Time for the Green's to be more green

Matthew Farrow
14 April 2015

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Is the Green’s political campaign setting back the environmental agenda asks Matthew Farrow of the Environmental Industries Commission?

Being something of a political junkie, I sat through the full two hours of the first TV leaders’ debate, (not the most enlightening evening I’ve ever spent in front of the TV…).  I didn’t expect much environmental discussion, but it was disappointing that the only time green issues came up was when Natalie Bennett made a passing reference to climate change.

"ironically, the more political coverage the Green Party gets, the less it seems to talk about the environment.... the banner headlines are about the economy, the NHS and housing"

In many ways this was no surprise.  All of us who work in this field recognise that in a campaign with the economy, immigration and the NHS the main topics of debate green issues would struggle to get a hearing, and of course the Green Alliance initiative to get all three main party leaders to sign a climate pledge was deliberately designed to keep the Climate Change Act out of the campaign crossfire.

And yet.  During the recent smog episode when large parts of the UK recorded very high pollution ratings ‘air pollution’ was the top trending topic on Twitter for a significant amount of time – something I’ve never seen before.  This says to me that even though the politicians aren’t talking about the environment people do take notice as signs of specific environmental problems mount – especially those that affect their communities directly. 

Add to that the Green Party getting more media coverage than in any Election I can remember, and you’d think this would be a golden opportunity to get the environment back on the political agenda.

In practice though this is not happening.  And ironically, the more political coverage the Green Party gets, the less it seems to talk about the environment.  I’ve just looked at the Party’s website, and can see only one small mention of an environmental issue well down the home page – the banner headlines are about the economy, the NHS and housing.  And in the campaign interviews I’ve seen with Natalie Bennett these are the issues which she talks about (to be fair they are also what her interviewers tend to focus on).

Granted, I can see the political strategy here.  With the Lib Dems weak and Labour trying to appeal to middle England, the Greens see their best chance of a breakthrough as positioning themselves to the left of Labour and focusing on the issues which the public tell opinion pollsters matter most – jobs, hospitals, housing etc.  And to be fair the Green Party does have a long history of talking about non-environment issues – in the late 1980s the Party campaigned against the poll tax for example.

But I still feel this is a missed opportunity.  After all, it’s not as if the mainstream parties have fully internalised sustainability in their policy making in which case a focus on other issues by the Greens might be more logical.

The other concern I have is that by majoring on a broad left-wing ‘social justice’ agenda, I suspect that the Greens are giving ammunition to those on the right of politics who argue that a concern for the environment always leads to a desire for top down ‘socialist’ solutions. 

As someone who runs a business-led environmental trade body that engages with all political parties and is pragmatic about the balance between markets and regulation I’m concerned that this stereotyping sets back the environmental cause.  

At the EIC Annual Conference last year, where we had speakers from Labour, Conservatives and the Lib Dems, quite a few delegates argued that our the current crop of politicians would never show leadership on the environment and it was increasingly up to business, NGOs and bodies such as EIC to do this.  As ever, we and others are ready to rise to the challenge, but I can’t help being disappointed that the Party founded to put the environment at the heart of politics is spreading itself so thin.

Matthew Farrow is Director General of the Environmental Industries Commission, the leading trade body for environmental firms. This article first appeared on Business Green.

www.eic-uk.co.uk