Representatives from Zero Carbon Humber (ZCH) including Ineos Acetyles, Equinor and Drax joined several other regional businesses at a meeting with Ed Miliband, the former Labour leader and current Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero. During the event, which was hosted by the Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce, ZCH highlighted the need for policymakers to remove time-consuming and costly red tape and put the infrastructure in place to help decarbonise the region.

Mr Miliband listened and questioned the company representatives in turn to establish precisely what blocks these major industries are facing and to understand what steps must be taken to get things moving faster in the Humber.

The event attendees represented some of the Humber’s biggest companies with the potential to invest billions of pounds in the region. However, there is a need for certainty from Government that if investments are made, contracts will follow. Attendees made clear that such assurance would build the confidence required to bring those investment plans to fruition.

Zero Carbon Humber is a consortium of fourteen world-renowned energy, infrastructure, and logistics organisations working to transform the Humber into the world’s first net zero industrial region by 2040. Collectively, ZCH is building the infrastructure and pipelines needed to provide low-carbon hydrogen to power the region’s key industries, while capturing and safely storing carbon deep under the southern North Sea.

ZCH is one pillar in the wider East Coast Cluster (ECC), which brings together decarbonisation projects across Teesside and the Humber. The ECC will enable a range of hydrogen and other low carbon projects that could deliver almost 50% of the UK’s 10GW hydrogen target for 2030. In addition, ZCH aims to capture over 10 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year by 2030.