Grangemouth Future Industry Board minutes: August 2022

Attendees and apologies

• Falkirk Council
• Net Zero Nation
• Scottish Enterprise
• Scottish Environment Protection Agency
• Scottish Futures Trust
• Scottish Government
• Skills Development Scotland
• Transport Scotland

Items and actions

Purpose

The meeting covered three substantive items:

• presentation from Net Zero Nation (NZN)
• Scottish Enterprise update on development of the stakeholder engagement plan
• updates from workstream leads

Key Board decisions/points raised at GFIB meeting 9

• Net Zero Nation delivered a presentation on their proposed project - a Net Zero Pilot Accelerator of 20 SMEs to help decarbonise the Grangemouth Supply Chain
• the Net Zero Accelerator Programmes are 12-month programmes created for SMEs by SMEs
• by the end of the Programme, SMEs will have received the following:
  • independently audited carbon accounts
  • SECR compliancy report
  • 12-month subscription to our Carbon Accountancy Software with full training
  • help and support to produce carbon accounts
  • education on taking carbon out of their business
  • participation in UN Race to Zero
  • regular collaboration sessions with the cohort for shared learnings
• GFIB will gain independently verified carbon emissions data that can be used to drive better decision making in decarbonising Grangemouth

• Board members were content to proceed and support the Net Zero Nation Project
• Scottish Enterprise are leading on the development of a stakeholder engagement plan for GFIB
• the GFIB Stakeholder engagement plan will:
  • ensure two-way communications with relevant parts of the business base
  • an ability to consult with the businesses on topics relevant to GFIB (e.g. Just Transition Plan and Regulatory Hub) to gather collective intelligence
  • develop key messaging across the GFIB themes and for various stakeholders
  • UK Government engagement in the ambitions of GFIB and resultant projects and
  • alignment with other partnership groups e.g. Falkirk Economic Partnership, Falkirk Growth Deal Board

• workstream leads provided updates on Infrastructure, Project Development and Strategic Investment, Regulatory Hub, Skills, and Just Transition

Actions summary

• GFIB update submission to be shared with members as requested
• NZN to connect with Zero Emissions Truck Taskforce to promote the Net Zero Accelerator project 
• NZN to check carbon accounting methodology is consistent with other programmes in the Grangemouth area
• Secretariat to arrange meetings between account managers and NZN
• NZN to meet with REPs and Growth Deals Team
• Reg Hub workstream Lead to share work from the Reg Hub with NZN
• Reg Hub workstream Lead to meet with Just Transition and Net Zero Workstream Lead on engagement with businesses about decarbonisation strategies
• members to nominate comms specialist from their organisation to develop the narrative and key comms messaging
• Secretariat to arrange meeting between SE Stakeholder Engagement Plan Lead and Scottish Government’s Just Transition Unit 
• Secretariat to arrange meeting between TS and Falkirk Council to discuss progress on the A801