Automation and the journey to net zero

08 February, 2022

Wilson firmly believes automation has a significant role to play in terms of achieving the UK’s net zero targets. He maintains this is achievable partly through ensuring our manufacturing is as efficient and effective as possible so that things such as energy use and waste are reduced, and also by ensuring we enjoy the benefits from using the automation. Wilson added that Brexit and the pandemic have highlighted some of the shortcomings in our supply chains. “Over the past 20 or 30 years we have offshored a lot of our manufacturing, and COVID-19 in particular has demonstrated that those long supply chains are a problem,” he said, adding that we shouldn’t necessarily rely on those going forward. Wilson’s view is that we are going to start to see an increasing amount of manufacturing re-shoring, which he considers to be good for the UK as well as providing a positive impact on our net zero commitments. “When we look at our carbon footprint as a country, we can’t offshore our manufacturing and then pretend it doesn’t matter,” he says. “We need to look at the carbon footprint of everything that we do and shipping things all round the world is not necessarily a good thing. We need to make more of what we use locally in the UK and to do that competitively we need to use more automation. So, I do think automation will have a positive impact on our net zero future.