The Earth's Corr: If the Exec's serious about delivering for all we need a Wellbeing Economy

The NI Executive committee
-Credit: (Image: NI Executive)


As I was reading through the new Programme for Government earlier this week - one thing that really stood out to me was how the words ‘economy’ and ‘growth’ are never far from any vows about tackling environmental degradation and the climate crisis.

The 88-page document was littered with buzzwords like ‘green growth’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘efficiency’.

In terms of minding our part of the planet, their mission is “harnessing the potential of a green growth economy while ensuring we provide an equitable transition to a sustainable and affordable society as we take responsibility for decarbonising our economy and society”.

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Now I don’t know about you, but in the round it left me thinking that everything promise to protect the environment is heavily weighed against how much money it will lose or make.

I’ve said before, this is the very reason we now find ourselves in the mess we’re in in terms of Lough Neagh - air, water and soil pollution and the incessant creep of buildings across wild and green spaces.

We’ve driven just about everything into the ground to make a quick buck and the environment we rely on for food and water will take a very long time to recover. And that’s if or when, we start to take the climate and biodiversity crises seriously.

Yes, there were mentions of a just transition, building more sustainable social homes and retrofitting as well as cutting household and business energy costs by supporting renewables.

And you could add all of these into Green Growth - which if you ask me is how we future proof our jobs markets and deliver employment in sectors that will help NI become net-zero.

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But when it comes to economy vs environment - the incessant push for growth on a finite planet still wins every time.

We’ve seen in the developments planners approve in greenbelts and nature rich areas, whether they are needed or not. We see it in the planning system, when councils pass new fossil fuel projects that will tie us into the increasingly expensive fuel for years to come despite the Climate Act.

We also see it in industrially mined peat bogs where some are destroying these precious carbon sinks at an alarming rate despite the presence of rare and protected species.

And then we have the million blind eyes that are turned when trees are cut down, rivers polluted, badger setts built on and supposedly protected hedges removed so people can build all manner of structures no matter the cost to nature.

As long as we pit the environment and economy against each other, we are never going to deliver what’s needed to turn nature and our own fortunes around.

And that’s why I would like to see a lot more radical thinking from our leaders in terms of what we develop and the weight that nature and people’s wellbeing are given in policy.

An email dropped into my inbox this week praising the work of a Lisburn company, CASC, for winning a £10m contract with world leading offshore wind companies.

The engineering firm is to provide a range of products and services on preassembly sites and manufacturing facilities in the UK, EU, USA and Asia for world leading turbine OEM Siemens Gamesa and blade mould manufacturer Dencam Composites.

I applaud them for becoming part of the green revolution that’s still so sorely lagging in NI.

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We have all the skills and knowledge here, yet we are still not using them for our own green development.

After the latest renewable energy breakdown I asked the Department for Economy how many new renewables projects have come online since last year.

Instead of answering the question, they directed me to a group of spreadsheets online which, unless you speak megawatts, are quite hard to decipher.

What those spreadsheets do show, however, is that despite our very windy shoreline, we still have no offshore wind farms.

And that when it comes to onshore wind, we are dwarfed by parts of the UK including the East Midlands, East of England, North West, Yorkshire and Humber and both Scotland and Wales.

The latest figures provided are for 2022 and according to the stats, NI’s renewables have grown from 499.7MW to 1,958.5MW - so they have just about quadrupled over the decade that saw the world accept climate change is real and we need to act.

We need to do better.

How NI's renewables were generated in 2023-2024
How NI's renewables were generated in 2023-2024 -Credit:DE

A Department for the Economy spokesperson said: “Since 2021, the Department through its Energy Invest to Save Fund has invested in energy and carbon saving projects including renewables across the Government Estate to the value of £73m.”

I’d just like to point out that £73m wasn’t all for renewables in case you missed that sleight of hand.

“The Department has also committed £40m over the next five years to the Energy and Resource Efficiency Programme, in partnership with Invest NI to deliver financial support for businesses.

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“The programme includes technical consultancy services, a resource efficiency capital grant and a new energy efficiency capital grant scheme for businesses.”

Again, this is for businesses - and we are back to the economy again.

They added: “Ongoing investment in the GeoEnergyNI Geothermal demonstrator project, aimed at developing the sector and maximising geothermal potential as a renewable energy source, is in the region of £1.9m.”

A family enjoying a walk on a Belfast brownfield site
A family enjoying a walk on a Belfast brownfield site -Credit:Conor McKinney

This project could see the bills at Stormont cut and I hugely support that given the hundreds of thousands spent on gas electricity on the hill. But where is the investment that will help ordinary people in their everyday lives?

Even when the Exec spoke of retrofitting in their Programme for Government - this didn’t come with targets like in the Republic of Ireland where their government put a figure on what they aimed to deliver. And here we are full circle.

Why is all the money being spent to support business at the apparent cost of everything and everyone else - and sometimes even the wrong kinds of business in terms of dragging out our fossil fuel use.

The hugely contentious Islandmagee Gas Caverns project was handed £1m by the UK Government to pilot a hydrogen storage project even though their planning application included only fossil fuel gas.

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And that funding was paid despite it being legally challenged through the courts because of the harm it will cause sea life and the environment.

Yes we need a healthy economy so people can fund their everyday lives. But I think it’s long past time the economy was structured in a way that doesn’t allow environmental harm. It also needs to be measured against the wellbeing of the people in NI.

We need to protect and restore what we have and the Northern Ireland policies that still support development over our UN designated human right to “clean, healthy and sustainable environment” need to go in the bin.

If the Exec is serious about delivering for everyone and everything using Green Growth, a good place to start would be the Wellbeing Economy Alliance.

They advocate for an economy designed to serve people and the planet, not the other way around.

"In a Wellbeing Economy, the rules, norms and incentives are set up to deliver quality of life and flourishing for all people, in harmony with our environment, by default."

That’s the kind of economy I could really get behind.

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