The Green Economy
Climate change brings significant challenges and risks to the South East and its businesses. SEEDA believes it also brings market opportunities. A key focus for us is on changing the economy from high- to low-carbon usage to help the South East become more prosperous and improve the quality of life. We are taking action on:
- increasing the profitability and efficiency of businesses and organisations
- promoting environmental technology and sustainable construction
- changing behaviours at work and at home to reduce carbon footprints.
The South East green economy is about exploiting market opportunities locally and globally and driving behavioural change towards low-carbon lifestyles. To realise potential economic benefits our Ecological Footprint reduction targets are set out in the Regional Economic Strategy.
Current areas of activity include:
- environmental technology
- sustainable innovation
- carbon capture and storage
- business support to go green
- investing in low carbon places.
By 2012, SEEDA expects that the South East will lead the way in demonstrating how businesses can thrive while cutting their environmental impacts. We are encouraging businesses to maximise the economic and environmental opportunities of:
- retrofitting of buildings
- renewable energy
- using waste as a resource.
Examples of how SEEDA is moving the Green Economy agenda are available here.
