06 Oct 2021
By Stuart Patrick, Chief Executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
After a year’s Covid-19 break, Glasgow’s annual State of the City Economy conference returned for its 23rd edition last week. The City Council had already launched its ‘greenprint’ net zero investment prospectus, so there were no eye-catching announcements from the Leader of the Council Susan Aitken on the day. But two primary themes emerged as the common message from the morning’s agenda - collaboration and innovation in the face of historic challenges - alongside a call for Glasgow to use COP26 as the best opportunity it will likely ever have to tell its story on a world stage.
As if to emphasise that opportunity, Democrat Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti made a short video contribution recognising the role that Glasgow will play in hosting COP26. Mayor Garcetti is also the current Chair of the C40 group, connecting 97 of the world’s megacities in a collective action tackling climate change. As host, the city is now in partnership with the C40 mayors, offering Glasgow access to a very powerful leadership network for sharing expertise and experience in overcoming global warming.
However, if Glasgow is to make its own contribution we require enormous changes to existing practices and behaviours, whether that is in the heating of our housing stock or in the choices we make in our everyday travel arrangements. Those changes will be made much more difficult without collaboration between government, business and individual citizens.
The take up of electric vehicles, extensive modal shift to public transport or the replacement of gas boilers in privately owned homes depends on the choices of individual citizens. It will not be in the power of local partnerships to influence all the factors involved in those choices but, as Councillor Aitken powerfully stated, Glasgow’s transition to net zero must be just in a way that the city’s experience of de-industrialisation was not. Not just the technical solutions but also the commercial deals will have to work for all of our citizens.
The City Council’s ‘greenprint’ attached a £30billion price tag to its ten transformative projects and, while there is a decent element of guesswork attached to the figure itself, it is undoubtedly going to be a large investment and the public sector on its own won’t be able to cover the bill in the timescales involved. Therefore, it helps that the city has opted to release its top ten projects at an early enough stage that business can help shape what the financially feasible investment option needs to be to bring in private money.
Collaboration at the level of the city is well within reach as projects like the Barclay’s expansion in Tradeston or the redevelopment of Sighthill are demonstrating. However, collaboration at national government level is much harder as a short cameo discussion on the less than impressive battle between the Scottish and UK Governments on the introduction of green ports and freeports painfully displayed.
This transition will not succeed without innovation and current technical solutions may not quite be enough. Some may need to get cheaper and we may need new delivery organisations to drive through projects like the Glasgow Metro.
Contributions from Professors Sir Jim McDonald and Sir Anton Muscatelli established where Glasgow’s universities can play their role, whether that is in joint research with business in our three emerging science and innovation districts or in answering specific challenges such as practical options for retro-fitting Glasgow’s distinctive tenements.
At the very least the conference marked the new milestone in Glasgow’s history that COP26 will be – hopefully as a successful negotiation but in any event the beginning of a new phase in Glasgow’s development.
This article was first published in The Herald on Wednesday 6 October 2021
