Days before George Osborne announced a few green measures in this year’s budget,
a report from the London Sustainable Development Commission (LSDC) proposed west London as a global clean tech hub.
While it failed to make many headlines, the proposal is a lifetime opportunity for London’s advertising sector to get involved in clean technology for the capital.
As an industry, we can offer our expertise, products and services when it comes to the growing demands of urban innovation: climate change, finite resources, innovation, prosperity and building communities.
The report also identified west London as a place to support the expansion of innovative new green companies. With more money raised for green investment in London last year than any other capital in the world, the report set out plans for how the UK capital could create a global innovation hub.
But what does that really mean?
London already has some well-developed innovation ecosystems in place. Walk around the burgeoning tech hub in east London and you’ll see the greatest concentration of tech innovation anywhere in the world.
From the creators of Songkick and Moshi Monsters, to the London base of Airbnb and corporate chat platform Yammer, east London is certainly thriving in the tech space. The technologists were soon followed by the creative and media agencies, which then led to a booming hospitality industry.
Tech-dedicated schools have followed all of that, with foreign investment in skills, people and property. This will not only nurture the pioneering innovations from
the tech and ad industries, but also support the stability and success of our society. The British film industry is synonymous with the names of places in and around London: Ealing, Pinewood and Shepperton, to name a few.
The green business district could similarly enable action on climate change. Hubs like this will fuel entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity, attract inward investment and create opportunity (which is good for all of us).
As an industry, advertising understands the critical value of innovation; by supporting and embracing this hub, we could help make the tedious task of being green economically sound, technologically feasible, politically and socially viable, and even emotionally rewarding.
The proposed green business district would be set in the Old Oak and Park Royal district, which the mayor and local boroughs plan to transform into a thriving new residential and commercial zone.
According to LSDC, placing the cluster within the development zone would allow low-carbon startups unprecedented access to affordable office space, mentoring services and business development advice, plus other vital support services.
The site is also close to Heathrow. With CrossRail and HS2 due to be completed in 2026, this hub is already set to be one of the best communications and transportation infrastructures in the country. The proposed site is also boosted by plans for Imperial College London’s White City Campus, which would allow the university to locate spinout businesses in the new cluster.
As managing director of an agency, I would want my business at the heart of coordinating and leading green and clean technologies. If our industry could bring its innovation, collaboration and creativity together to boost the green tech business hub, imagine how genuinely engaged our businesses and communities would become with climate change and the green economy. The possibilities are endless.
Kate Howe is managing director of gyro London
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