“Manufacturing Resilience: Driving recovery towards net-zero” recognises the excellent work that has been done by the government’s Made Smarter pilot supporting the sector to go digital and calls for the Made Smarter programme to be expanded to encompass resilience and net-zero, and to be rolled out nationally so as to level up to industry in all regions.
The report outlines the real-world benefits that committing to such an approach would have. Allowing companies to match the most efficient operator in their sectors they would – on average – become 24% more profitable, generate 30% more jobs, and report a 9% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
The ERA believes that alongside the obvious economic benefits these type of efforts crucial in helping to mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis.
Improving energy and resource efficiency can help businesses reduce their exposure to price volatility and insulate themselves against supply-side shocks
Andrew Everett, Executive Secretary of the ERA Foundation, explained that “as the incoming Executive Secretary of the ERA Foundation I am delighted that our organisation has been a sponsor of this far-reaching report.
“The Foundation was particularly pleased to see the report’s recommendations relating to building proactively on the lessons of manufacturing resilience learned through the pandemic crisis as well as the urgent call for action to deal with the skills gap. On the latter, we were also delighted to note the report’s emphasis on the importance of Digital Skills and the government’s continued support of advanced mobile 5G internet infrastructure to drive the uptake of Industry 4.0, digital sustainable manufacturing, which is vital to achieving a sustainable, zero-carbon manufacturing economy in the UK.”
