Tees Business LIVE: April 2025
EVENTS
Tees Business LIVE: April 2025
NET ZERO INDUSTRY INNOVATION CENTRE, MIDDLESBROUGH
IN ASSOCIATION WITH TEESSIDE UNIVERSITY
PICTURES: TOM BANKS
Discussion – the net zero panel consisted of( from left) Teesside University’ s Professor Dawid Hanack, Net Zero Industry Innovation Centre director Dr Gari Harris, AV Dawson’ s head of engineering Mark Wells and Miles Watkins, a director of Stuff4Life.
GREEN DEBATE
Tees firms urged to embrace decarbonisation
Delegates at a Tees Business summit were urged to park any cynicism and instead embrace the move to net zero – with Teesside set to lead the fight against climate change.
Held at the Net Zero Industry Innovation Centre( NZIIC) on Middlesbrough’ s Tees Advanced Manufacturing Park( TeesAMP), Tees Business LIVE featured an expert panel considering Teesside’ s pioneering role in the UK’ s net zero transition.
And as well as suggesting ways the government can speed up progress on decarbonisation, panellists urged businesses to start the journey – if they haven’ t done so already.
NZIIC director Dr Gari Harris told the meeting:“ It’ s not too far off for regulated industries.
“ They have to deal with it here and now. And for those that are non-regulated industries, it is coming, so you’ d better do something about it now.
“ There’ s the moral part of this as well. Most companies have an ESG( environmental and social governance) component, and so it’ s also about trying to do the best you can in terms of your own company, family, environment and locality.
“ I think every company should be looking at some kind of decarbonisation and what they can do about it.”
He added that Teesside was well-placed to benefit from funding into net zero technologies, saying:“ The opportunities here in Teesside are going to be great, both from the UK and internationally.”
Industry decarbonisation expert Professor Dawid Hanack – who is based at the NZIIC – agreed that especially with noises coming from the likes of US president Donald Trump, there was some cynicism to combat.
Citing solar panel development as an example of where technology had advanced greatly while slashing costs, he said:“ There is lots of cynicism around carbon capture, for example, particularly when Trump talks about direct air capture, which is much more difficult to do than carbon capture – and carbon capture is already expensive.
“ So, there is cynicism because it’ s expensive now. But many people don’ t look into the future and consider how much the cost will go down.”
Miles Watkins, a director of awardwinning Teesside firm Stuff4Life, urged firms to“ look at the data, look at your numbers and try to understand where your carbon burden is.”
He added:“ For some of these things, the payback isn’ t necessarily very quick, but it’ s the right thing to do.
“ You’ ve got to want to do this as a business leader and then, ultimately, you’ ve got to work on the integration piece in all your decision making – what you’ re buying, what you’ re selling, who you’ re working with, who you’ re talking to and who you’ re recruiting.”
And AV Dawson’ s head of engineering,
Mark Wells, urged the government to try to cut electricity prices.
He explained:“ Say we want to go from a diesel to electric; the figures don’ t stack up a lot of the time.
“ Some of the smaller equipment is fine. They’ re a similar price, so we can make a slight saving on using electricity and we get the saving of CO2.
“ But then when we go to the bigger equipment, like cranes and really big forklift trucks, the manufacturers are pricing them at two, three times the price of a diesel equivalent, so our saving in electricity just doesn’ t stack up because we’ ve paid so much.”
Around 70 people attended the event, which also featured a guided tour of the NZIIC complex.
Spearheaded by Teesside University, the £ 13m facility is helping put Teesside at the heart of the UK’ s green industrial revolution.
Series associate sponsor for the 2025 Tees Business LIVE programme is North East Chamber of Commerce.
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