Government’s zero emissions target prompts concern for Hackney’s small businesses

Councillors sitting on Hackney’s skills, economy and growth scrutiny commission are wondering how best to help small businesses ‘reskill’ in the wake of Prime Minister Theresa May’s commitment to reach net zero in carbon emissions by 2050.

The target, criticised by Greenpeace for relying on international offsetting which would allow large polluters to continue as normal by making contributions elsewhere, makes the UK one of the first major nations to commit to entirely ending its contribution to climate change.

However, Cllr Polly Billington (Lab, De Beauvoir) expressed her concerns at a 17 June meeting of the commission that there not enough detail as to how the changes would manifest at a local level.

Cllr Billington said: “The commitments made to net zero by the national government have been made in a way that does not facilitate the proper political discussion about how we make that shift.

“Everybody has said ‘Hurrah!’ and nobody has said ‘How?’, and the how is the most challenging bit, particularly when we have an infrastructure that is so dependent on fossil fuels.

“The next steps are going to be harder. In places like Hackney, we haven’t got a power station to decommission, but we do have car mechanics, cleaners who will need to use different materials, electricians, construction workers. Every single job that we’ve got – what are we going to do to change the way that you do your job?”

Cllr Billington added that Hackney, with its community of small, medium and micro-sized businesses, could find it less easy to adapt than areas with one or two large employers who would be better able to implement top-down change.

It is understood that how to help small businesses to reskill in the face of the targets will be one of the topics the commission intends to explore in the coming year.

Krissie Nicholson, director of the East End Trades Guild, has suggested a quid pro quo arrangement within a policy of working rents, which could help small businesses contribute to lower emissions.

Nicholson explained: “Public or private landlords could reduce the rent for small or micro businesses, so that we can have that fantastic mix that we need for our communities.

“In exchange, we would be looking at what kind of public good those businesses can deliver, and one of the things many of our members already do is only use green energy.

“This is something that we will be talking to Hackney Council about in more detail in the coming months, and we will be doing more research on this that we hope to be able to publish.”