Ref. Ares(2020)3951431 - 27/07/2020
Frans Timmermans
Executive Vice-President
European Commission
Rue de la Loi / Wetstraat 200
1049 Brussels
Belgium
28 January 2019
Dear Mr Timmermans,
Turning the European Green Deal into an investible proposition for business:
request for a meeting
I wanted to congratulate you on your appointment as Executive Vice-President and to request
a meeting with you, alongside some of the Aldersgate Group’s key business members, to
discuss how the European Green Deal can be turned into an investible proposition for business
whilst delivering the environmental, economic and social benefits the EU needs.
As you might remember from our recent engagement on the Circular Economy Package, the
Aldersgate Group is a cross-economy and cross-civil society organisation that focuses on
policy solutions that can tackle environmental issues effectively in a way that can also deliver
economic benefits. Our business members, who come from a wide range of European
economic sectors and have a global turnover of around €600bn, believe that pursuing an
ambitious and detailed environmental and climate policy agenda is essential to the future
competitiveness of the European economy as well as being important in its own right.
The Aldersgate Group strongly welcomes the European Green Deal and would like to offer its
support in the development of some of its key pillars. Through its close engagement with
businesses and recent work on the EU’s Circular Economy Package, Sustainable Finance
Action Plan and the UK net zero target, the Aldersgate Group has developed valuable
expertise in the policy levers needed to grow the flows of green finance and accelerate
Europe’s transition towards a competitive, net zero emissions and circular economy.
Beyond the publication of the Climate Law and a meaningful increase to the EU’s 2030 climate
targets, we believe that a successful Green Deal needs to be underpinned by:
•
New regulatory drivers and fiscal incentives to complete the decarbonisation of
the EU’s power sector and make significant progress in cutting emissions from the
building stock;
•
A low-carbon industrial strategy for Europe, focused on delivering deep cuts in
the emissions of hard to treat sectors like heavy industry, helping them become
globally competitive providers of low-carbon goods and services and
supporting the
workforce in this transition. As noted in the European Green Deal Communication,
decarbonisation of sectors like steel, cement and heat will require trialling critical
technologies such as carbon capture, electrification and the use of hydrogen at scale.
In addition to the Commission’s consideration of a carbon border adjustment tariff, a
successful industrial strategy will also need to be supported by market creation policies
020 7841 8966 xxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx.xx www.aldersgategroup.org.uk
Electronically signed on 27/07/2020 12:52 (UTC+02) in accordance with article 4.2 (Validity of electronic documents) of Commission Decision 2004/563
