Major green-tech opportunities – if we act quickly

The net zero sector is alive and well – contrary to recent negative reports. It is growing at triple the speed of the main UK economy with a multiplier effect adding an extra £1.89 of GDP for each low carbon £1 created. Green-tech’s backbone is innovation, and its successful commercialisation from post-prototype model to products in end-users’ hands is the goal of RedCAT’s unique methodology as financial stresses grow globally.

The positive news is that a new February 2025 report from the highly regarded Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit  says the net zero economy ‘is fostering transformative opportunities across the UK’ with hotspots driving both regional and national progress toward sustainable economic growth (‘The future is green: The economic opportunities brought by the UK’s net zero economy’).

This is important for Lancashire – and because we exist to promote innovation across the country and overseas, what is good for RedCAT’s home county we can help to make good for the UK as a whole!

We also look below at the unique role of RedCAT’s embedded commercialisation specialists, plus how the Chancellor could – and must – actively support green-tech in the follow-on detail of 2025’s Spring Statement.

Lancashire’s role is particularly important because of its large automotive sector, internationally renowned aerospace industry, and extremely capable manufacturing base. The county was also recognised in the 2023 Local Government Association report – ‘Green jobs: creating the workforce to deliver net zero’ for its high green employment potential.

This base, and RedCAT’s proven commercialisation methodology, are a powerful combination.

However, there is more.

Our philosophy also recognises – as King Canute reputedly did when challenged to control the incoming tide – that sitting and doing nothing is wishful thinking. We aim to deliver real outputs.

As an independent and pro-active business consultancy, acting with our sister organisations, the East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce and Chamber Low Carbon, RedCAT is helping to build a green economy in the Northwest, across the English regions, nationally, and in the last four years, globally.

We do this using RedCAT’s integrated ecosystem of support and its five cascading elements – innovation, ventures, scale, advocacy, plus a comprehensive membership network.

Another of our goals is to inform and influence national and international policy decision-makers at annual UN COP climate summits and through the months in between. Our team was active at 2024’s COP29 in Azerbaijan … and will be again at COP30 in Belém, Brazil in November 2025.

The ECIU report found that between 2023 and 2024, the net zero sector grew 10.1% and now generates £83.1 billion in Gross Value Added (GVA) which is a measure of how much value companies add through the goods and services – £28.8 billion comes directly from net zero businesses, the other £54.3 billion from supply chain activities and broader economic contributions.

The sector has also expanded consistently by 10% a year for more than 15 years.

Key growth areas coincide with green activities in the Northwest and overlap the work of RedCAT’s innovators and client companies in technologies related to renewable energy, electric vehicles, heat pumps, energy storage, green finance, waste management, and recycling, while reducing emissions and increasing energy security.

However, a fundamental point made by the report’s authors is that economic growth and climate action go together.

This point has been underlined by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) which says 22,000 net zero businesses from renewable energy to green finance employ circa a million full-time people.

As CBI chief economist, Louise Hellem, explains, “It is clear, you can’t have growth without green – 2025 is the year when the rubber really hits the road, where inaction is indisputably costlier than action.

She adds, “We are approaching critical points of no return for energy security and emissions reduction. It’s really fantastic to see the growing strength of the net zero economy in the UK and we need to really continue to see that ambition.”

Having been criticised in January for suggesting economic growth is more important than net zero, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, added clarification more recently when she said, “There is no trade-off between economic growth and net zero. Quite the opposite. Net zero is the industrial opportunity of the 21st century.”

With many banks and institutions rescinding long-term environmental commitments in line with the Trump administration’s attitudes to global warming, climate change and the need for net zero, new evidence from the polar regions shows a worrying trend.

February 2025 saw less ice covering the Antarctic and Arctic combined than ever previously recorded, according to New Scientist.

Satellite measurements showed that Arctic sea-ice was 8% below average; Antarctic ice was 26% below average. This coincided with an average global temperatures rise to 1.59°C above the pre-industrial average in January – the 19^th month in the past 20 at more than 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.

White ice reflects solar radiation back into space. The message must be that choosing to ignore the realities of a clearly warming world is not cool …

Temperatures must rise by no more than 1.5°C by 2100 to stop ice melting at both ends of the world. A 2.0°C rise will not guarantee that. Much colder conditions would be needed to refreeze melted ice.

We would like you to meet our specialists in the coming months.

RedCAT’s experts work closely with talented individual innovators and are deeply embedded within many of our innovative client companies as part of our whole integrated ecosystem of support.

As such, they help both talented original thinkers and visionary organisations complete the long journey to success in local, regional, national and international markets. This approach is unique.

Their mission is to make the tough, tortuous, often expensive and unfamiliar commercialisation trek from post-prototype design to final distributors, online inventories, sales catalogues, warehouse shelves, shop counters, and eventually end-user hands swifter, smoother, less costly and less painful.

Together, our experts and specialists have many overlapping and complementary professional and business skills reinforced by decades of frontline experience.

As such, they advise on scientific, technical, R&D, production and manufacturing issues. Also, finance, fund-raising, venture capital, business planning, market development, market and investor priorities, innovator/investor dialogue and governance.

They look at legal, regulatory and compliance – finding suitable premises – workplace efficiency – pinch point debottlenecking – plus product-pricing – as well as liaising with local authorities – setting up demonstrator units – scaling at a national level – taking trade missions to global venues – and technology solutions to worldwide climate problems.

And they ask questions, questions, and more highly-focused questions to discover glean identify the right answers.

… please meet our team …

Ian is RedCAT’s energy and automation expert whose ‘helicopter’ approach to problem solving helps many of our innovators and innovative companies to identify and then resolve a wide range of business and technical development issues at critical points along their commercialisation journey.

As such, he complements other members of our expert team who take a ‘deep dive’ into scientific and academic concepts. Ian’s broad holistic approach focuses on removing awkward bottlenecks through his extensive practical experience and contacts with other specialists and catapults.

He has a track record for success across wildly varying sectors, organisations and international cultures with a highly-structured working style that carefully retains the entrepreneurial spirit.

Ian specialises in new clean-tech products and process innovation. This regularly involves taking new ideas to different markets and creating bespoke growth strategies, while at the same time managing manufacturing scaleup and productivity gain programmes.

Challenges he typically helps to meet and overcome include:

– Improving project management results via cross-silo changes and adding new business momentum

– Reducing time to market with new ideas, processes, value stream management, and products

– Finding, locating and relocating suitable office, workshop, warehouse and laboratory premises

– Scale-up EPC, engineering, procurement and construction for new greenfield and retrofitted assets

– Supply-chain – reshoring, localisation, life-cycle services, cost analysis & finding Northwest partners

– Creating operational excellence – via people, culture, LEAN processes and digital business design

Ian’s sector experience is equally extensive and includes: – sales, key account management, product development and marketing, manufacturing and engineering issues, plus service and support, backed by extended international operations experience in Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific.

He also brings 30 years of blue-chip corporate business and engineering experience in the industrial energy and automation sector after working with organisations such as Du-Pont, Fuji and Siemens.

Ian is the UK & NW Europe business lead for Quad Plus, an international USA-owned systems integrator and OEM machine builder that works across the energy and industrial sectors.

In addition, he is the founder and director of Energy and Automation – consulting engineers for industrial energy and automation, product-stream management and product-development.

For the last 10 years Ian has led this business, working at the coalface with SMEs and providing support for medium and small-scale organisations across multiple-industry sectors in the UK. He also has a proven record in influencing change, growth and profitability at a global and local level.

With his technical knowledge of product and process innovation, Ian is an acknowledged specialist in bringing new ideas to market. He has specific experience in new product introductions by helping to shape innovation ideas after first quantifying market opportunities, optimising their potential commercial profitability, reducing carbon footprints. Finally, he defines the commercialisation of individual developments, their manufacturing, and launch planning.

Ian’s goal is to help SMEs take on board and embed a unique approach to disruptive innovation leadership within their business. In parallel, he helps organisations large or small to better understand risks, challenges, opportunities.

He also supports the development of commercialisation strategies that introduce new clean-tech products and processes designed to allow SMEs to become more productive and gain a competitive edge in the future low-carbon and sustainable economy.

Clearly, Rachel Reeves had pressing new financial priorities in her 2025 Spring Statement.

She did not refer to green issues. Construction sector skills support was mentioned which hopefully will include installing low carbon tech with some 600,000 potential installers sorely needed.

But with little in 2024’s Autumn Budget to attract green investment, she is missing commercial and environmental opportunities to turn an innovative penny as the climate crisis gets stronger.

This is important because as our lead article above explains, UK green-tech can create long-term wealth to underpin Treasury goals as social spending falls and defence and security priorities rise.

With respect, we would be pleased to show the Chancellor how RedCAT and Lancashire-based green innovators have turned £1.5 million of initial investment capital into economic outputs worth circa £20 million – with 300 new jobs.

Importantly, we did this in less than three years – within a Parliamentary term.

Our next goal is scaling up our commercialisation system on a multi-regional, national and international basis.

We believe we can help the Treasury if the Treasury is willing to engage and boost UK green-tech with our RedCAT specialists. That is not a big ask. But it is a crucial one that we will keep pressing for.

The UK green sector growth rate is three times that of the rest of the economy, the CBI said in February. The Chancellor herself has acknowledged there is no trade-off between economic growth and net zero. In fact, the sector has grown consistently by more than 8% annually for more than 15 years.

But there is a danger the UK could be outmaneuvered by competitors in the EU, East Asia, and US where the private sector totally understands the magnitude of climate change risks and impacts.

This makes investing in existing green technologies essential – plus the development and commercialisation of breakthrough products and services delivering sustainable solutions while cutting costs, waste, and carbon for tomorrow’s homes and businesses.

Electricity bills are set by expensive marginal wholesale gas prices. Moving green levies from bills to general taxation would work better. Preventing renewable energy  operators from being held ransom by gas plant owners on dull, cold, windless days is important. Modernising the energy infrastructure would make electricity cheaper. Accelerating the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) and low-carbon power would vastly improve energy efficiency.

The UK can no longer afford to be a hostage to fossil-fuels.

Betwixt and between these admittedly complex reforms are major opportunities for much-needed technical advances, as RedCAT’s green-tech innovator portfolio shows.

March 2025 figures show that every £1 spent on flood resilience prevents circa £8 of community damage. The Green Finance Institute says the degradation of the UK’s natural environment could cut UK economic growth by an estimated 6% -12%.