Why Veracity Energy?

The Challenges & Solution.

With 28 years’ experience in the international energy sector, I have witnessed some profound societal, political, economic and technological shifts, which have brought both serious challenges and remarkable opportunities.

The policies, strategies and models of the past will not bring about the energy transformation required to address these challenges and harness these opportunities.

To address this, I founded Veracity Energy; to spearhead transformative change for policymakers, municipalities, energy and technology companies, start-ups, community groups and investors.

Here’s why.

The Challenges

First, our cities, towns and communities have enormous challenges:

energy security, affordability, resilience and flexibility;
devolvement of responsibility to municipalities and local authorities from central government, but severe cuts to funding, increases to inflation and the cost of borrowing, with very limited scope to increase local taxation to compensate;
lack of housing and the energy inefficiency of existing housing stock which is driving fuel poverty and poor health, (with people in hospital not wanting to go home to the cold, damp house that put them into hospital in the first place);
transport in terms of increasing levels of congestion and poor air quality;
increasing amounts of refuse waste and wasted energy not being recovered and reused; and
the need to create and support the businesses, skills and jobs to turnaround flagging economic growth, when the manufacturing sector has sharply declined.

In short, our cities, towns, communities, businesses and homes need transformation.

Secondly, government, be it central or local, is being increasingly challenged on seeking to address these issues solely through the blunt instruments of:

subsidies to purchase, deploy or supply infrastructure and the energy it produces (the ‘carrot’);
punishing the users of energy, infrastructure and services through increased costs and levies (the ‘stick’); and/or
controlling people’s businesses and daily lives through restrictive legislation and regulation (‘behaviour change’).

We have evidence for this challenge coming from the electorates in the West, for example, Trump’s decisive second term election win in the US on an ‘anti-Climate Change’ platform and the high polling of the ‘anti-Net Zero’ Reform UK Party in Britain. The conclusion is that a significant proportion of people in the US and UK have perhaps had enough ‘Net-Zero’ taxation, be it direct or indirect, high energy and fuel costs into which are baked the costs of subsidies and penalties (the UK’s energy costs are amongst the highest in the world) and restrictions on their freedoms.

Over the last decade, we have seen in the UK polarising views in society and amongst politicians, commentators and the electorate on such issues as Brexit, Covid-19 injections and more recently, immigration and the Arab-Israeli conflict; this polarisation and strength of feeling clearly now exists in what has become the ‘Climate Change’/‘Net Zero’ narrative and agenda.

The third challenge is that no effective, inclusive and enduring solution to the issues raised above can be achieved without addressing this polarisation and finding common ground (for example and leaving the CO₂ debate to one side, energy security, safety, cost-effectiveness and cleanliness). To do so, we must first consider the lessons of recent history whereby a narrative’s adherents and dissenters have risked becoming entrenched in their respective echo-chambers in which other views are not countenanced. When others have challenged narratives or counter-narratives with facts and evidence, they are often mocked and called unpleasant names; today, we have the ‘eco-warriors’ versus the ‘climate deniers’. Each claims to have its valid concerns and supporting evidence.

Whichever side of the debate on which one finds oneself, and whatever sphere in which we work, whether it is commercial, political or third sector, we need to ‘read the room’; we need to recognise that others, potentially a larger proportion of society, our customers and clients or our electorate than we first imagined, may not, for reasons which may be entirely valid, share our views. We need to embrace different ideas and be open to having our narratives challenged; for, unless underpinned with incontrovertible facts and evidence, rather than merely claims and concerns, that is all they are – narratives. If those narratives become political policy and underpin corporate strategy, then they may be doomed to fail in the long term, with a significant proportion of the population increasingly alienated, excluded and in opposition.

In the case of the Net Zero agenda in the UK, there has been increasing media commentary and public disquiet concerning the costs and, ironically and in certain cases, environmental impact of its implementation. Ignoring and failing to address these concerns has led to the Reform UK political party making the stopping of the Net Zero agenda core to its policy platform. Take, for example, the recent letter sent by Richard Tice MP, Deputy Leader of Reform UK, in which he puts on notice the CEOs of major energy companies of the intention to cancel certain renewable energy subsidies in favour of using nuclear, oil, gas and shale gas, should his party be elected to government at the next UK general election. Such a move would signal the death knell for Net Zero.

Fourthly, central and local government do not have the resource capacity or skills to effect an energy transformation on a scale significant enough to address the infrastructure challenges highlighted above. ‘Tax and spend’ alone, without public support and against the backdrop of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, will not meet the huge infrastructure needs of the country or its cities, towns, communities, businesses and homes. Private investment, with the resources, experience and skills which that brings, is critical.

The Solution

There has to be a model of public-private partnership to bring together the policy and deep, place-based understanding of the public sector with the skills, resource, commerciality, innovation, entrepreneurship and investment capability that only the private sector has.

Many of the risks associated with such a new model of partnership and collaboration can be overcome through robust governance and transparency, community focus and outcomes, and a framework that drives accountability and value-for-money, without stifling creativity and innovation. This balance and the right model, as exemplified by the Coventry Strategic Energy Partnership joint venture, can be found.

The key risk which must be overcome in any public-private partnership, however, is the significant cultural difference between the public-political, private and third sectors. The motivations of each, in the eyes of some, are seemingly irreconcilable; political narratives, maximising vote share and re-election versus corporate strategy, commercial viability, financial targets and maximisation of shareholder wealth versus tangible benefit to local communities and those in need whom the third sector is seeking to reach and support.

Moving beyond mere good governance and partnership frameworks to create a genuinely collaborative, creative culture in which all voices, no matter how diverse, are heard, including those of the public, private and third sectors and those of the so-called ‘climate campaigners’ and ‘climate deniers’, is absolutely critical and will underpin long term success. This will take leadership, humility, maturity, flexibility, shared responsibility and accountability; by all parties involved.

Only then can anyone involved in seeking to address these challenges ever claim to be ‘inclusive’. Only then will we see the radical step-change in public-private partnership and innovative infrastructure, at pace and scale with clean, secure and low cost energy at the foundation and the community at its heart, needed to effect the transformation; one in which all of society can participate.

So, why Veracity Energy?

This is why Veracity Energy was founded; to spearhead this pioneering work by bringing together, collaborating with, advising and finding common ground between policymakers, municipalities, energy and technology companies, start-ups, community groups and investors. Such new, strategic alliances and partnerships, with open and collaborative cultures, will create and deliver the transformation.

We do this by:

being grounded in our values of integrity, truth, honesty and trust;
bringing our extensive and diverse senior-level experience across global energy sectors, to deliver veracious, fact-based, evidence-driven strategic vision and guidance to forge innovative partnerships; and
bridging diverse organisational cultures and perspectives, uniting stakeholders through collaboration to address critical national and urban challenges, through a collaborative model that delivers scalable, clean, cost-effective and resilient solutions.

Together, and only together, can we advance energy security and societal prosperity, transforming cities, communities, businesses and homes to improve lives.

For everyone.

Philip Wallace is Founding Director & Principal Consultant of Veracity Energy Limited

www.veracityenergy.co.uk