Greater Manchester Green Summit

What Is The Greater Manchester Green Summit?

The Greater Manchester Green Summit (GMGS) is an annually held event, with 2021 being its fourth year. Following the pandemic and its effects, this year’s summit was able to be held in person and was hosted by Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham.

The summit’s ambition is to inform Greater Manchester about how the county is tackling the climate crisis and how Greater Manchester is putting itself into a position of influence and credibility.

In a nutshell – the summit outlines Greater Manchester’s plans to get to carbon neutral by 2038.

 

Greener Businesses

The climate crisis is an ever-growing issue in today’s world. Real systemic change is required to enable real impact but individual efforts are simply not enough; greener businesses are required alongside government initiatives.

We need infrastructure; government and businesses need to make the shift to a sustainable way of operating to achieve the true goal of becoming carbon neutral.

The GMGS is the place for the public to hear about what Greater Manchester is doing already as well as what it is planning to do in the future. It is a platform for people to ask their questions and understand if Manchester is heading in the right direction.

 

 

What Was Said?

So, to the issue at hand; what is Greater Manchester planning to do to tackle the climate crisis and put itself on the map for a pioneer of sustainability and reinforcing Manchester’s fame for innovation? And how are they going to help greener businesses?

There were two main topics spoken about throughout the day.

  1. A revamped public transport system, with bold claims of introducing the UK’s first integrated renewable energy public transport system.
  2. Renovate the county’s most inefficient houses through retrofitting to increase their energy efficiency ratings.

 

Transport

“It costs more to catch a train than a plane nowadays.” – Andy Burnham

The current transport system in Manchester is undesirable to say the least, and this directly affects people’s likelihood of using it. Why would someone get a bus instead of driving if the bus is unreliable and expensive, whilst a car is reliable and (seemingly) cheaper?

There are plans to revamp GM’s public transport and make trams, busses and trains more desirable to the public to counter the fact that currently the alternatives to cars are considered more of a chore than a luxury.

Plans are in place to make a flat bus fare of £1.55 and create an infrastructure for reliable and consistent buses and trams which run off of renewable energy.

The energy sector representatives also forecasted for over 1 million electric vehicles to be on Manchester’s roads by 2025 as the price of batteries is dropping on average every three months, making battery powered vehicles a much more viable option.

 

Efficient Homes

Manchester is mobilising plans to retrofit thousands of homes who are at the E/D end of the energy efficiency rating table. The impact of all these homes becoming more efficient will vastly decrease Greater Manchester’s carbon footprint.

This will not only create environmental benefits but also social prosperity as it should create many green jobs in Greater Manchester.

Greater Manchester has secured £1.1m funding from the European Social Fund to support the North West Skills Academy. The plan is for this to fund the training of skilled workers within Greater Manchester in retrofit installation; not only creating a higher skilled workforce in Manchester but also moving our economy’s focus in the right direction towards more green jobs, and hopefully more green demand as the accessibility to green solutions will become easier.

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What Can Businesses Do?

  • Commit to change
  • Engage in carbon literacy
  • Consider more sustainable alternatives in your energy supplier, banking, transport/freight and telecommunication supplier.
  • Collaborate and learn from one another.
  • “Actions not words” – act on the goals you set!
  • Educate staff on everyday habit which can decrease their carbon footprint.

As the saying goes; “We do not need a handful of people doing sustainability perfectly, but we do need everybody doing sustainability imperfectly.”

Please watch our YouTube video below to see our team live at Manchester Green Summit, asking what companies can do help with the climate crisis and how they plan to become greener businesses.

If you want to learn more about how The Better Business Network can help greener businesses to be better, please download our free workbook here and read some of our previous blog posts:

To learn more about sustainability, net zero and how betternotstop can help your business to decrease your carbon footprint, please get in touch via our Contact Page today, or email us directly at info@betternotstop.com