Insight: Is slowing down on the road to net zero the right choice?
Rowing back on measures designed to help Britain hit net zero by 2050 has, his critics say, put the Prime Minister on the wrong side of history.
As the planet warms, slowing down the response, through less urgent implementation of measures to reduce greenhouses gases, sends out a confused message, even if the intention – to cut the pressure on hard-up households – makes sense to some.
By contrast progressive landed estates and environmentally-aware house-builders have found that the effective implementation of green initiatives brings significant benefits, not just for the environment, but for their reputation too. Many are powering ahead, even as the government stalls.
Bandwagon-jumping businesses who talk up their environmental credentials are soon found out. “Greenwashing” has become a term of abuse directed at the worst offenders, with some justification.
But many large estates are going the extra mile to reduce their carbon footprint, introduce more sustainable ways of farming and improve the efficiency of their housing stock to meet the most stringent standards. Where they talk, honestly and openly, about what they are doing, they generally win public support.
Politicians have not always made it easy for estates or property developers to follow a green agenda, however.
The confusion over nutrient neutrality rules, for example - imposed to cut the pollution risk in watercourses, then scrapped to boost house-building and now blocked by the House of Lords - is a case in point.
New rules, requiring house builders to deliver a biodiversity net gain on every new housing project, come into effect in November But the Prime Minister’s change of tack on green initiatives, coupled with whispers from government sources, will leave some developers wondering if another U-turn might be on the cards.
Scrapping the requirement for all privately rented homes to upgrade their Energy Performance Certificate rating to at least a ‘C’ by 2028 has been widely welcomed, particularly in rural areas where older housing stock was proving difficult to upgrade.
However those landlords who have already spent significant sums making the changes might be wondering why they bothered to move so swiftly and at some cost, if the policy is now being watered down by Downing Street.
But for many landed estates whose owners take a long-term view of the way they manage their assets, the best policy has always been to get ahead of the curve, rather than follow it.
While the political arguments rage about the popularity of green measures and the electoral risks of imposing them, estate owners are concerned about the next generation, rather than the next general election.
The Prime Minister can, as we have seen, make political judgements about policies to cut the climate change risk based on short-term concerns about his Government’s popularity. Yet landed estate owners with business plans that stretch far into the future know the decisions they make will last several lifetimes.
Whether the issue is regenerative farming or the restoration and refurbishment of property to future-proof it for ever tighter regulation, “going green” is not a nice-to-have add on for the most progressive estates, but is central to the way they operate. The PM could learn a lesson from them.