Deputy Head of Research Unit at EU’s DG Energy: ‘Relying on targets and assuming jobs and growth will follow does not work’

Relying only on renewable energy targets and expecting the industry and economic growth would follow “does not work”, Mark van Stiphout, Deputy Head of Unit for Research, Innovation, Competitiveness and Digitalisation at European Commission’s DG Energy, said during a panel session about green growth at Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference (OEEC) in November 2024.

Van Stiphout pointed this out as he shared what activities at the European Union level were underway or coming up that would facilitate green growth across the Union and beyond.

Now that the Green Deal has led to agreements on 2030 targets and enshrining in law what will be done in terms of becoming climate neutral by 2050, the next step that is expected to advance green growth in the EU is the implementation of all of these and the introduction of the Clean Industrial Deal, strengthening internationalization and especially competitiveness, according to Van Stiphout.

“The Green Deal has always been a growth and jobs agenda as well but it is clear that just relying on targets and then assuming that the industry, the jobs and the growth will follow does not work”, Mark Van Stiphout said.

Legislation to look at raw materials and cleantech manufacturing has been proposed and one of the big things that is coming up is looking at competitiveness in terms of prices, from the aspect of energy affordability, and the supply chain including cleantech manufacturing and the decarbonisation of energy-intensive industries.

“As we go further with decarbonisation, we also see that we’re coming to harder decisions and matters that are more difficult to solve. So helping the energy-intensive industry to decarbonise and making sure that they stay in Europe is also one of the key priorities for the coming five years and that is called the Clean Industrial Deal that is coming sometime in the first 100 days as of 1st of December”, Van Stiphout said on November 26, 2024.

The day after the Green Growth session at OEEC, on November 27, the European Commission announced that the European Parliament approved the new College of Commissioners who will take office on 1 December 2024. On 7 January 2025, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen established a Project Group on the Clean Industrial Deal. “The Project Group shall coordinate the work to present the Clean Industrial Deal in the first 100 days of the mandate to set out how to accelerate the decarbonisation of EU industry while strengthening its competitiveness”, European Commission President states in the decision to establish the project group.

“[Continuing] the economic growth that we are used to, but without having an adverse effect on the environment.”—Pieter Huyskens, Group Director RD&I at Damen Shipyards Group

For the industry, green growth is now becoming part of business as usual, at least to some extent, as the renewable energy sector, especially offshore wind, moves forward and keeps decarbonizing its supply chain. Looking ahead, keeping the momentum of the offshore wind industry and building upon it is where both green and growth meet, according to Bas Nekeman, Business Unit Director Northern Europe at DEME Offshore.

“We can look back into history and history will tell us how we will be able to grow in the future”, Bas Nekeman said. “If we think back to 12, 14 years ago, offshore wind was not that big in Europe. There were a few countries around the Southern North Sea that were filling the viability gap to build wind farms and an industry that was investing in assets, vessels, people, in methodologies to start to install these wind farms in a cost-efficient way.”

That wave became bigger and bigger, the industry in Europe became more competitive, prices went down, and investment in vessels continued, growing into the industry Europe has today, according to Nekeman.

“Today, I think there is a fleet of installation vessels fully dedicated to offshore wind construction worldwide and they are owned by European companies. So we have an industry and we have to keep that industry and strengthen it because we are building offshore wind farms that are producing affordable, clean and independent energy – and that’s pretty green to me”, Bas Nekeman said.

Pieter Huyskens, Group Director RD&I at Damen Shipyards Group, said green growth can mean many things for many different industries but that it, looking at the big picture, means “continuing the economic growth that we are used to, but without having an adverse effect on the environment”.

For Damen as a shipbuilder, green growth means building vessels in a circular way, reducing the company’s emissions during production, but mainly providing vessels that have a lower to zero-emission footprint to its customers.

According to Corine Franken, Senior Investment Manager at Invest-NL, investments in green growth are a multiway road, involving not only developers, but also governments that can help make a business case, start-ups bringing forward new solutions, and nature-inclusive approach to bringing projects such as offshore wind farms to realisation.

“Our funding is 100% earmarked for green growth and working towards a circular economy. So I think that is our role in the market, being the missing piece. To do projects in a way that they are ecologically sustainable, you need collaboration of the entire value chain and we cannot ask the market to take that responsibility alone. So I think policymakers and institutions like Invest-NL have a great responsibility to also take into account to do it in an ecologically sustainable way”, Corine Franken said.

“A good example is with the recent [offshore wind] tenders where ecology was an integrated part and developers have to adopt it. I think there we can see really good signs not only from start-ups but also from large corporations who are taking action on this. But I think the way is set by policymakers and the money is following afterwards, but it can only work if there is a business case”, Franken said.