It was twenty years ago today. No, I’m not referring to the famous line from the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but to the time when I wrote my first business column for the Western Mail back in January 2003 when it was still a broadsheet.
Fast forward to 2023, and over 800,000 words later (which is more than the word count for both War and Peace and the Bible) I still consider myself extremely lucky to be given the opportunity to write every week on subjects that are so close to my heart including the economy, enterprise and, of course, championing Welsh businesses.
I am also privileged to be given the opportunity, through the column, to speak truth to power. Whilst that has not always endeared me to some politicians here in Wales, it is increasingly important that policies are questioned in public arenas such as newspapers especially when very few people are prepared to put their head above the parapet.
Whilst so much has changed in Wales in those two decades including Welsh rugby’s first Grand Slam since 1978, the establishment of law-making powers for the Senedd, the Wales football team reaching the World Cup for the first time in 64 years, and the abolition of the Welsh Development Agency, some of the broader global issues ironically remain the same.
For example, there was a major military invasion that year when the United States and a coalition of other countries entered Iraq. That invasion and the subsequent occupation had significant consequences for the World economy for many years.
There was also the emergence of a new and deadly respiratory illness called SARS from China which spread to other countries and led to a global pandemic.
And there were worries about the impact of global warming with 2003 being one of the hottest years on record in the UK, with a prolonged heatwave that lasted throughout the summer.
In fact, my very first column for the Western Mail focused specifically on the opportunities that could come from climate change and embracing the green economy.
More specifically, I examined how the Irish government were developing its “Delivering our Green Potential” policy on growth in the green economy. More importantly, as I have done in most of my columns over the years, I reflected on what Wales could learn from this approach.
Looking back on this column today, it is disappointing to see that it has taken us so long to appreciate the importance of the green economy and to develop real policy interventions that can make a difference going forward.
One thing that has changed is that both politicians on this side of the Irish Sea are finally beginning to make a commitment, as the Irish government was doing then, to take the lead in pushing forward green policies that make a difference. Indeed, it’s been a long and tortuous road to get to where we are today and more will need to be done to ensure that the approach to reaching net zero is not just an aspiration but something which is integrated across all government policies at a national and devolved level.
Another important conclusion from the Irish policy report was that the green economy was not a niche and can be found in all sectors and highlighted a proposal to build a green financial services industry to support the development, financing, and promotion of a low carbon economy.
Doing something similar here has not been a focus of the Welsh Government in the intervening period although there remains an opportunity to build on the incredible growth of fintech here in Wales in recent years. There is also good news in that the Development Bank of Wales is finally launching a green fund in the next few months, something which this column championed two years ago and demonstrating that someone does read my writing occasionally!
The Irish government also proposed that there should be a continuing commitment to supporting green innovation through encouraging and facilitating collaboration between the university sector and the business community.
Whilst there have been a few excellent examples of this in Wales since 2003, they have tended to be the exception rather than the norm. Certainly, a greater focus by our higher education on developing more research and development with industry in this area could reap dividends for the economy going forward.
Finally, a regular theme in this column has been the issue of skills development which I believe remains critical to the success of the Welsh economy.
The Irish report, even twenty years ago, widely recognised that the green economy often relies on jobs with specialist knowledge and expertise, especially in the fields of engineering, science, technology, and mathematics. It therefore suggested that both higher and further education institutions should be encouraged to align their courses with the needs of companies within the green sector.
Yet here in Wales, we have yet to do anything substantial in this area despite the real opportunities that exist to upskill a workforce in those sustainable skills that businesses need in the future.
So, looking back on the last twenty years since my first piece for this newspaper, we still face many of the same challenges as we did back in 2003, and I haven’t even started to discuss the decline in entrepreneurship, the lack of innovation or the many missed opportunities by politicians and policymakers to do something brave and different that really makes a difference to the Welsh economy.
Yet, as always, I remain “half-full” rather than “half-empty” when it comes to the incredible potential of this wonderful nation that I am honoured to live and work in, and whether I am a columnist or not for the Western Mail in 2043, I will remain optimistic that, through the efforts of our brilliant entrepreneurs and innovators, Wales will fulfil its massive potential over the next twenty years.
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