Space is Scotland, by Scottish Space Network founder Andy Campbell

Where is space?  Is it above the clouds, beyond Earth’s atmosphere? Between the sun and planets? Or is it in the vast cosmic realm?

What about the space industry? Is it just rockets, astronauts and ‘Houston we have a problem’?  The reality is space is closer than you think and the growing commercial space sector is right here, right now.

Over the last decade, the sector has rapidly transformed. It has evolved beyond the ‘rockets and astronauts’ stage to become a platform enabling many other sectors - from farming to fintech, life sciences, energy transition and environmental monitoring.

Space is in your hand when you use your smartphone. Space powers every online service you use. It gets you to your destination and even helps farmers track livestock and optimise crop yields putting better food on your plate. In times of crisis, space safeguards our land, sea, and air.

Earlier this week, I attended the “Ignite Space” conference in Leeds, organised by the UK Space Agency. The event celebrated the sector's growth in the UK, showcasing an industry worth over £17.5bn to the economy. It also showcased entrepreneurial leaders building the next generation of space companies.

A key theme was funding and investment. The sector is full of opportunity, driven by sharp entrepreneurial innovation. The challenges of Earth and space call for visionary businesses to produce novel solutions. New methodologies, inventions and business models are being created daily. The growth opportunities are vast and the payoff to those brave businesses who take a ‘giant leap’ are considerable.

This environment is intriguing for investors, but much work is needed to ready companies for investment and attract the right angels and VCs.

It may come as a surprise to some, but Scotland is at the heart of the UK’s space economy. Shetland hosts Europe’s first and only licensed rocket launch facility, capable of taking payloads into orbit. Glasgow is second only to California in satellite manufacturing. Edinburgh is home to a growing number of world-class downstream space data companies.

The Scottish sector is poised for continued growth over the next decade, expected to create 12,000 new roles, growing its market share of the multi-trillion dollar industry to £4bn annually. However, the sector needs critical business support and growth capital from both public and private sectors to maintain its position in the new space race.

Scotland has the skills and intellectual prowess but we must adopt a pioneering economic strategy to deliver public funding, enabling innovation and attracting abundant inward investment to drive commercialisation and market share. We must empower organisations like Space Scotland and Scottish Space Network (SSN) to champion the sector.

SSN has already taken steps to develop Scotland's investment landscape through its partnership with New York-based Sustainable Alpha. The partnership aims to position Scotland as a global leader in space innovation and funding, offering comprehensive investment solutions. It focuses on developing global investment opportunities for early-stage and growing space tech businesses and investors, aiming to unlock alliances and new markets, ensuring Scotland offers a full end-to-end service in the space sector.

Space has the power to transform our businesses, society and planet for the good of humankind and Scotland is ready to lead the way!

Geopolitics means the UK must decide on Chinese plan for Scottish wind hub, by Jeremy Grant

If Ed Miliband ends up heading the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in a few weeks a priority will be GB Energy, the publicly-owned clean energy company that Labour claims will “position Britain as a leader in technologies such as floating offshore wind”.

Offshore wind is central to the UK’s ability to transition from fossils fuels as we tackle climate change. And Britain has more capacity for offshore wind power generation than any other country apart from China. Most of this is in the North Sea centred on the vast ScotWind wind farms project. 

Yet it is China that should be at the top of the ministerial in-tray (even as a decision on where in Scotland GB Energy is to be headquartered is keenly awaited). Specifically: plans by China’s largest offshore floating wind turbine company, Mingyang Smart Energy, to build its first manufacturing plant outside China, right here in Scotland.

Mingyang has impressive form. Last year it installed more offshore wind turbines globally than nearest rival Siemens-Gamesa of Germany, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. It also offers some of the keenest pricing, as Siemens-Gamesa, Vestas of Denmark and GE Vernova of the US know to their cost.

This has commercial appeal for ScotWind developers faced with inflationary cost pressure, worsening shortages in the offshore wind supply chain, and the need to be able to bid competitively in government offtake price auctions.

Mingyang’s Scottish hub would provide local content for the supply chain and create green jobs. That’s why the company is one of 10 projects designated “priority” under an industry initiative to kick-start an offshore wind supply chain known as the Strategic Investment Model. 

Yet commercial priorities cannot be the only consideration. Geopolitics is part of the calculus too.

Geopolitical instability and conflict were the risks most cited by executives for the second quarter in a row in McKinsey’s latest global survey of economic conditions, published in March. For some, geopolitics may seem a remote concern. Others may argue that there is nothing to see here because China has been involved in Scotland’s offshore oil industry since the 1990s. 

Yet this fails to recognise that the world’s a very different place today. The lesson from Europe weaning itself off reliance on Russian gas is that energy independence matters. By extension, it also matters who you allow to be strategically involved in your energy infrastructure. Ultimate control of wind turbines resides with the manufacturer through its control of the software embedded in them. 

At a time when Brussels is probing Chinese wind turbine companies for allegedly benefiting from unfair subsidies and as the Biden administration ratchets up tariffs on Chinese green industries, the UK is taking a different path.

What message would it send to the UK’s G7 allies if London was prepared to see a Chinese wind turbine manufacturer set up a European beachhead in Scotland without having first done appropriate due diligence, and explain its reasoning? 

The dilemma is that China’s global heft in renewables means it is essential to our collective ability to reach net zero. Yet how to reconcile this with national energy security policy isn’t being addressed. Over to you, Mr Miliband.

Show Her The Money, by Nick Freer

On a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Edinburgh this week, an invitation from SIS Ventures to the Dominion cinema in Morningside for the showing of award-winning film “Show Her The Money” was a nice interlude during the working week. 

In partnership with Pathways Forward, SIS Ventures hosted the film’s producer Catherine Gray as part of a 100-city global tour.  Essentially, the main theme of an excellent and insightful movie is around how women entrepreneurs aren’t getting their share of venture capital. 

While star power is provided by American “Cagney & Lacey” actress Sharon Gless, herself a pioneer in the television industry, the real stars of the show are the pioneering entrepreneurs and investors featured in the film.    

Dawn Lafreeda, who owns more restaurants in the US than any other woman and also invests in early stage ventures, is an absolute powerhouse.  Possibly even more impressive is Pocket Sun, who co-founded a female-led VC fund, SoGal Ventures, which has already helped power a number of billion dollar startups, so-called unicorns, in less than a decade. 

Since Ana Stewart published the Scottish Government-commissioned Women in Entrepreneurship review, co-authored by Mark Logan, last year the whole subject of gender imbalance in business has come increasingly under the microscope.  Some of the stats around the gap between male and female founders are alarming, including that women-founded startups received a paltry 2 per cent of venture capital funding in Europe and the United States in 2023.   

Entrepreneurs showcased in the film include Diipa Bulle-Khosla, founder of Inde Wild, a startup that develops skincare products targeted at South Asian women, Dapper Boi’s Vicky Pasche, on a mission to grow the gender-neutral segment of the fashion industry; Marian Leitner of canned wine producer Archer Roose; and Jasmine Jones, founder of online post-mastectomy clothes line Myya.  

After the screening of the movie, my esteemed colleague Ness Collingridge chaired a panel alongside the LA-based producer Gray, Scottish EDGE CEO Evelyn McDonald, and Pathways Forward founder Ana Stewart, a partner with impact investment firm Eos and a successful entrepreneur in her own right. 

My takeaways are that there is an acute need to increase women’s participation in venture capital, improve financial literacy from an early age, and more collective action is needed to support and invest in diverse, underrepresented groups.  As expressed by one of the panelists on the day, the further away you are from white middle-aged males, the bigger the barriers are to entrepreneurship.  

I guess that is one of the nuances here, in that we can become overly focused on gender imbalance, which can be to the detriment of other marginalised demographics. 

A report released this week by Dechomai, a social enterprise on a mission to empower ethnic minority individuals, unveils some of the barriers preventing ethnic minority entrepreneurs from accessing investment. 

The report’s findings don’t make easy reading, with the vast majority of investment firms not having targets around engaging and investing in the space.  Dechomai’s CEO and founder Bayile Adeoti says, “There isn’t a silver bullet, this requires a system-wide approach, and unless everyone in the ecosystem is involved, it will only be seen as an ethnic minority issue.” 

The great and the good (of Scottish tech), by Nick Freer

Due to the quality of guest contributors of late - including former Financial Times reporter Jeremy Grant writing on renewable energy infrastructure, Pathways Forward’s Ana Stewart considering women in entrepreneurship, and Stellar Omada CEO Colin Frame sharing his thoughts on digital education - it’s a while since I’ve penned this column and I feel a little out of practice.

So, like Bridgerton’s Lady Whistledown after a Netflix mid-season series break, perhaps a notable society event is a good place to restart putting ink on the page - in which case, Contini’s recent 20th anniversary celebration deserves a special mention.

Italian and Scottish inspired restaurant Contini’s is surely an Edinburgh institution as much as it is an eaterie, where the city’s great and the good, including from the business world, meet up for coffee and treats, or to eat great food and drink fine wine in the former banking hall immaculately styled on a Florentine palazzo.

Over a decade ago, when we launched our agency, Contini’s was our office before we had an office.  More than that, when contacts, clients or friends from out of town came to Edinburgh, Centotre at 103 George Street was always my first port of call.  A decade later, in spite of the addition of so many shiny new restaurants around town, Victor and Carina’s place remains my number one.

A week or so ago, my latest meetup was with Glasgow-born GlobalScot Ross Hamilton, a New York-based businessman who is on a mission to bring international investors to Scotland to experience what he describes as “the country’s dynamic sectors” firsthand, helping to take our entrepreneurial ecosystem to the next level.  Watch this space, as I hope Ross will write for this column in the near future.

On the subject of moving the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the right direction, it was encouraging to see the Scottish Government’s commitment earlier this week to extra funding for some of the main initiatives in place to support our most promising startups, through organisations like Scottish EDGE and Pathways Forward.

As a longtime adviser to Scottish tech brands like Skyscanner and CodeBase, and many startups and tech ecosystem players along the way, I have written extensively on the trajectory of the nation’s technology sector down the years, and it feels like the retooled Scottish cabinet has a better understanding of all things tech.

While former Skyscanner COO Mark Logan has been front and centre of the so-called ecosystem building process since he published the Scottish Technology Ecosystem Review in 2020, another Skyscanner chief has engaged himself in the tech narrative and debate in more recent times.  Shane Corstorphine, the online travel site’s former CFO, has published a series of LinkedIn posts around what he describes as “Building a world-class scale-up ecosystem” which have caught the eye of the tech scene.

Referencing a piece on Forbes, Shane agrees that scale-ups must have achieved a high degree of product-market fit, while demonstrating sustainable annual growth of more than 20 per cent over three years.  However, to be defined as truly world-class, startups must jump a higher bar.  Having walked the talk, small wonder that guys like Mark and Shane are now among the leading voices in Scottish tech.

China role in Scotland’s offshore wind supply chain poses tricky dilemma, by Jeremy Grant

It’s been a big week for renewable energy in Scotland. 

First, a £100 million loan from Scottish and UK development banks was given to develop a port at Ardesier in the Highlands for assembly of offshore wind farms. Then ground was broken at Port of Nigg for a subsea cable factory. Plans were also unveiled for green hydrogen production at Grangemouth.

What do these have in common? Foreign investment. Ardesier is backed by Texas-based private equity firm Quantum Capital Group, the Nigg factory involves £350m from Sumitomo Electric of Japan, while German energy group RWE is behind the hydrogen project.

Contrary to some of the economically illiterate analysis I’ve read recently, foreign investment is good for the build-out of renewables and creates jobs.

This new investment comes at a time of wars in Europe and the Middle East, which are fracturing geopolitical alignments that have been in place for decades. The world has suddenly become a more dangerous place. It therefore matters which foreign investors are involved in your critical energy infrastructure. 

This is why a question was recently raised in the House of Commons about whether plans by China’s Mingyang Smart Energy, the world’s largest maker of offshore wind turbines, to build a factory in Scotland should be reviewed on security grounds. 

At issue is that fact that electronics and data in a turbine are ultimately controlled by the company that made them, not the wind farm developer (like those involved in the ScotWind projects in the North Sea). There are also concerns about alleged unfair subsidising by China of its renewables sector, undermining European turbine manufacturers Vestas and Siemens-Gamesa.

Yet the issue of Chinese involvement in the UK’s offshore wind supply chain is more nuanced. There are two unavoidable truths here. 

One is that China’s wind turbine manufacturers are deeply embedded in the global supply chain – one undergoing its own version of globalisation due to the huge amount of activity involved. 

The other is that inflationary pressures mean developers have no choice but to consider cost. Mingyang not only has an industry recognised track record as a manufacturer but is also highly competitive, including offering generous financing. The prospect of a new wind turbine factory creating jobs in Scotland will have natural appeal to policymakers on “just transition” grounds, even as it may alarm Vestas and Siemens-Gamesa.

Jonathan Cole, chief executive of offshore wind developer Corio Generation, told a renewables conference in Glasgow: “If you look at the amount of deployment needed in renewable energy to hit energy transition targets and the current capability of the supply chain, by about 2026/27 every region of the world except China has a shortage of critical components. So, if we extract China from the supply chain what we’re actually going to do is delay the energy transition and make it more expensive. And that’s not in our national interest.” 

There are no easy answers. But whether to allow a deepening of China’s role in Scotland’s energy transition is turning into a significant policy dilemma facing the Scottish and UK governments. 

Gulf interest in Wood Group highlights Scotland’s renewables promise, by Jeremy Grant

Here we go again. Last week, Wood Group rejected a takeover offer from Sidara, a private engineering and consulting group with roots in the Middle East. The offer for the London-listed company, founded in 1982 by Sir Ian Wood, came a year after it rejected four successive offers from Apollo Global, a US private equity firm. 

The Aberdeen-based company is emblematic of Scotland’s heft in the oil and gas sector, forged in the 1970s when the North Sea was emerging as one of the world’s most promising prospects. It provides the services and technology needed to oil the cogs of the energy business such as pipeline maintenance and equipment overhaul.   

Yet Wood has been navigating choppy waters. Two years into a three-year restructuring it has made progress transitioning from oil and gas clients to those in renewables (hydrogen, wind, and carbon capture). But its shares had fallen by about a third since the collapse of the Apollo approach and before the Sidara offer. 

The challenge lies not in the health of its business (pre-tax earnings and margins were up in the first quarter) nor in whether its transition makes sense (it does, because tackling climate change is urgent). It lies instead in the difficulty a publicly listed company has persuading myriad shareholders to keep the faith with a process that has no precedent. 

That process involves riding two horses at once. As Barclays analysts put it: “The energy narrative … no longer is renewables instead of fossil fuels in transition, rather it is improved fossil fuel utilisation complementing renewables adoption.”

The public markets are a schizophrenic lot, impatient for jam today even as they may feel inclined to reward a compelling renewables transition story at some point. 

Executives in a recent annual survey by consultants Bain revealed that they think it’s getting harder to generate adequate return on investment on energy transition-oriented projects. Yet it’s a transition that holds out genuine promise. Recent deals in Scotland point to why Sidara - founded in 1965 in Dubai by four engineering professors and now a sprawling operation in 60 countries – might be interested in Wood. 

Scotland is home to many companies that made their name in oil and gas servicing but which are pivoting towards renewables because they know there’s no long-term future in hydrocarbons and future cashflow lies in net zero. 

That’s attracted the attention of buyers. “There is significant interest globally in businesses that have developed deep technical skills in offshore engineering and construction as a result of servicing the oil and gas industry for years and which are now channelling these skills into new energy technologies,” says Jon Shelley, head of deals at PwC Scotland. Last year, Japan’s Mitsui bought STATS, a 26-year-old Aberdeen pipeline repair company that’s now working on hydrogen pipelines.

The question is whether Wood is better off riding both horses as a publicly-listed company, constantly under the glare of shareholders to perform, or whether its ability to win more renewables work and make the transition is more likely to come good under the ownership of private – and patient - capital. 

Do we need to view the business events sector through a different lens? Guest blog by Professor Gary Hutchison, Edinburgh Napier University

As a senior academic, the value of attending business events and conferences over the last 20 years has been essential in learning my trade and is a significant part of any academic’s career. So why now should we revisit this topic, and what is the significance to those that work outside of academia and events management?

To frame this, it is important to understand the policy landscape and the frameworks created by the Scottish Government. Universities must respond and adapt to a plethora of reports, reviews, and recommendations. One key focus of government is how the knowledge generated in Scotland’s universities can be released to support economic growth and innovation in both the public and private sectors. So, how does this impact business events?

It is important to highlight two documents that detail the expectations of the sector over the next 10 years, namely Scotland’s National Innovation Strategy, and The Entrepreneurial Campus, both seen as vehicles to help deliver the National Strategy for Economic Transformation. These set a direction of travel for universities to align and interact with organisations in regional ecosystems to accelerate entrepreneurial thinking through social and impact-led activities in areas of strength for Scotland - Energy Transition, Health and Life Sciences, Data and Digital Technologies and Advanced Manufacturing.

Knowledge exchange (KE) from universities is not a new concept. What has changed is the motivation, recognition, and assessment of this activity.  Universities have developed ways to incentivise staff, from inclusion of KE activities in promotion criteria, specific career pathways and financial incentives to work with businesses, to help realise beneficial economic impact from research expertise.

Edinburgh Napier University’s success with the Mountain Bike Centre for Scotland has delivered 367,000 public engagement opportunities, engaged 317 individual companies and aided product development to a value of £16 million. Looking to the future, the innovation and academia connection with the Lost Shore surf resort project in Ratho demonstrates future financial and societal impact to the city.

If universities have been doing this for a long time, then why the re-emphasis?  After attending this week’s Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce and Convention Edinburgh business breakfast, it crystalised that we may all believe we are doing this, but we are all speaking a slightly different language with slightly different motivations. To address this, we must ensure business events become more interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral to progress a shared understanding and focus.

Post pandemic, people are returning to in-person meetings. For me this is key to achieving deep collaboration and understanding. Online has a role to play, but in a world seeking a reduced carbon footprint we need to recognise the value of activity and the carbon we expend as delegates and event organisers.

So how can business events support economic growth in a city and help universities deliver on the KE agenda? Well, the EICC, NHS and four universities in Edinburgh have created a UK first, named the Exchange Initiative (EI). The EI’s remit is to provide strategic thinking on how to attract business events to Edinburgh, that supports translation of innovation, with a focus on the needs of Edinburgh city and its priorities. It is a different approach and perhaps it will provide the glue and common language that will allow everyone in a city see the value, impact, and legacy of knowledge exchange.

Scotland’s offshore wind ambitions at a crossroads amid global competition, by Jeremy Grant

Next month, a blue plaque commemorating James Blyth will be unveiled in a village set in the rolling fields of Aberdeenshire.

Blyth was an electrical engineer who developed the first turbine capable of producing electricity from wind power, and his home in Marykirk became the first building to be powered by wind-generated electricity in 1887.

Scottish Renewables, the industry body organising the event, says this marked the “very start of Scotland's renewable energy journey”. Over a century later, where is Scotland with offshore wind?

Answering this question may seem tricky given the mixed signals sent by the dumping of the Scottish government’s 2030 net zero target and a series of announcements by offshore wind developers of progress with their North Sea projects. The latest came last week from Green Volt, jointly owned by Tepco, a Japanese utility, Italian energy group Eni, and Norway-based private equity investors, that it had received offshore planning consent for a wind farm in the North Sea.  

So, are the wind turbines half full of wind, or half empty? The answer is that Scotland, and the vast ScotWind project that’s at the core of its offshore wind ambitions, is at a crossroads. 

There is still insufficient port infrastructure to cope with all the planned wind farm assembly that happens quayside before turbines are shipped out to sea, while the national grid is in urgent need of upgrading.

Some progress is being made on kick-starting the supply chain required, notably as a result of work by an offshore wind industry body called the Strategic Investment Initiative working group, in which the Scottish government has observer status. 

But the world has changed in the two years since ScotWind first came to public attention through the award to 20 consortia of subsea options to build wind farms in the North Sea.  This is pressuring the project timelines set by the companies in the consortia, including SSE Renewables, BP, Orsted and Marubeni of Japan.  

Two years ago, the UK was almost the only offshore wind game in town. It may still have the second largest amount of installed offshore wind capacity in the world after China, but many more countries are in the game now. 

The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) says there was a 50 per cent increase in offshore wind installations in 2023, compared with 2022. And 54 countries across all continents built new wind power, including Japan, which last week inaugurated the country’s largest commercial offshore wind farm.

 All of these projects are scouring the globe for increasingly scarce kit like turbine towers and blades, anchors, electrical systems and cables. That means one thing: competition. 

Dealing with this in the right way matters because Scotland accounts for 52 per cent of the UK’s future pipeline of wind farms.  

RenewableUK, an industry body, this month published an “Industrial Growth Plan”, setting out how to triple offshore wind manufacturing capacity over the next decade. It identifies strategic manufacturing capabilities that it recommends the UK build up to protect against supply chain risks.

As the report says: “As global competition for renewable energy supply chains intensifies, countries with a long-term, strategic approach will be the most successful in attracting investment in new industry”.  James Blyth is watching. 

Earth Day 2024 is a time to look at local solutions, guest blog by Julie Hutchison, Director for Charities at LGT Wealth Management

The environment and human health and wellbeing are in focus at present, with Earth Day taking place worldwide on 22nd April shining a spotlight on positive actions which can be made locally to safeguard the planet.

One thing we can all do to help the cause is find a way to repair, recycle or re-use old tech, and this is exactly the raison d’être for award-winning social enterprise The Edinburgh Remakery.

Colleagues from LGT Wealth Management in Edinburgh recently spent time helping the Edinburgh Remakery to segregate e-waste, and to prepare materials for the charity’s forthcoming textile workshops. It was also a chance to hand in a range of electronic equipment no longer in use, including old routers, cameras, and mobile phone chargers.

Following this visit, LGT Wealth Management will be hosting one of Edinburgh  Remakery’s tech donation boxes at our Edinburgh offices as a way to pass on other colleagues’s old electronic devices.

If you are struggling to know what to do with old cameras, mobiles, laptops, and tablets you are not alone. Electronic waste is a growing consequence of generations of obsolete tech, which often ends up in a box in a cupboard or, worse still, thrown away as refuse.  Clearly, this is not waste which should be thrown into landfill as electronics contain toxic substances detrimental to human health, water, and soil. If electronic waste is dumped or incorrectly recycled, hazardous materials such as lead and mercury present a real risk.

From its new premises at the foot of Leith Walk, the Edinburgh Remakery diverted almost 45 tonnes of electronic waste from landfill in 2023, of which around three quarters was repaired and around a quarter was responsibly recycled. Edinburgh Remakery doesn’t just focus on recycling, its positive social impact also tackles digital exclusion, making refurbished devices available for sale at more accessible prices.

Over 9,000 tech items have been refurbished and sold to date, raising money which is then put to good use by the charity when delivering its programme of activities.  Beyond this, its tech gifting programme distributes devices for use in the local community, enabling more people to get online.

The Edinburgh Remakery also runs a Repair Café, as part of a global network of thousands of centres that stretch across Europe to Asia, offering support with repairs in order to pass on the skills which many of us have never learned.  Its weekly session on a Friday between 11am-1pm invites people along to visit if they need help with tech repairs. This includes laptops, monitors, and games consoles. Repair Cafés are a further step towards a circular economy, extending the life of products and moving away from the linear economy where resources are extracted, turned into goods, then thrown away.

This Earth Day, if you have a box with old chargers and devices, don’t throw it away.  Take it along to Edinburgh Remakery if you live nearby, or donate your tech waste by placing it in one of their tech donation boxes; a map with their locations around Edinburgh can be found on the charity’s website.

And it goes without saying that charities like Edinburgh Remakery are always looking for more support and volunteers.  They should also be celebrated as we look ahead to Earth Day.

Scotland must invest in digital education, guest blog by Stellar Omada founder and CEO Colin Frame

People are important to every business, they help us to innovate and grow, and to drive future and long term success. 

We also recognise that the talent pipeline in Scotland is not working as efficiently as it could be, and we are well short of the skills we need.  This is a problem because you can only grow a business if you have the right people in place to enable this.   

I share the view of many that we need to fix the problem at the very root, at the grassroots level in schools across the country, taking a bottom-up approach to how tech skills become embedded in individuals.  

Along these lines, we have spent the last few years supporting the provision of digital skills to young people in partnership with Heart of Midlothian F.C. and its pioneering Innovation Centre, alongside other corporates like Baillie Gifford and Dell Technologies.  We think it’s an important template from which others can learn, but we know we can only make so much difference, and it will take others in government and industry to really move the dial.  

When we look beyond our borders, we see examples of countries who outperform us in no small part because of the ongoing investment they make into digital education.  When we talk about the Future of Work, it is nations like Germany and Switzerland who are walking the talk by really investing in digital skills.  

At Stellar Omada, the company I founded five years ago, we recently launched a digital education programme aimed at securing jobs for people with little or not experience in the tech sector.  Following a pilot earlier this year where the seven candidates went on to gain full-time employment, Stellar Elevate commences this month with up to twelve people on a seven-week software testing course that will prepare them for a career in tech. 

As one of Scotland’s fastest-growing technology companies, we have never been short of ambition and we want to have as many as one thousand people come through this programme over the next five years.  Some may see this as overly ambitious, but when you want to make transformative change you have to dream big.  

We are starting off with software testing because that is our bread and butter at Stellar, but we see Elevate evolving over time to cover a host of other tech disciplines.  And yes, while we will want to employ some of our graduates, our initiative is also about addressing the wider digital skills gap for Scotland as a whole.  

As a leader of a Scottish scaleup, we see firsthand how a shortfall in tech skills can hold back the pace of growth, and ultimately top-line economic growth in this country.  We saw CodeClan fold last year, where we lost the main provider of digital skills education at a stroke, and that’s a concern when you’re trying to build a tech group that can compete on a UK-wide level and internationally. 

We want to bring other industry players into the fold as our Elevate programme progresses, and would love to speak to other tech and business leaders over the weeks and months ahead.  If we can truly collaborate, perhaps we can really move that dial. 

Scottish Rugby's brand reaching for new heights, by Nick Freer

In a briefing with the media this week, Scottish Rugby’s chairman John McGuigan said the governing body that runs rugby union in Scotland needs to “step up our performance as a business”.  With the Six Nations still underway for Scotland Women (more on this later), McGuigan was also quizzed about what many consider to be an underwhelming 4th place finish for Scotland Men in their Six Nations equivalent. 

A quick caveat from my perspective is that I’m not sure I ever enjoyed a performance much more than this year’s game against England at Murrayfield, capped by Duhan van der Merwe scampering down the touchline for a try as I lifted my son above the madding crowd to share a sporting moment we will never forget.  How a man of van der Merwe’s size and strength can scamper, well that one remains a mystery…

There’s that saying in sport, that you only remember the victors.  I’ve never been totally convinced by that one.  If this Scotland Men’s team never win a championship, millions of people from New Berwick to New Zealand will remember the style and grit on display against the top teams in the world.  At the same time, it’s hard to argue that we could not have progressed further and reached higher.  

Talking of reaching heights, we (my wife, son, daughter and I) were lucky enough to have pitch side seats for the France game at the Hive Stadium last weekend, a vantage point from which you really get to appreciate how ridiculously high some of the forwards jump when the ball is hurled into the lineout. 

Fresh off a win against the Welsh in Cardiff, marking their seventh test win in a row, the Scotland team went into halftime 5-3 up in a battling performance against the world’s third-ranked team.  A late try in the second half flattered the French, who will feel lucky to have escaped Edinburgh with a win, a year on from a blowout win against Scotland in Brittany.

Much of the credit for this much improved performance must go to head coach Bryan Easson and his team, illustrating what is possible when a coach is given time and resource to develop a set of players, and build culture and trust.   As World Rugby wrote after Scotland’s triumph at the WXV 2 tournament in South Africa last year, “Scotland is on the crest of a wave under Bryan Easson”.

When Easson talks about players, it’s not always the playing attributes he notes first, instead he often talks about “excellent role models” and “inspiring youngsters” as ways to grow the sport and then strive for more global success. In business we talk about brands, and on the eve of the France game last weekend Easson talked about the growth of the Scotland Rugby brand from the perspective of the women’s game.  “It’s going up, and up, and up”, he said, “people want to watch your performances”, and “you’re building a legacy”. 

Sitting in the early springtime sunshine watching his team last weekend next to rugby legend Gavin Hastings, ultramarathon sensation Jasmin Paris, and singer Cammy Barnes, you could see and hear that brand and legacy building with every pass, every kick, every tackle, every cheer from the crowd.  C’mon Scotland! 

Scottish tech can rock, by Nick Freer

At The Scotsman’s Annual Investment Conference at The George Hotel in Edinburgh last week, Baillie Gifford director Ben James spoke about artificial intelligence and how AI means “business as usual is over”. 

Covering tectonic shifts in the computing paradigm in recent decades - through mainframes, mini-computers, PCs, cell phones, IoT devices - James went on to describe how graphic processing units (GPUs) are foundational to today’s generative AI era. 

Baillie Gifford knows its stuff on the subject, with semiconductor giants like Nvidia and ASML among its stock holdings.  Nvidia became the first chipmaker to reach $2 trillion market capitalisation last month, a valuation resulting from the group’s hardware used to power AI, via its H100 and upcoming H200 chips.  

In a Silicon Valley tech scene where CEOs and founders are compared to rock stars, only this week Mark Zuckerberg said of Nvidia chief Jensen Huang that “he’s like Taylor Swift, but for tech”.  

In his concluding remarks, Baillie Gifford’s James said AI marks a major computing paradigm shift, where OpenAI has democratised AI, and is driving changes in software development, autonomous driving, pharmaceuticals, and beyond. 

A fireside chat with investment firm Eos’s partner Mark Beaumont wrapped up proceedings at this year’s conference, with the world record-breaking endurance athlete comparing “adventure” with “venture” (capital) and sharing his view that founders often learn more from failure than success, using an analogy of a capsized boat during a row across the Atlantic. 

As an agency, we’ve worked with Mark and the Eos team, which includes Pathways report chair Ana Stewart, for a few years now.  The term impact investment gets banded around a lot these days, but from where I sit Eos can credibly be called an impact investor.  

Last week we supported a portfolio announcement where Eos led an investment into Neupulse, a university spinout that is advancing the world’s first wearable device aimed at tackling Tourettes Syndrome.  The device stimulates the median nerve in the wrist, reducing the frequency of tics, a condition that is thought to affect as much as 1 per cent of the world’s population.  Closer to home, Scottish musician Lewis Capaldi is one of the individuals to have trialed the innovative technology. 

In a similar vein, we worked with Scottish remote sensor specialist Novosound this week as the company announced it had secured the world’s first patent for its wearable ultrasound technology.  As CEO Dave Hughes commented in the press announcement, “This technology builds on the legacy of ultrasound in Scotland, where it was first demonstrated as a medical diagnostic technique at the University of Glasgow in 1954, and now as a Scottish company moves it out of the hospital into the home via a wearable device”. 

Overall, while our Scottish tech scene faces ongoing challenges, including access to investment and talent, it does feel like we’re in pretty rude health in 2024.  If we can tell our stories of innovation to the rest of the world, the hope is that the investment will then follow. 

Another signpost in the right direction came this week when Techscaler, the Scottish Government’s startup support programme run by CodeBase, revealed a strong first year of operations where it supported over 500 startups who collectively raised over £50 million of investment during the year. 

Scotland’s contribution to learning and sustainable finance in Dubai, by Jeremy Grant

For the first time visitor to Dubai, a ride on the elevated metro that runs parallel to Sheikh Zayed Road, one of the Emirate’s main road arteries, is eye-opening.

Glass and concrete office towers crowd the financial district and, as you head south, your eye is drawn to vast billboards promoting ultra-luxury residential developments sprouting on the outer rim of the 16-lane highway.

“All Dreams Lead to Atlantis The Royal” proclaims one. Another, “Iconic Tower”, has enlisted Pininfarina of Italy to add some designer chic to the architectural lines of its 60 storeys.

Nor does financial services pull any punches. On one billboard, Standard Chartered bank offers cashback in local currency of up to £4,600 for opening a “priority banking” account. MultiBank Group, a foreign exchange and securities trading firm, simply proclaims: “Life is Better With Money”.

It’s easy to conclude that Dubai is defined by a headlong dash for riches. Certainly, the Emirate and its oil-rich neighbour Abu Dhabi, not to mention awakening giant Saudi Arabia, are in the midst of a boom that’s attracting foreigners and their money as much as these Gulf states are projecting their sovereign wealth abroad. 

In the week I was there, two large investments were concluded by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in UK renewable energy. One was Masdar, UAE’s renewable energy company, acquiring a 49 per cent stake in Dogger Bank South, one of the world’s largest planned offshore wind farms. Another was state energy company Adnoc buying 10 per of UK-based Storegga, which is developing a carbon capture and storage project in Scotland. 

Yet there are activities that tell another story, one of investment in human capital and sustainability. Two of them happen to have roots in Scotland.

The Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI) is a Glasgow-based organisation that convenes action on sustainable finance. It held an event in Dubai when I was visiting to assess progress by UAE financial institutions in advancing the COP28 agenda since the climate summit was hosted by the UAE in November. 

In partnership with consulting firm PwC, GEFI announced the launch of a year-long series of meetings known by the Arabic word “majlis” (council, in English) for local financial institutions to discuss opportunities and challenges in sustainable finance.

Across town, about 4,000 students gather at the Dubai campus of Heriot-Watt, the Edinburgh university known for its pioneering work in engineering and business since it was founded in 1821. 

Heriot-Watt has operated a satellite in Dubai since 2005, becoming the first campus of a British university to open at the invitation of the government, providing courses in management, engineering, built environment, food science and fashion. 

The university moved three years to a striking new building near the Dubai headquarters of Google, Cisco and Huawei. Professor Dame Heather McGregor, Provost and Vice Principal of Heriot-Watt University Dubai, says the campus has “extremely strong academia-industry collaboration”, adding that it will “continue to invest in the region in line with our ethos of being one of Scotland’s most international universities, and in our quest to provide opportunities for learning at all stages of life”. To which one might add: life is better with learning. 

IWD 2024: seismic shifts in entrepreneurship, guest blog by Ana Stewart, Partner with investment firm Eos and Chair of Pathways : A New Approach for Women in Entrepreneurship

The seismic achievements and sheer volume of social media that surrounds International Women's Day every year serves as a poignant reminder of the huge strides made towards gender equality since the first IWD in 1911. On the one hand, these achievements evoke a sense of pride in society’s progress, on the other they highlight how far we still have to go and the danger of resting on our laurels.

I experienced two seismic activities of a different nature on a recent visit to Iceland. The first was a so-called seismic swarm, where underground tremors occur in rapid succession in a short period. The second one was above ground when, on the very same day, Iceland's economy ground to a halt. I assumed this was because of the swarm, but I was entirely wrong. 

Iceland was closed because women across the country were staging a one-day strike led by female prime minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir in protest of persistent gender inequality and violence against women.  With Iceland setting the global standard in gender equality for the past four years, it serves as a reality check for the rest of the world which lags behind and is a stark reminder of how much we still have to do 

It's tempting to embrace a convenient truth that gender equality is inevitable, “it is just a matter of time”, a “generational thing”, to reference language I’ve heard recently, where the patriarch will be swept aside by our inclusive-minded successors. However, the data tells us otherwise, and nowhere is this more pronounced than in the field of entrepreneurship. As highlighted in the Pathways report last year, just 1 in 5 companies are female-led and only 2p in every £1 of institutional investment goes to female founders in Scotland.

But here is the nub of it, these numbers have not materially changed in twenty years. This demands our attention. 

Merely acknowledging these disparities is insufficient too; we must actively work to address them. This entails implementing policies and structural changes which tackle the issue at a more profound, system-wide level.

Why should we do this? Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of the Scottish economy and we should be laser-focused on creating an environment which opens up the opportunity to all would-be founders, at all stages of their journey, regardless of gender or socio-economic background. Statistics tell us that gender diverse leadership delivers more profitable businesses. Investing in the other 52% of our population will significantly increase our entrepreneurial base, our scale-ups and increase Scotland’s economic output. In short, it makes economic sense.

By coordinating our individual efforts and taking collective ownership we will have a significantly bigger impact. The Pathways Pledge embraces this approach, where organisations collaborate and commit to measurable actions to influence behaviours, investment, and government policy. The Authority Gap, written by Mary Ann Sieghart, spells out 139 different actions we can take as individuals, as employers, as educators and as parents to narrow the gender gap within a generation. 

Scotland has an opportunity to do something meaningful here, so let’s embrace the idea of welcoming everyone on their entrepreneurial journey. Let’s move forward faster and create our own seismic shift towards a more scalable, sustainable, and inclusive economy.

China factor may emerge in Scotland's offshore wind aims, by Jeremy Grant

As Burns Night celebrations go, the annual black tie “Chinese Burns Supper” must rank as one of the most colourful cultural mash-ups on the calendar, combining the address to the haggis and a Chinese lion dance.

The organiser, the China-Britain Business Council, hands out awards to Chinese and Scottish businesses and at this year’s event a few weeks ago in Edinburgh, “Chinese Corporate of the Year” went to COES Caledonia (UK) Ltd.

COES, incorporated in 2018 and based in Dundee, is a unit of state-owned maritime giant China Ocean Engineering Solutions Group. While the business may not be a household name here, its award highlights how some of China’s largest state-owned energy players have been operating in Scotland for years.

China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), one of the country’s largest oil and gas companies, operates three oil fields in the North Sea including (since 2007) Buzzard, one of the UK’s highest-producing.

Now, a new chapter is unfolding with the arrival of some of the biggest Chinese players in renewables.

Red Rock Power, a European subsidiary of SDIC Power, a state-controlled energy company based in Beijing, owns 25 percent of the entity that has since 2019 operated the Beatrice wind farm off Caithness. It also co-owns, with Ireland’s ESB Energy, a second planned wind farm off Angus that could generate power for 1.6 million homes once completed.

This makes sense as China has proven global expertise in renewables, just as it has in oil and gas.

Chinese turbine manufacturers are naturally keen to sell to wind farm developers in the North Sea. Most of those are part of ScotWind, a vast, 20-consortia strong project involving companies from Japan, Italy, Germany and France. ScotWind has obvious energy security benefits for the UK.

The Scottish government and industry are working on a programme known as the Strategic Investment Model (SIM) to encourage collaboration to develop the supply chain required for ScotWind to succeed.

Last month, China’s Mingyang Smart Energy, which recently unveiled a turbine almost as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall, was among companies listed as involved in SIM with a proposed wind turbine manufacturing facility.

Some in the industry are squeamish about the involvement of Chinese wind turbine makers in offshore wind. They note that ultimate control of the complex electronics that are part of the operating system for a wind turbine as well as transmission to the grid often sits with the manufacturer, not the developer.

A bigger issue may be competition. With Brussels already alarmed by the effect on European solar panel makers of a flood of cheap Chinese products, it is now turning its attention to Chinese wind turbine manufacturers for the same reason.

China’s Edinburgh consulate says renewable energy is “an important area” for “China-Scotland cooperation” and that China’s bilateral trade and business is “always carried out within the framework of the WTO regulations and abid[es] by related rules and laws”. It adds: “Protectionism, exaggerating security concern and politicising business issues will only damp normal exchange and cooperation”.

Ultimately, facts will be what matters. But the risk of Scotland’s offshore renewables ambitions getting caught in the crosswinds of geopolitics, trade and energy security can’t be overlooked.

Reflections from the Scottish diaspora, guest blog by NYC-based U.S. immigration attorney Fraser Grier

Over the past eight years of living in the United States, I have learned that to say that one is from Scotland carries a unique form of privilege. It was Billy Connolly who cautioned against becoming a “Professional Scot'': one who defines themselves by their nationality above any of their talents or abilities. Without disagreeing with this caution, I offer some insight into my own experience as someone who grew up in Scotland and has joined the diaspora. 

Through years of conversations with business owners in Scotland looking to enter or expand their presence in the United States’ vast markets, I find myself recounting some common observations. 

In many American minds Scotland is a distinct entity from Britain, at least spiritually for those more traveled, with the latter exclusively associated with England. This bifurcation leads to a certain set of values ascribed to Scottishness: humility, community-mindedness, hardworking, trustworthiness, and it becomes up to the individual to adhere to or contradict them. With the label of being Scottish comes a set of presumed attributes, highly desired in the business world, that you are invited to live up to. If carefully navigated, being Scottish in America becomes a helpful asterisk next to your name, achievements and ideas, rather than obscuring them with national stereotypes. 

Those new to the United States will soon discover that many Americans have an insatiable curiosity about their heritage. For Scottish-Americans this leads to a fascinating range of unique, and sometimes contradictory, interpretations. Some claim their heritage as something static and rooted in the past, augmenting their family history pre-coming to America, be that the 17th, 18th or 19th centuries, adding millennia to their traceable culture and identity. This manifests through the immense popularity of historical dramas and films set during these time periods. 

While some unfortunately repudiate modern Scotland, many others embrace it. Each year, large cohorts of American students will attend Scotland’s world leading universities, and on returning to cities like New York will join thousands of other professionals who share the experience of life in Scotland. They understand that Scotland is filled with highly desirable places to live, study, work, and invest. 

Scots who emigrate will often acknowledge their shared nationality with a nod, rather than collaboration. They do not have a propensity to seek each other out in the same way their Irish counterparts do. There are myriad historical reasons, far beyond the confines of this article, that could offer an explanation. Regardless of cause, this lack of propensity is tirelessly counteracted by dedicated teams of Scottish Government officials, university international officers, local alumni group volunteers, chambers of commerce, and heritage, conservation and business organizations. 

Whether through birth, heritage, working or studying in Scotland, there exists a common, immutable connection. On April 6th this year, I will be participating for my fifth time in the New York City Tartan Day Parade. Tartan Day, in essence, is a celebration of the contributions of Scottish Americans throughout the United States’ history. For visiting Scots, the exhilaration of marching past tens of thousands of New Yorkers on Six Avenue, flanked by a near mythological skyline and alongside dancers, pipers, alumni groups, local and Scottish government representatives and cultural organizations, is transformative.

It is a convergence of Scotland’s past and present, packaged in American style panache, being celebrated by people from all over the world. It is living proof of the values ascribed to Scottishness, but it is also proof of something equally important: potential.

Analog beginnings to AI frontiers, guest blog by Loral Quinn, CEO at Playbookcamp.com and Rool.ai

Back when I graduated from university in 1994 and got my first real job we didn’t have a website at the company I worked for.  By 2000, I was responsible for the website at a company when, by then, having a website was a given for most companies.

Fast forward to 2024 and AI is mainstream. If companies don’t have an AI strategy in the next 6 months they will start to be left behind. 

I’m a marketer, and class myself as non technical.  But now I can create my own websites, set up automations and launch campaigns in a couple of hours. Things that would have taken days and required expert skill sets in the past are now achievable in hours and minutes using so-called “no code” and AI tools. Mind blown emoji!

Today, I asked ChatGPT to create some content for slides and a script for a video for the subject I’m working on. I asked Dall-E and Midjourney to create some images.  I cloned my voice on Elevenlabs and created an avatar of myself on HeyGen, then uploaded the script I created earlier to make a video to play to my audience. 

In this mix I play the role of prompter, strategist and editor, with the technology doing all the hard work in the background and coming up with the design and content for me.  The technology is so good it's hard for me to tell whether I’m an avatar or not. 

I can dub the video into any language I want and edit the script and video instantly with a text prompt, with studio quality sound so I can instantly create versions in any language, and the quality of the translation is good.  I can adjust the direction of my eyes so they’re looking into the camera for maximum confidence and remove all my ems and unwanted filler words using Descript.  And I can create my own background music soundtrack to run along with it on Aiva.

With this new technology currently upgrading at lightning speed, I created Rool.ai and Playbookcamp to help companies and marketers adapt and succeed.

There are lots of ways to learn about AI.  Try Google Bard. Get a free account on ChatGPT and try asking some questions (prompts) today.  Use Dall-E to create some images for free using Bing image or creator mode.  Get involved and find out what’s going on and how it will impact your job and your life.

I would encourage people to ask what their company’s AI strategy is.  If you can get involved in helping your company succeed, and get your company to upskill you at the same time, that’s a win-win. Otherwise, you can start educating yourself. If you’re a business owner or marketer you need to learn fast, join a Rool.ai webinar or get an AI audit and roadmap. 

 AI is here, whether we like it or not.  There is a lot still being figured out as AI becomes more user friendly for consumers and businesses, and as governments play catch up on regulation. And so too are the debates on ethics and the unquestionable issue of AI’s impact on climate and sustainability.  But we can all start learning more about AI and the impact it will have on our lives today.

'Peaches and eggs', guest blog by Dave Hughes, CEO and Co-founder, Novosound

January's CES 2024 in Las Vegas was a defining moment for Novosound. Amidst the world's tech elite, we proudly showcased our groundbreaking wearable ultrasound technology, asserting our leadership in North America. However, the sparse Scottish presence at this pivotal global platform was disconcerting. It's a prime opportunity for Scottish tech to shine, and we need to grab it with both hands.

While Nooku and Neuranics from Glasgow’s STAC IoT accelerator attended, Scotland’s overall footprint was a bit on the lighter side. At the conference’s Eureka Village, several countries were hosting pavilions where their scale-ups and start-ups were promoting themselves on the global stage. To bolster Scotland’s deep-tech, hardware, and IoT sectors, a more robust, strategic, presence is essential.

Interestingly, despite the 'C' for ‘consumer' in CES, the event transcends its consumer-focused title. CES is a hotbed for B2B interactions, with hardware integrators, tech innovators, and industry leaders seeking strategic partnerships. It's a mix where businesses, even non B2C, can find immense value. We are looking to forge strategic alliances and expand our B2B network, and CES is a goldmine to engage with key players, from established giants to emerging innovators. This aspect of CES is often overshadowed by its consumer electronics façade, but for businesses keen on strategic growth through partnerships, it’s unmissable.

At Novosound, we set out to be a global business from the start, and have been successful at winning business across the States. Over the last three years, we've doubled our revenue annually, 70% coming from North America. Our client list includes big global names, and our pioneering role in wireless wearable ultrasound marks us as leaders in the next frontier of digital health. While government support could aid Scottish start-ups in initial endeavours, the true grit comes from navigating these waters independently.

A strategy I've embraced is the importance of being physically present in the US market as frequently as possible. I always have my next trip booked before I depart the current one, this makes setting and following up on meetings much smoother, keeping the momentum flowing.

It's also about understanding the 'peaches and eggs’ of USA and Scottish mentalities. It’s crucial to work with the ‘peaches’, the easy-to-penetrate but hard centre of American business culture and balance it with our 'egg'-like Scottish approach: a hard outer surface but soft, deeply rewarding relationships once established. Regular trips to the States have been instrumental in navigating these cultural intricacies, leading to substantial business ties.

The journey of Chris McGhee, co-founder of snap40 (now Current Health) is a testament to the power of this hands-on approach. His transatlantic living was key to building Current Health in the American healthcare system and instrumental to the $400 million acquisition by Best Buy.

As I sit here in the US, on my second trip of the year, the reality of business here is even more striking than anticipated. Being on the ground, engaging directly with partners and customers, I'm not just making business deals, I'm experiencing the profound impact of our 'peaches and eggs' strategy. Every interaction is a step towards cementing Novosound's place in this market. Our success story is a beacon for what Scottish innovation can achieve on the global stage with the right approach.

Wind of change needed for Scottish ports to meet offshore ambitions, by Jeremy Grant

For people in the offshore wind sector, Scotland is – to borrow from the title of Billy Connolly’s autobiography – “windswept and interesting”.

The North Sea is one of the windiest places on earth and, two years on from the award of licences to build an armada of offshore wind farms there to harness this natural resource under the vast ScotWind project, there is some evidence that the wheels of progress (if not yet the turbines) are turning.

Last week, a group was shown some of that progress, across from the Royal Yacht Britannia’s berth at Port of Leith. The facility’s owner, Forth Ports, has transformed an ancient port tracing its roots to the 14th century into a renewables hub capable of handling the demands of a net zero world.

This has involved converting quayside on a 175-acre site into zones for storage and assembly of wind turbines – blades, the steel towers they are attached to, and electronic switching gear. A revamped berth jutting into the Forth estuary will be able by August to accommodate the world’s largest offshore wind installation vessels that carry this kit out to sea for deployment.   

Ports are vital in the offshore wind ecosystem because – as Claire Mack, Chief Executive of Scottish Renewables told the group – “they are the industrial hubs for everything we want to deliver in terms of Scotland’s renewable future”.

Yet the next day, at an offshore wind conference in Glasgow, came a reality check.

While shovels have been in the ground creating these industrial hubs, including in the Cromarty Firth, at Aberdeen and Dundee, delegates heard there simply isn’t enough money yet being invested in port conversation on a scale needed to meet anticipated demand from ScotWind for quayside wind turbine assembly – known as marshalling – and vessel berthing.

And the scale required is unfathomably large. Siemens-Gamesa, a wind turbine manufacturer, has designed a 108-metre blade for the Moray West offshore wind farm. That’s longer than Wembley Stadium. The project’s scope calls for 180 of them, for 60 turbines.

While Forth Ports has been an early mover with its £50 million investment in the expansion at Leith, the bottom line is that billions more will be needed if most of the ScotWind projects are to come on stream as planned from 2030.

As Clare Foster, Head of Clean Energy at law firm Shepherd and Wedderburn told the conference: “There's a compelling argument that we need bigger, faster, more direct action, to kick start investment and construction, now. This has to happen if there's any chance of Scottish ports being ready to accommodate offshore projects looking for quayside in a few years.”

A lot of this is down to confidence. And 2023 was a year of that being punctured by inflation and commodity prices, buffeting offshore wind developers. Then there was the failure of the UK government’s subsidy auction. There is already a reckoning: I am told that one ScotWind project is among three offshore wind projects that have since been put on hold.

More capital will be needed, urgently. It will require sovereign wealth fund involvement, as well as a blend of private infrastructure finance and government guarantees. But time is short. At stake is nothing less than the re-industrialisation of Scotland and its potential to be the global hub for offshore wind expertise.

Sustainable transportation of goods is now a necessity, guest blog by Callum Bastock, CEO and Founder of CCL Logistics & Technology

Historically, it has been extremely difficult to calculate emissions data associated with the logistics and transportation of goods, essentially due to the variety of modes of transport, distance travelled, and consignment weights involved. 

The sheer amount of data, and its convoluted nature, is something our team spent the last few years trying to tackle, investing heavily in our transport management system where our customers’ logistics data is held centrally.  In turn, this has enabled us to run complex calculations in the background to work out transportation and distribution emissions across the supply chain.  

Scope 3 emissions are defined as all indirect emissions that occur in the value chain of the reporting company, including both upstream and downstream emissions.  To put things in context, Scope 3 emissions usually account for more than 70 per cent of a business’s carbon footprint, far greater than direct emissions from burning fuel and consuming electricity (Scope 1 and 2). 

Today, when no corporation can put its head in the sand when everyone knows the importance of sustainability in tackling climate change, we operate in an environment of heightened compliance pressure and increasingly stringent reporting requirements.  

Research last year revealed that 90 per cent of the FTSE 100 will only work with suppliers that share their environmental, social & governance (ESG) credentials, another indication of the writing on the wall.  There is now an absolute expectation from public companies that vendors and suppliers can provide their emissions record. 

While our business model has always been about supporting customers to reduce costs and grow, in recent times sustainability has moved very much to the front and centre as organisations realise how crucial it is to tackle Scope 3 emissions in order to meet climate change targets. 

Last year, we achieved a milestone for our collective efforts when we became the first UK logistics services group to be accredited by the Smart Freight Centre, the international non-profit focused on reducing the emissions impact of global freight transportation.  

Branded ‘Greener Routes’, our innovative sustainability feature means customers can now measure, manage, and minimise their CO2 emissions.  Sustainability is paramount for our larger UK and European customers, and the CO2 emissions calculator embedded in our system provides customers with a CO2 statement at the click of a button. 

Overall, we are helping to facilitate Scottish and UK export trade in a much more sustainable fashion, so we’re pleased to be playing a supporting role in terms of being a driver of economic impact.  Exporting and importing is complex, and we simply the whole process for our customer base. 

In terms of our own scorecard, we want to measure ourselves against the best in the industry, including against those on the international scene, while, closer to home, being one the most innovative technology companies to come out of Scotland.  

In 2023, CCL was one of the first cohort of companies invited onto Sir Tom Hunter’s Scale Up Scotland 2.0 programme, which in itself was an amazing experience.  The year finished on another high when The Hunter Foundation hosted a Founders Conference at Gleneagles where it was great to meet up and hear from a fantastic line-up of corporate luminaries, sharing stories and intel from out on the coalface. 

As 2024 gets underway, we wish all our peers on the business scene a successful year ahead. S