Does the Green Economy Have an Address?

Plastics plants across Europe are closing because they cannot make the economics work. Epoch Biodesign, which recycles plastics with enzymes, bought one of them in rural Spain for about a two-hundredth of the cost of building a new plant. It will make recycled nylon there, and it is keeping all 60 staff at what is the only employer in town. Pippa Gawley of Zero Carbon Capital, an investor in the company, said the location was not planned. Keeping the staff was a choice.

It was the most hopeful story at a Ripple that began with a harder one. At Port Talbot in Wales, Gosbert Chagula of Future Impact Ventures said, an electric arc furnace is replacing the blast furnace. Emissions fall by 90%, and 2,800 jobs go. Taranto, the Ruhr and Wallonia tell similar stories. Meanwhile London, Oxford and Cambridge take around 80% of UK venture deals in the green economy, and Paris, Berlin and Munich play the same role elsewhere. The hosts asked whether private climate capital can ever reach the places that lose out.

Hubs first

Pippa's hypothesis was that early innovation is anchored to a university or research hub, and that other factors, such as grid connections, ports and roads, take over when a company scales. A participant who had worked in economic development agreed that hard tech still needs dense clusters. A biotech worker will move to Boston for a start-up, because if it fails there are hundreds of other jobs. Asked to move to Kentucky, they will think twice.

That leaves early-stage investors with little say over geography. One investor said a venture fund backs companies meant to become global, so place is rarely fixed when the cheque is written. What a fund can choose is its co-investors, such as regional funds with a place mandate, and founders who intend to build in a region, with influence later through a board seat. Future Impact Ventures has started to measure what Gosbert calls founder curiosity. Highly educated founders often serve people unlike themselves, such as residents of some of Britain's deprived coastal towns. "How curious is this founding team? Have they put boots on the ground?" Gosbert asked. The fund wants founders who immerse themselves, not ones who pay a quick visit.

We can't compete with China on batteries. We would be idiots to try that.

Where scale lands

Founders who had scaled saw more room for choice. One, whose company builds on ageing steel assets, said scale does not happen in London or Cambridge. Investors and founders should be opportunistic about industrial assets that no longer serve their first purpose. The same founder warned that UK regional funds only need to return about one times their money, so that they do not count as subsidy, and are judged on jobs created. The better mix is a round led by financial investors looking for ten times their money and topped up by regional funds. The Development Bank of Wales has started a programme to invest alongside financial VCs in that way.

A founder scaling algae-based ingredients pointed to skills. Denmark's offshore wind industry grew out of engineering expertise that existed 30 years ago. Germany's shrinking car industry now holds automation, engineering and manufacturing know-how that hard-tech scale-ups need. For that founder, the next siting decision will turn on cheap energy, and it can be a deliberate one.

Which jobs stay

Realism about jobs came next. One start-up at the Ripple makes plug-in home batteries for the UK market. The world's largest cell maker, in China, will build the battery. The London team does the product design, the integration with energy suppliers, the software and the cyber security. Pippa backed that realism. "We can't compete with China on batteries. We would be idiots to try that," Pippa said of calls to re-industrialise the UK. Nor can Europe beat India at assembling electronics. The jobs worth keeping, Pippa suggested, may be highly skilled roles and rapid prototyping, where engineers must be next to the product. Jobs promised in an election cycle may not outlast it, one founder said, which is why return-driven capital should be involved.

Other participants wanted faster decisions from European investors, who ask pre-seed companies for sales, and large-scale reskilling so that neither older workers nor the young are left behind. A participant from Canada said the oil and gas lobby shows how influence is done, and that clean industries should copy it.

Gosbert's own experience suggested that time matters as much as money. Exeter City Futures, a privately funded programme to turn Exeter into a technology hub, ran for about six years when it needed 25. Exeter was chosen for no strategic reason. Its funders loved the place. Love is hard to measure, Gosbert said, but it is often the start.

This Ripple was hosted by Gosbert Chagula (Future Impact Ventures) and Pippa Gawley (Zero Carbon Capital) at The Drop 2026 on 16 September.