Category Archives: Green jobs

Octopus Energy raises $800m and aims to create 3,000 green jobs in UK

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Extra cash values firm at nearly $8bn, as it says it has greater share of home electricity market than British Gas

Octopus Energy has raised $800m (£630m) from its shareholders in a move that values the company at nearly $8bn, weeks after it became Britain’s biggest power supplier.

Its existing investors, which include Japan’s Tokyo Gas and Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, have ploughed in extra cash as the value of the utility company surged by 60% since its last fundraising round two years ago.

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UK needs Dragons’ Den approach to investing in net zero, says thinktank

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IPPR wants government to take a stake in green technology firms to help Britain keep up with EU and US

The UK risks losing out to the US and EU in the global race to a net zero economy unless the government increases green investment by taking a stake in the companies of the future, a thinktank has said.

The left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research said Britain needed a “national investment fund” (NIF) that would back new firms and secure a share of any future profits for the public as it called for the state to adopt a “Dragons’ Den” type approach to supporting enterprises.

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Labour needs an ‘honest debate’ about Brexit damage, union warns

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Unless Britain develops a closer relationship with the EU it will continue to haemorrhage investment and jobs, says the GMB

The leader of one of the country’s biggest unions has urged Labour to conduct an “honest debate” about the economic damage being caused to working people by Brexit, as evidence grows that it is fuelling inflation and driving jobs and investment abroad.

In an interview with the Observer, Gary Smith, the general secretary of the GMB union, which is one of Labour’s biggest financial backers, giving more than £1m a year, said politicians of all parties had been too afraid to admit the adverse consequences that leaving the EU was having on jobs and life in working communities.

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How retrofitting the UK’s old buildings can generate an extra £35bn in new money

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Heritage and property groups outline plan to boost energy efficiency at historical sites to create jobs, cut emissions and meet net-zero targets

Retrofitting the UK’s historicsl buildings, from Georgian townhouses to the mills and factories that kickstarted the Industrial Revolution, could generate £35bn of economic output a year, create jobs and play a crucial role in achieving climate targets, research has found.

Improving the energy efficiency of historical properties – those built before 1919 – could reduce carbon emissions from the UK’s buildings by 5% each year and make older homes warmer and cheaper to run, according to a report commissioned by the National Trust, Historic England and leading property organisations.

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Johnson to defy cabinet fears and push for onshore wind expansion

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PM ‘passionate’ about potential in light of fresh push for self-sufficiency after Russia invasion of Ukraine

Boris Johnson is expected to open the door to more onshore wind at next week’s energy strategy, despite some cabinet ministers lobbying against relaxing planning laws to allow more turbines.

The cabinet is split over whether to aim for more onshore wind projects, which can often get into lengthy planning battles, after officials drew up plans for a target of 30GW by 2030.

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‘The stakes couldn’t be higher’: GE urged to invest in green US jobs

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Labor and environmental groups are demanding that General Electric stop offshoring jobs and invest in renewable energy

Kevin Smith, of Salem, Virginia, worked at General Electric for about 20 years before the town’s plant was shut down at the end of 2019, and the work moved to a factory in India.

“It was a total shock because of how things had been going, with all the overtime we were working, everything just seemed great, like there was no way this was happening. All I wanted to do was wake up, that I had a nightmare, but that wasn’t the case,” said Smith, 50, who was one of about 265 GE workers who were laid off due to the closure.

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Hitting global climate target could create 8m energy jobs, study says

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Researchers suggest net increase would mostly occur in renewables sector, with decline in fossil fuels

If some politicians are to be believed, taking sweeping action to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement would be calamitous for energy sector jobs. But a study suggests that honouring the global climate target would, in fact, increase net jobs by about 8 million by 2050.

The study – in which researchers created a global dataset of the footprint of energy jobs in 50 countries including major fossil fuel-producing economies – found that currently an estimated 18 million people work in the energy industries, which is likely to increase to 26 million if climate targets are met.

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Governments put ‘green recovery’ on the backburner

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G20 countries aim their pandemic bailout spending at fossil fuel industries, leaving Paris climate change targets in doubt

Governments are spending vastly more in support of fossil fuels than on low-carbon energy in rescue packages triggered by the coronavirus crisis, new data has shown, despite rhetoric from many countries in support of a “green recovery”.

Data from the Energy Policy Tracker, a new research effort by several civil society groups, shows that at least $151bn (£120bn) of bailout cash has been spent or earmarked so far to support fossil fuels by the G20 group of large economies. Only about a fifth of this spending is conditional on environmental requirements such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions or cleaning up pollution.

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