Green growth in the South West & Wales

A powerhouse conference

The ‘Green Growth in the Western Gateway – A powerhouse conference’ took place in early March 2022 in Newport, Wales. This one-day conference brought together investors, local business leaders, academics, and key members from devolved and local government. Their shared focus: how the Western Gateway area could create green growth, where local expertise and industry would work together to develop new sources of green energy whilst creating new opportunities for local people.

A platform for sharing ideas

With over 250 delegates from both public and private sector organisations, the conference was a platform for people committed to the future of the area to share ideas on how the Western Gateway could build on its strengths, level up communities, deliver enterprise, growth and decarbonise our economy to reach net zero.

The packed agenda included a mix of plenary and panel session with speakers from across the Western Gateway region with keynote speeches from Michael Gove MP, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and Vaughan Gething MS, Ministor for Economy at the Welsh Government.

Priorities for green growth

A delegation from Deloitte across the South West and Wales facilitated breakout sessions, joined panels or took part in the discussions with other delegates to explore how the Western Gateway could move forward on delivering against these priorities:

• Investing in a green innovation powerhouse
• Creating a green energy super cluster
• Clean transport – read Mary Hewitt’s blog article
• Hydrogen economy
• STEP fusion energy
• Innovation clusters
• Scaling innovation – read Dave Tansley’s blog article
  

The conference ended with closing remarks from Dave Tansley, UK vice chair at Deloitte, with a short sponsor’s address before welcoming delegates at a networking reception.

Read Dave’s blog article ‘Powering up the Western Gateway’ for his overview of the conference.

Insights

Deloitte is committed to driving forward the green growth conversation. Our expertise extends into many areas and we have numerous articles and insight pieces directly related to what was discussed at the conference, providing both a source of information and challenge to help organisations navigate these important topics.

What is the Western Gateway?

The Western Gateway was formed in 2019 and is a cross-border economic partnership of local authorities, city regions, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and governments (Wales and Westminster). The Western Gateway geography stretches across south Wales and western England, from Swindon to Swansea, Weston-Super-Mare to Salisbury to Tewkesbury, as well as the core cities of Bristol and Cardiff. Its focus is inclusive and clean economic growth, through scale and collaboration.