Future Humber and partners present region’s green future vision to Innovation Zero Congress

Future Humber presented the Humber 2030 Vision at the Innovation Zero Congress, held at the London Olympia, alongside key partners in the region’s drive to a sustainable net zero economy.

The Innovation Zero Congress is the UK’s largest event to drive businesses towards low and zero carbon solutions. It hosted more than 12,000 visitors and featured 200 exhibitors and 350 speakers across eight stages over two days.

The Humber 2030 Vision is the prospectus of decarbonisation projects that represent a potential £15 billion investment in the UK’s Energy Estuary, including Humber Zero, H2H Saltend and Gigastack.

It details how these projects can establish the UK’s first low carbon industrial cluster in the Humber by 2030, unlocking significant investment and creating tens of thousands of jobs.

The vision also highlights why the Humber, as the UK’s largest carbon emitter, represents the single biggest industrial decarbonisation opportunity.

Future Humber, alongside 10 partners including RWE, Phillips 66, Drax and SSE Thermal, created its own ‘Humber Pavilion’ to showcase the vision at the congress.

The 16m by 6m pavilion featured nine separate stands representing individual decarbonisation projects under the Humber 2030 Vision. It also had a central networking area where members of the Future Humber team and partners were able to interact with thousands of visitors to the pavilion.

Future Humber was launched last month to replace Marketing Humber, with a renewed strategy and focus on its powerful network of Bondholders that spans the private and public sectors across the region.

The repositioning includes a refreshed and expanded Board of Directors to further strengthen Future Humber’s voice across all sectors and give the region national and international influence.

The change to Future Humber more accurately reflects the organisation’s wide-ranging work to make connections, build partnerships to promote the Humber, and help secure investment to drive growth.

The Future Humber team at the Innovation Zero Congress included Managing Director Dr Diana Taylor.

She said: “The Humber has huge decarbonisation ambitions and we’ve made important strides on our journey to net zero – but we must grasp the opportunity before us.

“Now is our time and, by working together under the shared messaging of the Humber 2030 Vision, we can achieve our ambitions of creating a sustainable, thriving green economy.

“As a convenor, Future Humber, supported by the strength of our network of Bondholders, is helping unite the region and share its story to influential decision-makers.

“There was an incredible amount of interest in the Humber 2030 Vision across the two days at the Innovation Zero Congress and visitors to our pavilion were fascinated by the level of activity, investment and potential for our region to lead the UK’s green economic recovery.”

The Future Humber team were also joined by Henri Murison, Chief Executive of The Northern Powerhouse Partnership, who is also a member of the new Future Humber Board of Directors.

He presented the collaborative voice for the industrial clusters of the North and amplified the narrative for the Humber as a major player at a session titled Regional Net Zero Regeneration: Future Growth Opportunities.

Mr Murison said: “We need to put real energy into collaboration across the North, not competition, to achieve our goal of a prosperous green future.

“There’s been an incredible amount of work carried out across the Humber to get where we are, and significant progress has been made, but we’ll only get to where we want and need to be internationally by the scale of the prize for decarbonising industry on the Humber being secured.

“The Humber 2030 Vision represents a potential £15 billion investment in the region, which would be truly transformative. We need government to move more quickly to secure this investment and gain the benefits to UK plc of it being spent.”

The Innovation Zero Congress featured speakers from some of the country’s largest companies and organisations, with attendees from across the world.

Representatives from energy firm RWE, a new Principal Partner of Future Humber, were among those that joined the team at the congress.

Tom Glover, RWE UK Country Chair, said: “RWE has been a major presence in the Humber for many years. We develop, build and operate a portfolio of key energy infrastructure using wind, solar and gas to ensure UK energy security, while delivering new skills and jobs, investments and business growth across the region.

“Looking ahead, our goal is to move sustainably to a net zero generation portfolio, both domestically and globally, and so we are excited to align our goals with those of the region, through Future Humber.

“Collaboration and innovation are key to our approach to reducing carbon emissions; we’re already exploring the production of green hydrogen using power from our renewable power stations, and working with local partners on two exciting carbon capture projects in and around the Humber.

“To deliver these, we believe we are stronger together and by aligning with Future Humber, we can help ensure the region speaks with one, unified and powerful voice and can unlock the opportunities that a sustainable net zero economy presents, on behalf of the region and the UK.”

Future Humber has also revamped and relaunched the Invest Humber website – the digital platform which details the exciting decarbonisation projects under development.

The platform is designed to inspire action from high-level investors and key decision-makers, including Government ministers, and to inform other interested parties, including MPs, think tanks and trade bodies.

The site provides supporting information about the Humber to inform and influence potential investors, including details on the region’s skills base, connectivity, available land and more.

To view Invest Humber, which includes the Humber 2030 Vision prospectus, visit https://investhumber.com/