Sustainable growth was the topic for the Business South seminar and a prestigious group of speakers gathered to tackle the important topic.
Champion Director Andy Swift said they were delighted with the positive feedback following the seminar.
“We were privileged to have a really fascinating line-up of speakers and the content they shared during the seminar was really enlightening. It was great to hear from academia and experts in the field who are leading the way when it comes to a more responsible approach to growth,” he said.
Alan Macaskill, CEO of Flotation Energy, has a strong track record in establishing successful energy projects and 40 years of experience in offshore oil & gas. In 2015 he received the Scottish Renewables ‘Outstanding Contribution Award’.
“Floating wind farms are the future,” said Mr Macaskill, who is involved in building the world’s largest grid connected floating windfarm. The biggest advantage is that they can be sited in relatively shallow water.”
Jennie Pell, Sector Specialist in Clean Growth for Enterprise M3 LEP, said clean growth was a major part of their Covid response plan.
While Matt Prescott, Head of Climate Policy and Innovation at Heathrow Airport, said their focus was on decarbonising aviation and they were working with the University of Southampton and Rolls Royce to look at how they can support hydrogen fuelled aircraft.
“The positive thing is the pace with which change is now occurring underlined by the fact 2050 has been set as the goal for net zero decarbonisation and we look set to deliver that sooner,” he said.
Professor Richard Murphy is Director of the Centre for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Surrey.
He believes there will be a greater reliance on local, low carbon food in the future.
“The most exciting thing is we have known about technologies for some time and we are starting to see them actually happening now and coming into daily use,” he said.
