Any government seeking to deliver on its promises is going to need a healthy family business sector to get anything done
Sir James Wates has underlined the importance of family businesses to the UK’s long term economic success, as Family Business Week gets underway.
Writing in The Times ( 22 November 2021) the Wates Group Chairman, who is also Chairman of the Institute for Family Business, outlined how family businesses were already getting on with the job of creating a net-zero carbon future, pointing to examples of the work done by family firms, including his own, to ‘step up to the net-zero challenge’
The company I chair, the Wates Group, is working in partnership with government to construct net-zero schools. It has also developed ways to improve the energy efficiency of existing and new social housing and to decarbonise the NHS estate.”
He argues that the very concept of sustainability is at the heart of the family business model.
Most family business owners, myself included, view ourselves as custodians. We are stewards of our business, and our long-term aim is to pass on to the next generation a stronger, more sustainable enterprise.”
He argues that it is this ‘long-term view’ which makes family businesses the ‘natural partners’ for governments seeking to make good on carbon reduction targets.
In fact, any government seeking to deliver on its promises is going to need a healthy family business sector to get anything done. There are more than five million family businesses in the UK….we are everywhere….in every sector.
It’s time that everybody understands just how critical family businesses are to our communities, our environment, and our economy”.
