Opinium poll finds four-fifths back green growth

Commissioned by RenewableUK, the weighted poll surveyed 5,149 people from across the UK between September 8-20. Exactly three-quarters of respondents (75 per cent) said they would see any failure to secure investment in renewable energy - including factories to manufacture green tech such as wind turbine components - as a missed opportunity for the UK. Among Conservative to Labour swing voters, this rises to 83 per cent.

“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,” said Nathan Bennett, RenewableUK’s director of Strategic Communications. “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.”

The findings come at a time when the UK is being accused of reneging on its environmental commitments, with the Prime Minister recently pushing back deadlines for phasing out ICE vehicles and gas boiler sales. The announcements received criticism from many within the car industry, which cited the lack of certainty from government as a detrimental factor for investment and consumer confidence.

While most – and possibly all - poll respondents would have been surveyed before Sunak’s September 20 net zero speech, it seems the public has been largely unimpressed with the current government’s action on green growth. Almost half (45 per cent) of Conservative to Labour swing voters think the Tories have become less proactive in securing investment in green industries under PM Rishi Sunak, with over three-quarters of them (77 per cent) less likely to support the Conservative Party as a result.

“It would seem that the government’s failure to secure new offshore wind projects in this year’s clean power auctions and their lack of a response to the measures being offered to the USA and the EU to attract investment in renewables have been noticed by a significant proportion of the public, who now think ministers have been less focused on securing renewable energy investment under Rishi Sunak,” Bennett continued.

“It’s not too late for the prime minister to restore market confidence and the UK’s leadership in offshore wind, but the government is clearly going to have to bring forward new measures to achieve this”.