Bristol businesses call on candidates to back Climate & Nature Bill

Leading local businesses including Triodos, Aardman, Boston Tea Party, the Better Food Company, Natracare, the Lido, Watershed and Wiper & True have written a joint letter to parliamentary candidates across Bristol.

More than 70 signatories are calling on candidates representing all five of the city’s constituencies to back the Climate & Nature Bill in the letter sent on World Environment Day on Wednesday.

Its two main goals are to reduce UK emissions as an even smaller proportion of the total greenhouse gases the world can emit to stay within a 1.5C increase; and to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. It has been designed to drive green prosperity.

Bevis Watts, Triodos CEO, is a keen nature advocate and the author of a book on the return of Bristol beavers – photo: Bevis Watts

Bristol businesses recognise the multiple benefits of the bill, including a regulatory framework to support transition to net zero and the creation of new green industry jobs.

It has the potential to propel reduced energy costs in its support for renewable sources and would ultimately, they suggest, bolster a more sustainable local economy.

The letter was coordinated by ethical bank Triodos. “The business community in Bristol has joined forces to advocate for people and nature,” said CEO Bevis Watts.

“We all stand to benefit from the transition to a low carbon, nature positive future. We are calling on our local candidates to represent our combined voices in parliament.

“By backing the Climate & Nature Bill they will be playing a vital part in ensuring a bright future for the businesses of Bristol and a happy, healthy and prosperous future for its citizens. That’s something we would all vote for.”

The bill was reintroduced to parliament by former MP Alex Sobel, following initial campaigning by Green Party leader Caroline Lucas, and the citizen-led campaign for support has been coordinated by Zero Hour.

“It’s a framework for UK climate and nature policymaking, but Alex (Sobel) is calling it an umbrella bill,” said Oliver Sidorczuk, Zero Hour co-director. “It is ambitious, but led by the science. It involves citizens in how we transition fairly to a nature positive, zero carbon future.”

In the last parliament over 2019-24, the bill was supported by 180 MPs and peers from all main parties. It is officially backed by the Liberal Democrats and Greens, and currently has the backing of 857 prospective UK parliamentary candidates running for election in July.

It has gained support from Bristol North East candidates Rose Hulse (Conservative) and Louise Harris (Liberal Democrat).

Bristol Central candidate and Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer is also backing the bill, as is Bristol North West candidate Darren Jones (Labour).

James Sutton of Zero Hour suggested the bill can support and incentivise the positive, sustainability-led changes businesses are keen to implement.

“It’s very telling that this many businesses in Bristol have made such a direct call to the prospective parliamentary candidates and incumbent MPs to publicly declare their backing for the Climate & Nature Bill,” he said.

“Business clearly understands the Bill represents opportunity for their companies, as well as an instrument to manage governance risk posed by the climate and nature crises.

“The economy and businesses are always central to the plans of government, so we stand with the businesses of Bristol. We hope that their voice is heard and that the local representatives make the sensible, obvious choice and commit to the CAN Bill.”

The joint letter states:

“We believe that business, in Bristol and across the whole of the UK, has a real opportunity to benefit from the transition to a low-carbon, nature-positive future.

“Bristol experienced flooding that wrecked shops in Avonmeads retail park and Cabot Circus last year. As local businesses, we are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate-related extreme weather events, as their frequency continues to rise throughout the UK. We want this to stop.

“Climate and ecological breakdown is a governance risk to businesses everywhere.

“There is no business on a dead planet. Our companies and their products and services rely on stable value chains, many of which depend on nature inputs. The CAN Bill will help reverse the destruction of nature here in the UK, as well as address the damage that the UK causes to nature globally through our ecological footprint overseas.”

Like all cities, Bristol is increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather events.

The council estimates that tidal flooding will pose a risk to some 4,500 existing properties by 2125, and the Met Office projects Bristol’s maximum summer temperature as over 9°C hotter in 2080 compared to a 1981-2000 baseline.

Main photo: Ellie Pipe

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