Forum Summer 22

summer 22 going green Is your business prepared for a greener future? Ben Tansey, founder of renewable fuel market leader re:heat, gives forum an insight into why businesses need to begin thinking about sustainable energy sooner rather than later… Our region is quickly becoming one of the greenest and most sustainable areas in the country when it comes to our businesses. The public launch of the North East England Climate Coalition (NEECCo) in 2021 was a massive indication of how committed North East businesses are to doing their bit for the environment, catapulting us to the top of the tree in the race to become England’s greenest region. Now, with the recent hike in fossil fuel prices across the board, the need to switch to a more sustainable source of energy has become even more apparent. It’s not only the environment that’s taking the hit, it’s bottom lines and the future of how many businesses operate. The question is, how do you go about making that first step towards implementing sustainable sources of energy into your business? For Ben Tansey, this is a question that he hears on a weekly basis - given he is the founder of one of the UK’s leading low carbon energy specialists. Since establishing re:heat in 2011, Ben, his business partner Neil Harrison, and their team of specialists have been responsible for helping businesses up and down the country reduce their carbon footprint with the introduction of woodfuel systems.

“Neil and I started our journey into the world of renewable energy back in the early 2000s after writing a training programme for land owners and managers on how to produce woodfuel biomass sustainably,” says Ben. “We ended up winning a National Training Award which inspired us to continue our training within the wider woodland economy sector. We’d go out and teach people how to manage woodland, how to extract sustainable biomass and how to use it efficiently.” It was this initial training experience that inspired Ben and Neil to establish re:heat a few years later. In a similar vein to the pair’s training work, re:heat specialises in helping businesses navigate the process of specifying and designing zero and low carbon energy systems. The company focuses particularly on the field of renewable heat using biomass, a variety of sustainable energy that reduces carbon emissions by making use of the natural carbon produced by wood rather than burning fossil fuels. “The first question that people ask is ‘isn’t cutting trees down bad for the environment?’, and the short answer to that is no,” continues Ben. “Forestry is very unusual in that the more economic activity you can do to a commercial forest, the better the

environmental benefit. So the more you can get in there and manage it properly, the better the economic and environmental return.” “So, what we’re doing is cutting down a sustainable yield, extracting that energy and allowing more trees to grow in their place. But, the important thing with biomass is that it’s the counterfactual that you need to take into consideration. It’s what you’re not doing if you’re burning wood. “Sustainably managed forestry contributes significantly to our climate objective. In fact, across the whole of Europe, there’s no other renewable energy anywhere that matches the quantity that biomass contributes to renewable energy targets.” Woodfuel biomass is just one area that re:heat specialises in, their main focus is working with you to work out

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exactly what low carbon solution would be best for your business. And according to Ben, now is the time to start thinking about starting your decarbonisation journey whilst there are still incentives in place to do so. “Everybody has got to decarbonise, everybody, that’s including you as an individual right the way through to big business,” says Ben. “The sooner that we can start that process of how and why you can do it, the easier it becomes. And the less painful that’s going to be. “Historically the government has put big carrots out there, it’s going to turn into sticks in the future. If you’re not taking advantage of incentives and grants now then what you will be doing is getting penalised by carbon tax in the future.”