A new poll conducted by Opinium, commissioned by RenewableUK, shows that an overwhelming majority of UK voters (82%) believe that the growth of green industries is important for the growth of Britain’s economy. The percentage is even higher among swing voters who supported the Conservatives in 2019 and are currently planning to switch to Labour, at 88%. The fully-weighted UK-wide poll of 5,149 people was conducted between 8th-20th September.

The Chancellor has set out five priority sectors for the economy, including green industries. When asked which of these is most likely to encourage growth in the UK economy overall, more than twice as many people thought green industries would have the biggest positive impact on than any other sector, including life sciences, digital tech and advanced manufacturing (36% compared to 4%-16% for other sectors).

According to RenewableUK, the vast majority of the public (75%) said they would see any failure to secure investment in renewable energy and factories to manufacture green tech such as wind turbine components as a missed opportunity for the UK. This rises to 83% of Conservative to Labour swing voters.

Increasing investment in renewable energy has similarly high levels of public support (71%), but only 40% of people believe the Conservative Party have even partially delivered on this.

However, around a third of voters (32%) and 45% of Conservative to Labour swing voters think the Tories have become less proactive in securing investment in green industries under Rishi Sunak, with over three quarters of them (78% and 77% respectively) less likely to support the Conservative Party as a result.

Similarly, a significant proportion of voters (31%) believe the Conservative Party have been less focused on unlocking investment in renewable energy than on oil and gas in the last six months, and most of these voters (67%) have a less favourable view of the Conservatives as a result. Again, this perception is more widely held amongst Conservative to Labour swing voters, 45% of which believe the Conservative Party have been more focused on oil and gas than renewables in the last six months, with 77% of them having a less favourable view of the party as a result.

For RenewableUK’s Director of Strategic Communications Nathan Bennett, “this new polling demonstrates very clearly that people see the success of green industries as vital to the UK’s economic growth. New green industries like offshore wind are bringing tens of thousands of new jobs and billions of pounds of investment to communities across the UK, as well as low cost clean power.”

“Although we welcome the Prime Minister re-iterating his support for green industries in his net zero speech, this has to be backed up with tangible measures to make the UK more attractive market for green investment or we will see factories and jobs which could have been in the UK go overseas. This polling shows not only that there is a wealth of public support for new incentives to secure renewable energy projects and manufacturing, but that people be would disappointed if we fail to secure these investments,” he said.

The Conservative MP Sir Alok Sharma, President of the COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in 2021 said: “Attracting inwards green investment does require further action and I therefore look forward to the Government’s promised response in the Autumn Statement to the US’s Inflation Reduction Act which is hoovering up many billions of pounds of private sector investment and causing some companies to think about prioritising expanding in the US ahead of the UK”.