Barring a Pastor Paula White-Cain induced miracle, Joe Biden will be the next President of America. Many US entrepreneurs seem to be on the verge of celebrating – particularly immigrant entrepreneurs – but a case can be made that UK entrepreneurs will also be better off with someone else in the White House. In fact, our Adviser Andrew Dixon does just that in a City AM debate:
“Over the last four years, time and time again, Trump has undermined global cooperation — in everything from pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement and the Global Compact for Migration, to his sustained efforts to weaken the WTO and Nato. Trump’s populist “America First” approach to international relations has undermined the prospects for global trade — and directly impacted British businesses.
After the pandemic has been defeated, huge global challenges will remain — from the demographic (such as ageing western populations and rising regional and intergenerational inequality) to the technological (like the rise of artificial intelligence, automation, under-employment, the power of Big Tech and the appropriate antitrust response).”
A fair COP
On Monday we released Green Entrepreneurship with the Enterprise Trust. We launched it to coincide with when COP26 was supposed to take place in Glasgow, but we want it to influence the environmental policy agenda between now and next year's meeting.
Innovation has been key in the UK’s success over recent decades. As Business Secretary Alok Sharma explained this week: “Over the last 30 years, the UK economy grew by 75%, and yet we also cut our emissions by 43%. We were the first major economy to legislate for achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050.”
Despite positive action by multiple governments, the report argues that incentives still aren't aligned as well as they could be to spur entrepreneurs to innovate. I won’t go through all twenty recommendations, but one of my favourites is perhaps broadest and something we have argued for in the past: making the Annual Investment Allowance unlimited.
The Annual Investment Allowance allows businesses to write-off the costs of new plants and machinery, but currently those who exceed the limit have a reduced incentive to invest in energy efficiency. The report also suggests further thought could be given to broadening out the qualifying lists.
As I write in Forbes, Green Entrepreneurship also has some inspiring case studies of UK entrepreneurs whose innovations will help the environment. Businesses like Too Good To Go, the Uber for unwanted food; Electron, whose platform helps optimise the network capacity for renewable energy; Ryse Hydrogen, which is at the forefront of Britain’s green hydrogen industry; and Saturn Bioponics, which uses fewer resources by growing food vertically in 3D hydroponic towers.
If you want to find out more, we also have a couple of events to launch the report with Bim Afolami MP and Luke Pollard MP that you’re welcome to attend.
Sign up for the Newsletter here.