Economic growth plan is a missed opportunity

It’s also very much a work in progress, so we should all be able to get behind it, help to flesh it out and try to grow the economy for the benefit of all Islanders. That’s certainly a better option than requiring more of the deeply flawed CSR process, which is probably doing more harm than good.

While it’s possible to argue about the details of the growth plan (what few details there are), the important thing is to support the basic principles behind the strategy.

Most importantly, this includes the acknowledgement in the plan that the government has a key role to play in helping the economy to grow and diversify. This represents something of an about-face for some of our politicians, who in the past have been content to sit back and let the markets get on with it.

The strategy does not set out to try to ‘pick winners’ because that is anathema to the old school of conservative businessmen which some politicians seem to worry about so much. Putting millions into the digital economy and creating gigabit Jersey could well be considered picking a winner, but it’s also a pretty obvious infrastructure improvement from which all businesses should benefit.

It’s true that Guernsey’s Commerce and Employment Minister may have a point when he says that linking every household to superfast broadband when they don’t really need it is an expensive way of doing this, but the proof will be in the eating. It’s a bold, exciting project and we need more of this kind of thinking, not less.

So we have a plan, and we have the money to put it into effect (hopefully), so what’s wrong with Jersey’s economic growth and diversification strategy?

The answer it’s that it’s simply not green enough.

I don’t mean that it ignores the environment and sustainability, because no one can do that these days, but it does ignore the possibility that the economic growth we are going to generate could mark a step change in our thinking, and be green growth.

It’s a missed opportunity for the Island as a whole. A green economic growth and diversification strategy would be a bold, perhaps even revolutionary, step (although that’s precisely what many nations are doing around the world). Admittedly, it would have had to deal with the immediate economic problems in the traditional, well-worn way, but it could have acknowledged a transition to green growth some way down the road. Perhaps it could even have set a target for transforming the economy.

Of course, this might have annoyed all those looking for a quick fix for the economy, and who might believe that we need economic growth now, whatever the colour and whatever the consequences.

These are the people who might also believe that there is an economic cost in adopting new, green ways of working.

But putting green growth at the centre of economic policy could have put us years ahead of many of our competitors. Equally importantly, it would have acknowledged Jersey’s special position as a small Island, able to control what comes in and goes out, and our apparent determination to protect our environment.

The problem is that the environment is not at the centre of what we do, even if we like to think it is. There is still a feeling among some in the business community that concern for the environment is largely the preserve of long-haired hippies. Well that’s not a description you can use when referring to the Confederation of British Industry.

They have just claimed that adopting a clearer green growth strategy could add £20 billion to the UK’s GDP by 2015. A proportional increase in Jersey’s economy would amount to at least £30 million.

In a report, the UK business group says that the UK could become a global front-runner in low-carbon products and services in particular.

‘The so-called choice between going green or going for growth is a false one,’ John Cridland, CBI director-general is quoted as saying. ‘We hear that politicians are for one or the other, when in reality, with the right policies in place, green business will be a major pillar of our future growth.

‘With something like a third of all our growth accounted for by green business last year, the UK could be a global frontrunner in the shift to low carbon. In the search for growth, we’re digging for goldmines – and one of them is green.’

Perhaps we can’t expect to read something like that in Jersey’s economic growth strategy, but the strategy document contained no reference to the fact that Jersey is lagging behind an increasing number of other countries in this respect.

Perhaps some of us don’t realize that sustainable development is about much more than separating our glass before we put the bins out. It’s a whole different way of thinking, but the economic as well as the environmental rewards could be great.

We might have even been able to link green growth to another vital strategy in the States business plan, that of taxation. We’ve been talking about some kind of carbon tax for years, but nothing has happened, presumably because the business lobby believe it would put a dampener on the economy rather than helping with economic growth. Well Sweden introduced a carbon tax as long ago as 1991, and their economy has grown by 50 per cent since then.

But Jersey appears to be stuck with the policies of the past. There could be huge opportunities in transforming the Island’s economy by adopting green growth strategies and helping to create new sustainable businesses. But the principle policy document setting out the economic future for the Island doesn’t even give it a mention.

There is only one reference to green in the strategy document, and that’s to a previous green paper on the subject.

Peter Body is editor of Business Brief magazine