How to ensure net zero brings good growth and green jobs

Energy costs were rightly the focus of policymakers’ attention this summer, with price spirals hitting Western Europe in a way not seen in decades. The immediate focus is rightly on how to ensure the UK can protect consumers and businesses over the winter. However, the challenges of moving to net zero and ensuring inclusive economic growth remain.

These two challenges, but also opportunities, faced by the UK formed the basis for PwC’s events at this year’s conventions. In partnership with the New Statesman, we hosted a side event at the Labor Party conference to examine how the UK can truly and permanently rebalance or ‘lift’ the UK economy and what a crucial role the transition to net zero will play in that Mission.

There is growing recognition that a net-zero economy is not only essential for the UK to meet its global commitments, but also has the potential to unlock dynamic new industries and jobs that can help fuel long-term growth to advance The actions of companies—their investments, their innovations, and their people—will help drive the changes needed, but to succeed, more than ever, business leaders must consider the broader social impact of their decisions. While the move to net zero has the potential to spread economic opportunity to all parts of the UK, it is uncertain if it will happen organically.

PwC’s goal is to build trust in society and solve important problems. As part of our work to help businesses and governments understand the challenges ahead and plan for the transition, we launched our Green Jobs Barometer last year. The barometer helps chart the UK’s transition to net zero by measuring a unique set of metrics that paint a picture of how well different regions are performing in key areas – including the number of green jobs being created, the additional employment created create those jobs and the number of “sunset jobs” that could be lost.

This last category – jobs lost during the transition, or “sunset jobs” – is particularly important for businesses and subsequent governments to understand and plan for. There will clearly be job losses in heavily carbon dependent or manufacturing areas that are clustered in certain parts of the country.

A coherent reskilling approach is key to minimizing job losses and this requires close cooperation between business and government. For example, recent analysis by PwC shows that skills in the energy sector are highly transferable to renewable energy positions and that with government and business support, there is potential for significant job growth rather than job losses.

The nationwide distribution of green jobs must also be carefully considered. Our barometer shows that green jobs are already favoring certain sectors and these will not necessarily be the ones that will lose the most jobs in high-emission industries. We will continue to monitor this shift with our barometer to identify areas that need targeted support and investment.

Regions such as Yorkshire and Humber and Wales, for example, have scores in the Barometer metrics that show they are slowly lagging behind the rest of the country, while London is above average in terms of new green job creation. These findings shed light on the need for a just transition and highlight the challenges that the government’s leveling agenda must address.

Over the past year we have convened working groups across the UK from business, skills providers and policy makers to examine these challenges in more detail. PwC continues to focus on these issues and will publish an update to the Barometer in November.

We believe that if we act now, we have a tremendous opportunity to bring the economy back into balance and ensure a fair transition.