Last week, Cleantech for UK submitted a detailed response to the “Financing the Real Economy” inquiry. Our evidence set out how the UK can unlock the private capital needed to scale clean technologies and drive long-term industrial renewal.
We emphasised that achieving net zero and building a globally competitive clean economy are not only technological challenges but also investment challenges. Despite a world-class research base, the UK lags international peers on both public and private investment. Policy volatility, institutional risk aversion and structural gaps in mid-stage finance have held back the growth of promising clean-technology businesses.
Our submission focused on three core themes:
We also highlighted the untapped potential of UK pension funds and institutional investors. Although managing more than £3 trillion in assets, they invest only a tiny fraction in growing domestic companies. We proposed setting measurable annual milestones for default funds to allocate capital to UK growth and clean technologies, publishing a rolling five-year “investable pipeline” of projects, and communicating more clearly to savers how their pension capital can deliver both competitive returns and national resilience.
Finally, we pointed to international examples - the US Inflation Reduction Act’s mix of tax certainty and public credit support, Canada’s large public pensions, Australia’s superannuation funds, Germany’s KfW development bank and the EU’s Important Projects of Common European Interest - to show how long-term, patient capital and targeted public coordination can mobilise private investment at scale.
Through this response, Cleantech for UK is advocating for policies that channel capital into innovation-driven sectors, enabling Britain to capture the jobs, resilience and competitiveness that come with a thriving clean economy.
