Norfolk and Suffolk Clean Growth Taskforce

Wednesday 6

July 2022

Agenda Item 7

Road to Net Zero Business Support Programme

Author: Ellen Goodwin

Summary

This report offers an update on the Road to Net Zero Business Support Programme.

Recommendations

The Taskforce are asked to:

 Note the report and reflect any thoughts they would like to be communicate to the

LEP Board at their July meeting.

Background

The Road to Net Zero Business Support Programme was first presented to the Clean

Growth Taskforce in November 2021. It is a pilot initiative, funded by the UK Government’s

Community Renewal Fund (CRF), designed to pro-actively pivot business support and

grants on a net zero future, build business advice expertise, and develop a portfolio of tested

interventions which can be rolled out further in future. The programme covers the following:

 The University of East Anglia in partnership with the University of Suffolk are

mapping sectoral opportunities on the net zero journey by defining business wants/

needs and informing understanding of decarbonisation constraints/opportunities.

 The Chambers’ of Commerce are providing online toolkits/resources to share/

promote to businesses in order to support and enhance direct support and to

showcase best practice through marketing and events.

 A dedicated trained resource within the New Anglia Growth Hub.

 Grants from £1,000-£25,000, at a 75% intervention rate, to support businesses

towards net zero with measurable practical interventions.

 1-3 days consultancy from a pool of procured experts for businesses. Business

audits will help identify the net zero ‘first/next step’.

 A Net Zero Challenge Fund offering £25,000+ to businesses at an attractive 100%

intervention rate.

Partners include the New Anglia Growth Hub, Norfolk and Suffolk County Councils, Suffolk

and Norfolk Chambers of Commerce, UEA and the University of Suffolk, Groundwork East,

Eastern New Energy and Greater South East Net Zero Hub.

Programme initiation

The formal announcement for CRF projects was made on 3 November 2021 after a longer

than anticipated decision-making process. New Anglia LEP was successful in gaining

£659,200 in Norfolk and £523,300 in Suffolk for the Road to Net Zero Business Support

Programme. The Norfolk bid was deliberately larger reflecting the fact that Norfolk had four

of the Government’s 100 priority places located in it: Great Yarmouth, King’s Lynn and West

Norfolk, North Norfolk and Norwich. Despite the fact that the two programmes are separate

from a governance perspective, the New Anglia LEP effectively runs them as one.

The Road to Net Zero Business Support Programme was formally launched at the end of

January 2022. This was slightly later than originally planned due to contract negotiations

and clarification of monitoring and reporting detail.

Alongside the Road to Net Zero Programme, another LEP programme, Enabling Self-

Employment was also successful across Norfolk and Suffolk (Norfolk £620k, Suffolk £404K).

Twelve other projects were successful across Norfolk, several with a clean growth focus,

while no other projects were approved in Suffolk.

Extension/s

Due to the delays in original decision-making, the completion date was pushed back from

March 2022 to June 2022. However, this was still a reduction in the anticipated programme

delivery period compared with when the applications were made.

As part of the interim reporting arrangements Ministers stated that requests for extensions

would be considered due to the delivery challenges of some projects nationally. As such an

extension request was submitted and has since been accepted for the Programme.

Challenges with respect to covid and supply chain capacity were cited as reasons to

consider an extension.

Extensions were granted in both Norfolk and Suffolk with a new deadline of December 2022.

Programme delivery

Research

The research element being conducted by the University of East Anglia in partnership with

the University of Suffolk has gathered primary data through a range of different method

including focus groups, 1:1 interviews and an online survey. The research is due to formally

output at the end of July with the Clean Growth Taskforce due to receive a presentation from

the lead researchers at its October meeting. This element will feed into the events being

planned for delivery in November 2022.

Chambers

The Chambers are now well advanced with the delivery of their Programmes with almost 20

events delivered/planned. Online content has been improved and appropriately marketed to

the wider business community. Business Climate Leaders has been launched in Norfolk and

a Net Zero Policy Group in Suffolk. While the bulk of delivery is close to being complete,

monitoring and evaluation is not due until the end of October to reflect the ongoing work both

Chambers’ are planning in this space. This element of work will also feed into the events

being planned for delivery in November 2022.

Advice/support

Groundwork East has provided training and ongoing support to the Growth Hub as well as

the LEP Executive to help boost knowledge within the business support arena. Growth Hub

advisers are now able to provide a level of net zero business support and are appropriately

skilled in order to develop the customer journey further in a tailored way through relevant

signposting.

Grants/consultancy

When the Programme was launched the New Anglia Growth Hub was inundated with

interest – the level of which was unprecedented. That being said, expectation management

was a key consideration and managing the sheer volume of interest was challenging.

The grant programme across Norfolk and Suffolk is now almost fully subscribed with delivery

due to be complete by the end of September.

The consultancy element of the Programme is progressing well with all allocations due to be

committed by the end of August with delivery again expected by the end of September.

Challenge Fund

Four challenge fund projects were allocated during the first round (due for completion the

end of July 2022):

1. Adastral Park: Ultra Low-Carbon Modular Technology Demonstrator (Natural

Building Systems)

2. Hethel: Rural SME cluster transport decarbonisation (Mobilityways)

3. Snetterton Business Park: Feasibility study and business plan for an ESCO (EP

Consultants)

4. Suffolk: Hydrogen refuelling network for transport – early-stage feasibility (Hydrogen

East)

A fifth was allocated during round 2 and will deliver by October 2022:

5. Development of a scaled replica offshore wind turbine designed to train people in

their engineering/construction (Constructionarium)

Evaluation

Key take aways from the interim evaluation report provided by S4W include the following:

“The Road to Net Zero project has been effective so far in delivering investment and

support to businesses that are seeking to reduce their carbon footprints. Deployment

of the project has been swift and the large partnership and lack of hierarchical or

contractual relationships has not hindered performance. The scale of demand from

businesses has been high, partly fuelled by spiralling energy prices and a generous

grant scheme.

The timeframes have created difficulty at times, but the Road to Net Zero project has

managed to avoid some of the long set-up phases that many ERDF projects have had

and there are definitely lessons learnt here for future projects. This includes utilising

existing infrastructure and staff (something not always easy or possible in ERDF

projects), developing delivery partnerships based on trust and peer support and

avoiding the need for significant early-stage staff recruitment.

Some of the key learnings from the programme at this point are:

 The project has drawn heavily from the recently published Norfolk and Suffolk

Economic Plan, which has acted as a framework for developing the project

concept.

 There needs to be effective mechanisms in place to accordingly stimulate and

choke demand for support depending on capacity and availability of resources in

longer term projects.

 It is hoped that the investment will create a number of low carbon jobs across

Norfolk and Suffolk, although the grant investment, which has been the strongest

lever to achieve this, has not had a job creation element to its decision making.

 The main sectors that have come forward for support are those where

energy/carbon is either a very high gross expenditure (such as manufacturing) or a

considerable component of business overheads (food and drink, retail).

 The short-term nature of the project has not always allowed quality projects to

come to the fore – and the consultancy and events programme could not act as a

filter into grants offer to facilitate this. This approach could be rectified in a longer-

term programme.

 There is a clear benefit to not having to shoehorn every business into a 12-hours

package of support. Some businesses have received significant benefit from a

single day consultancy contract.

 The project is likely to be able to demonstrate the investment of a Net Zero grant

has led to real financial and carbon savings within the business recipient. This

may lead to an alternative model for investing in carbon reduction in SMEs based

around grant/loan finance or other mechanisms. This will be explored more as

part of the final evaluation.

Next steps

The New Anglia LEP Board will receive a Programme Performance Report for this

programme as well as the Enabling Self Employment Programme at its July meeting. The

Clean Growth Taskforce is asked for any observations as part of this process.

Recommendations

The Taskforce are asked to:

 Note the report and reflect any thoughts they would like to be communicate to the

LEP Board at their July meeting.