Concern for our planet and the accelerating climate crisis was a major driver behind Andrew’s party political activism from 2001-10, inspired by Severn Cullis-Suzuki amongst others. In 2001 he would join Friends of the Earth protestors at the Genoa G8 summit. He also worked professionally as a campaigns officer for WWF-UK.
“We have come 5,000 miles to tell the UN and the world that you must change your ways. Coming up here today, I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future.”
— Severn Cullis-Suzuki, Canadian activist
During his time as a councillor, Andrew called for Hounslow Council to establish a £1m climate change investment fund and successfully challenged them to sign up to the 10:10 campaign pledge to reduce its CO2 emissions by 2010. Ideas around ‘subsidiarity ‘local thinking’ (pg 17) in Andrew Simms report ‘Collision Course: Free trade’s ride on the global climate’ (New Economics Foundation, 2010) were a major influence at this time and remain pertinant today.
In 2007 he joined Climate Camp Heathrow, although by 2012 he concluded Heathrow expansion was likely to proceed and it was best to work with the airport to mitigate the impacts of expansion and create an exemplar scheme.
After joining West London Business in 2016 he convened the organisation’s first policy commission focussed on Environment & Sustainability. Since 2016 Andrew has been an advisor on the £1.6m Better Futures investment in London CleanTech programme for start-ups. In 2020 this led to West London Business becoming a delivery partner on the next gen Better Futures+ programme funded by the Mayor of London’s Green New Deal. Andrew designed the Better Futures+ programme to support 500+ SMEs across the capital plan their transition to net zero from the ground up.
The innovative design and scale of the Better Futures+ programme was a major contributor to West London Business securing COP observer status by the UNFCCC in 2021. This enables WLB to contribute to the UN climate change negotiation process in an advisory capacity.
TOOLS TO TAKE ACTION
West London Business are now exploring a variety of opportunities to better support MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises) on their transition to net zero:
- Understanding the carbon footprint of Master Trust DC pension schemes, which most UK MSMEs use for their staff under auto-enrollement legislation – download Sept 2023 report
- Carbon footprint and transition plan standards – supporting Project Perseus
- What are the gaps in services/ tools to support a transition to net zero