Future Humber and partners present region’s green future vision

The Humber’s place promotion organisation has shared the region’s vision for a clean, green, prosperous future to an international audience.

Future Humber presented the Humber 2030 Vision at the Innovation Zero Congress, held at the London Olympia, alongside key partners in the region’s drive to a sustainable net zero economy. The Innovation Zero Congress is the UK’s largest event to drive businesses towards low and zero carbon solutions. It hosted more than 12,000 visitors and featured 200 exhibitors and 350 speakers across eight stages over two days.

The Humber 2030 Vision is the prospectus of decarbonisation projects that represent a potential £15bn investment in the UK’s Energy Estuary, including Humber Zero, H2H Saltend and Gigastack. It details how these projects can establish the UK’s first low carbon industrial cluster in the Humber by 2030, unlocking significant investment and creating tens of thousands of jobs.

Future Humber was launched last month to replace Marketing Humber, with a renewed strategy and focus on its powerful network of Bondholders that spans the private and public sectors across the region.

The change to Future Humber more accurately reflects the organisation’s wide-ranging work to make connections, build partnerships to promote the Humber, and help secure investment to drive growth. The Future Humber team at the Innovation Zero Congress included managing director Dr Diana Taylor.

She said: “The Humber has huge decarbonisation ambitions and we’ve made important strides on our journey to net zero, but we must grasp the opportunity before us. “Now is our time and, by working together under the shared messaging of the Humber 2030 Vision, we can achieve our ambitions of creating a sustainable, thriving green economy.”

The Future Humber team were also joined by Henri Murison, chief executive of The Northern Powerhouse Partnership, who is also a member of the new Future Humber board of directors.

He presented the collaborative voice for the industrial clusters of the North and amplified the narrative for the Humber as a major player at a session titled Regional Net Zero Regeneration: Future Growth Opportunities.

Mr Murison said: “The Humber 2030 Vision represents a potential £15bn investment in the region, which would be truly transformative. We need government to move more quickly to secure this investment and gain the benefits to UK plc of it being spent.”

The Innovation Zero Congress featured speakers from some of the country’s largest companies and organisations, with attendees from across the world. Representatives from energy firm RWE, a new principal partner of Future Humber, were among those that joined the team at the congress.

Tom Glover, RWE UK country chair, said: “RWE has been a major presence in the Humber for many years. We develop, build and operate a portfolio of key energy infrastructure using wind, solar and gas to ensure UK energy security, while delivering new skills and jobs, investments and business growth across the region.

“Looking ahead, our goal is to move sustainably to a net zero generation portfolio, both domestically and globally, and so we are excited to align our goals with those of the region, through Future Humber.”

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily