Manufacturers have been silenced

Stories abound of the stupidity (to steal a Reform UK phrase) of Net Zero, from shipping the coking coal for the ‘nationalised’ steel works from Poland rather than mining it in the UK, to the import of vast quantities of wooden pellets for the Drax power station from north America. The much-vaunted green revolution has been a disappointment across the board. Notoriously, the UK endures the highest electricity prices in Europe, and jobs, tax revenues and profits have being exported to the other side of the world.

UK business – particularly manufacturers are suffering badly, but surprisingly they not only remain silent about what is happening, but continue to parrot the mantra of Net Zero.

Why?

We can draw parallels with the way things like trans issues and DEI became the ‘flavour of the month’, but were then surreptitiously embedded into the policies and procedures of businesses and organisations everywhere. Once there, their advocates ensured that anyone speaking out against them was immediately referred to HR for ‘retraining’ or simply fired. In other words, everyone knew the stupidity of the policies, but nobody would speak out for fear of retribution.

Net Zero is a similar faith, and cannot be questioned in most organisations without potentially dire consequences. However, silence on the stupidity of the policy has been coerced in a different way – through the financial sector.

Nowadays, financial institutions have all been brought into the green-activist fold. For instance, The British Business Bank, which lends to small and medium-size entities, says its mission is:

‘To drive sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK, and to enable the transition to a net zero economy, by improving access to finance for smaller businesses…[and to] support the UK’s transition to a net zero economy.’

Such Net Zero activism is now universal across financial institutions. As a result, the sector has  been able to impose tacit support for the objective on businesses across the economy, by making it a requirement for loans and other financing instruments. So businesses seeking support not only have to provide the necessary accounting information, but also have to explain where they are on their Net-zero journey and how they propose to meet the relevant milestones along the way to the target.

For SMEs who are worried about the energy costs, and who might be inclined to speak out about the direction of policy, this represents nothing short of a threat – to speak out against the Net-zero drive risks breaking the Net-zero covenants in their financing agreements. As a result, they remain silent, and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero can then proclaim that their silence represents tacit support.

However, as the effects of Net Zero policies start to become an existential threat, businesses will increasingly have nothing to lose by speaking out. If you are going to go down anyway, you might as well go down noisily. As a result, I sense there is growing interest in making a stand. Currently, only businesses large enough to risk the downsides put their heads above the parapet:  recently the CEO of Mercedes Benz stated that ‘the proposed EU 2035 ban on new petrol and diesel cars is too ambitious, and could trigger a “collapse” of the European car market, and doesn't account for current consumer demand or the economic realities of the transition.’

But as power prices rise, I sense that smaller businesses, like my own, will start to speak out. The dam appears to be cracking, and there may be a flood on the way.