ADBA: Biogas can be central to UK Industrial Strategy

ADBA has today welcomed the publication of the Government’s Green Paper ‘Building Our Industrial Strategy’ and will be setting out over the next few months how AD can play a central role in helping UK industry to flourish.

In return for long-term Government support, AD can significantly contribute to the success of UK industry in the following ways:

• A fantastic return on investment and good value for money, providing low-cost and low-carbon heat and power, clean transport fuel, and organic fertiliser;
• Lots of local manufacturing jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics;
• Reduced imports to help restore the UK’s balance of payments, for example through substituting 16% of imported natural gas for home-grown green gas;
• Helping the UK meet its climate-change targets through reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Bioscience and biotechnology are specifically mentioned in the Green Paper as one of the focus areas of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, which will create a new funding stream for R&D in technologies where the UK has the potential to take an industrial lead.

ADBA Chief Executive Charlotte Morton said:

We welcome the Government’s Green Paper and in particular the focus on investing in science, research and innovation, which is key to unlocking the full potential of the biogas industry worldwide. We estimate that a government investment of £50m over 5-7 years in a Centre for Anaerobic Biotechnology and Bioresources Research would provide the initiative to deliver a step change in the rate of development of anaerobic biotechnology, putting the UK at the heart of this £1 trillion global industry.

 

AD can make an enormous long-term contribution to UK manufacturing and the low-carbon economy, and we look forward to making this case to Government and others over the coming months to ensure that the bioeconomy is central to the UK’s Industrial Strategy moving forward.