GRJ0002

Environmental Audit Committee - ‘Green Jobs’ inquiry

Hubbub submission

Executive summary

The COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest crisis our country has faced in a generation. It is impacting people’s lives like never before and demonstrating that many of the systems we relied upon were not sustainable, resilient or fair. As we look to rebuild from this crisis, we believe we can use it to deliver a greener and more sustainable one too.

Hubbub is proposing to use this unique opportunity to change things for the better and to deliver a green recovery which can level up communities across the country. This Autumn, working together with businesses, local authorities and charities, we launched a Greenprint for a Better Britain - a manifesto for change.

Our Greenprint is about finding practical solutions to support people to live more sustainably. In developing this, it was important to look at what was doing the most damage to our environment and what steps we could take individually and collectively to combat this. Given the Greenprint’s relevance to your inquiry on green jobs, we would like to share some of these ideas here as they relate to the questions you are trying to answer.

A number of the policies in the Greenprint focus on introducing projects which will help people live more sustainably and level up communities. The projects, if scaled nationally, have the potential to create the new green jobs that our country needs:

1. Create a more ambitious and long-term energy and water efficiency retrofit campaign, building on the Green Homes Grant which is more accessible and appealing to low-income households.
2. Provide small grants to help businesses and households green their roofs, to increase the biodiversity and climate resilience of our cities and create green jobs.
3. Cut down on food waste by encouraging low-emission last-mile delivery in social enterprises.
4. Support textile innovators so that the UK is able to transition to less polluting textiles whilst helping entrepreneurs and communities with a textile heritage level up.

About Hubbub

We believe that to create positive environmental change at the scale and speed needed, we need to get everyone on board. That's why since 2014, we've been designing campaigns that inspire ways of living that are good for the environment.

Collaboration is key, which is why we bring together businesses, organisations, local authorities, designers, academics and communities to raise awareness and change behaviours. Our campaigns have reached over 3.7 billion people and actively connected with over 20 million to light a spark and encourage them to think differently about an environmental topic. We've inspired 675,803 people to take action, and we've supported 2,814 people to transform their lifestyles towards a more sustainable way of living.

Answers to selected questions.

Q3. What needs to be done to ensure that these skills and capacity are developed in time to meet our environmental targets?

The urgency of the climate crisis demands a renewed focus on the creation of green jobs as the country makes its economic recovery from COVID-19. We think we can create green jobs quickly through refining and expanding existing schemes such as the Green Homes Grant and reforming and speeding up planning regulations to allow for green infrastructure projects.

Green jobs are essential in creating a green economy that can withstand external shocks and ensure we meet our 2050 environmental targets.  We will need to utilise the existing skills of the UK workforce as effectively as possible if we are to meet our targets. We believe there are a number of existing schemes which could be enhanced or extended to create these jobs quickly:

●        Create a more ambitious and long-term energy and water efficiency retrofit campaign, building on the Green Homes Grant with a solution which is more accessible and appealing to low-income households.

There are two central issues in this space. First, energy consumption. Nearly two thirds of UK homes fail to meet long-term energy efficiency targets and more than 12 million homes fall below the C grade on Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs).[1] Second, water consumption. The Environment Agency estimates that every person uses around 150 litres of water a day. This is 55% more than we used in 1980.[2] If this continues, it is estimated that there will be water shortages by 2050, and that each severe drought will cost households more than £100.

Unfortunately, the Government’s Green Homes Grant comes up short in tackling the above issues, because it fails to appeal to low-income households: people living in homes valued at £600,000 or more were more likely to use the scheme than those in property valued between £101,000 to £200,000.[3] The grant needs to be refined and made more accessible to low-income households so that more people can take advantage of the scheme and to create more sustainable green jobs for those who are retrofitting homes.

●        Provide small grants to help businesses and households green their roofs, to increase the biodiversity and climate resilience of our cities and create green jobs.

Over 40% of the UK’s total carbon emissions are generated from buildings and more needs to be done to make them energy efficient and reduce their costs.[4] Greening roofs transforms urban centres, improves biodiversity, boosts energy resilience, and creates jobs through demand for installations and solar panel maintenance. 

A green roofing project in Paris has found that green roofs are more environmentally sound because they make a building more energy efficient: in the summer, they have a cooling effect, and in the winter, they cut energy needs.[5] Hubbub is therefore proposing the introduction of urban roof grants, which could be provided to businesses and households to help green their roofs with solar panels or plants and mosses.

We are also proposing that the Government creates a more supportive planning regime similar to the one introduced by the Greater London Authority to speed up the deployment of green roofs and to create a comprehensive retrofit programme for public buildings which includes creating green roofs.

●        Last-mile collection

At Hubbub we have been working to tackle the problem of food waste and food delivery by delivering local projects which can tackle both food waste and food insecurity. Our Food Connect project does this by using low-emission e-bikes and electric vans to distribute surplus food from retailers to give to people in the local community.

This project works by delivering food from retailers to the Community Fridge Network - a 100-strong network which has so far distributed the equivalent of 1.9 million meals, reaching over 77,000 people. This helps to prevent food waste and it also ensures that the food is delivered using greener forms of transport.

We would like to see this concept expanded with investment in supporting social enterprises to create low-carbon last-mile collection and delivery services, redistributing perishable food that would otherwise be wasted to local households.

Q7. How can the UK ensure jobs are created in areas most impacted by the transition to a low-carbon economy?

Improving sustainability in sectors such as the fashion and textile industry can help to bring jobs back to some of the traditional manufacturing communities which are expected to be most impacted in the transition to a low-carbon economy. The Government should incentivise innovation in sustainable fabrics and fashion to benefit the environment and revitalise our textile heritage.

Many of the areas which the Committee has identified as having a large presence in the coal, oil, gas or other carbon-emitting sectors, are the very same areas that have been left behind by the offshoring of manufacturing jobs, including in the textiles industry. We think more can be done to try to support the innovators in these communities to bring green jobs back to the UK.

●        Support textile innovators so that the UK is able to transition to less polluting textiles whilst helping entrepreneurs and communities with a textile heritage level up.

Polyester is found in 60% of our clothes, making these difficult to recycle, while most of the garments sold in the UK were sourced from Asian countries.[6] This moment of reset as we recover from the pandemic is an opportunity to bring textiles manufacture back to the UK, particularly in left-behind communities. 72% of people agree that the Government should bring more clothes manufacturing jobs back to the UK.

We therefore propose that the British Business Bank offer sustainable textile entrepreneurs in Blue Wall communities match-funded convertible loans. This would allow innovative businesses to grow, as well as take on apprentices and employees, and could be supported by partnerships with the British Retail Consortium (BRC) or the UK Fashion and Textile Association (UKFT).

December 2020

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