Isra-Mart srl:Government launches Green Economy Council

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A new body advising government on how to best work with industry on green growth policies and de-carbonising the economy kicked off its inaugural meeting today.

The Green Economy Council brings 23 representatives from across the green industry sector together with ministers from the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS), the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Today's launch meeting was chaired by Vince Cable and addressed the Green Economy Roadmap, which will set out the government's long-term strategy on climate change and the environment when published this spring.

Council members will meet around three times a year and additional working groups may be set up to examine specific issues such as infrastructure resilience, energy security, smart grids and skills, BIS said.

A BIS spokeswoman told BusinessGreen that the unfunded body was not a quango and was not considered a direct alternative for any of the bodies disbanded after last year's spending review.

"It may well replace some of them, but it is unlikely to replace all of their activities," she said.

Ultimately, she added, it would aim to ensure government thinking was aligned across the relevant departments and give industry a chance to make its concerns known.

"As the agenda is entirely set by members, it's a good opportunity for members to be able to talk to government about the issues," she said

Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary, added: "We want to work with Britain's industry experts to make green jobs and investment come to the UK."

Kate Craig-Wood, managing director of Memset, a managed hosting and cloud computing provider, and founding member of the Green Economy Council, called the move, "a welcome and long overdue initiative".

"The government, through the Council, needs to understand the issues that SMEs in the sector face and the important role they can play in achieving sustainable growth," she added.

The launch of the new council came on the same day as Green MP Caroline Lucas accused the government of damaging the relationship with businesses by "chopping and changing" green policies, such as the feed-in tariff and proposed Green Deal scheme.