisation,” he said.
The UK government’s stance on renewables has been called into question following a raft of cuts to support frameworks since the general election last year. Solar and onshore wind technologies have been cut substantially, with other schemes scrapped altogether.
However Howard said that other forms of incentives were needed for businesses to decarbonise and not just for renewables, but for other technologies and materials such as electric vehicles.
“You don’t need short term luxury incentives that then are pulled away, you need well thought through, well designed incentives for the technologies that need a boost. So carbon pricing, long term frameworks for things like renewables, and well thought through incentives,” he said.
There are currently various grants available for electric vehicles however the government is also rumoured to be close to introducing subsidised EV charging point installs for businesses as part of a wider effort to push decarbonisation in the transport sector.
