By Dr Chris Edmond
LAST week was a strange one in the world of news and current affairs.
On Wednesday, we had ‘Earth Overshoot Day’, when humanity’s demand for the year exceeds the world’s biocapacity. Put simply, for the remainder of the year we will be using up more of the planet’s resources than it can sustain.
On a similar topic, Earth’s oceans recently hit record temperatures so far above the normal level for this time of year that the graphs look like they must surely be a mistake – sadly I don’t think they are. Sea temperatures in Florida are now approaching 40°C, nearly twice the norm for this time of year.
And while European air temperatures have at least dropped and forest fires subsided, authorities in Canada continue to fight record breaking blazes across the country.
Back here in Jersey I was, however, pleased to see steady progress in relation to our Carbon Neutral Roadmap with the launch of a scheme to support shared transport on the EVie network, and ongoing discussions regarding the potential for offshore wind energy.
The UK government’s response to the evident climate breakdown, on the other hand, appears to be a huge expansion of oil and gas exploration licences in the North Sea.
Another publication I read this week was the Government of Jersey’s Export Strategy 2023-2026. As the foreword to the document outlines, while we have always been reliant on exports (think potatoes, tourism, and financial services) we have never before had a dedicated export strategy. The foreword also lists a number of challenges our economy faces that I often touch on in this column – ‘low productivity, a rising cost of living, a skills deficit, and an ageing population’.
The export strategy proposes setting up a support service for businesses looking to establish or build their export sales, as well as improving data collection, ensuring our freight capacity and other connectivity, and building our trade links to France and further afield.
Overall, the strategy appears to be very sensibly trying to put in place the necessary conditions for businesses to grow and thrive, without overwhelming the Island’s limited resources. While the strategy doesn’t attempt to define exactly which products or sectors we should be looking to grow in order to export goods or services, it does outline some broad possibilities including agriculture, digital services, tertiary education and renewable energy.
The tricky balance for Jersey, and for every other economy around the world, will be in balancing the resources needed to grow the economy – and to hopefully improve quality of life for all as a result – against long-term sustainability and our impact on the planet.
I recognise that as a small island we will always have to trade with others to get the products and services we need, so clearly there is a requirement for us to continually develop products and services that the world wants to buy. And it’s almost entirely impossible to predict how long the finance industry will continue to be a sustaining force.
I was therefore pleased to read of the Economic Development Minister’s plans to encourage entrepreneurship, business skills and creativity in our schools. We really don’t know where the next great ideas will come from, but we certainly should be giving our children the confidence and skills to be developing them.
All these themes came together in a concrete example for me late last month. Running an occupational health business, I don’t particularly consider myself an exporter. We do, however, provide medical services to the offshore industry and as a doctor I am accredited by Offshore Energy UK (formerly Oil & Gas UK, but now focusing just as much on renewable energy, hence the name change).
I was contacted by a French national, looking to move into the offshore industry, who needed a specialist medical examination. So he arranged to come over on a daytrip from St Malo (along with his family, contributing to our tourist economy) for his checks. The alternative, apparently, would have been in Paris and far more expensive. I have previously been asked to travel to France to deliver the service directly, but the administrative burden has so far gotten in the way – perhaps this is something about which I could ask the new Export Support Service…
This episode led me to reflect on the work we already do for businesses in the UK, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. We don’t often think of health services as an export, but we do have a lot of valuable expertise in the Island as well as the opportunity to be a test-bed for new and innovative approaches. We can certainly develop niche specialisms such as occupational medicine, lifestyle medicine and longevity, and sports medicine, and could sell our services far and wide.
With the right support, I genuinely think that we might be able to add healthcare to our list of major export industries in the future. Let’s just make sure it’s sustainable for the planet, too.
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Dr Edmond is the founder and medical director of WorkHealth (CI) Ltd, a dedicated Jersey-based occupational health provider. He is also a director at Jersey Sport and the Jersey Recovery College, and is an adviser to the Jersey Community Foundation. He writes in a personal capacity.
