Earth Set

Decarbonise or Deindustrialise? Is this really the choice facing Britain?

The UK has set ambitious targets to decarbonise its economy and transition to clean energy. Yet alongside this ambition is a growing unease: that energy-intensive industries are quietly shrinking, relocating, or closing altogether.

At its core lies a difficult question: as we decarbonise, can Britain retain the industries that underpin its economy — or are we, in practice, forcing a trade-off between climate ambition and industrial competitiveness?

This Earth Set evening will explore what this tension looks like in reality. What is actually driving the pressures on sectors such as chemicals, steel and cement? Are high energy prices the central challenge, or the way policy is being designed and implemented? And what determines whether industrial capacity is maintained, transformed — or lost?

We’ll examine how these decisions are made in practice. What makes a project financeable in the UK today? Where are the barriers to deploying low-carbon industrial processes at scale? And to what extent are we simply shifting production — and emissions — elsewhere?

Bringing together perspectives from policy, infrastructure and investment, the conversation will focus on the practical conditions required to decarbonise without deindustrialising — and whether a credible pathway exists to achieve both.

📍 Location: Octopus Energy, UK House, 2 Great Titchfield Street, London W1D 1NN
🕒 Time: 6.30–9.00pm (panel discussion 7.00–8.15pm followed by drinks & networking)

This event is supported by Clean Air Task Force (CATF), a global nonprofit organisation working to safeguard against the worst impacts of climate change by catalysing the rapid development and deployment of low-carbon energy and other climate-protecting technologies. With more than 25 years of internationally recognised expertise on climate policy, CATF is a pragmatic, non-ideological advocacy group committed to exploring all potential solutions to climate change.
Visit catf.us and follow @cleanaircatf.

For our next Bookclub dinner, we’ll be joined by Jeevan Vasagar, climate editor at The Observer and author of The Surge — a gripping, deeply reported account of flooding as one of the most immediate and destructive forces of climate change. As rising seas, heavier rainfall and storm surges reshape coastlines and cities, where are the fault lines of risk — and what does it really mean to live with water?

Expect a relaxed, curated conversation over dinner in a private dining room — more salon than lecture, more ideas than networking.

📅 Tuesday 19 May, 7–10pm
📍 Central London (venue TBC)
🎙️ Informally moderated discussion

🎟️ Reserve your place for free
(Final dinner cost ~£70, collected once numbers are confirmed.)

📚 Please read The Surge in advance — available via the Earth Set Bookshop
(supports independent bookshops)
https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/earthset

Come ready to read, think, and talk.

Max Bray, Partner, Kindred Capital

Mat Ilic, CEO & Founder Greenworkx

Sarah Mackintosh, Director, Cleantech for UK