October 28, 2022 3.36 pm This story is over 30 months old

Lincolnshire businessman calls for King’s leadership on sustainability

Politicians lack vision, he argues in letter to King Charles III
Steff Wright posting a letter to the king in he mailbox at his Woodlands Edge eco development on the outskirts of Lincoln.

Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire businessman Steff Wright has written to King Charles III to call for his leadership on the environment and sustainability, as politicians lack vision.

The former Prince of Wales launched the Terra Carta in 2021, a mandate that puts sustainability at the heart of the private sector, and Steff Wright wrote to the King after his group of companies, Gusto Group, signed up to charter.

“We are making the challenging changes needed to accelerate the transition to a healthy, low carbon economy by 2030,” he wrote, “even though “most businesses and individuals are not yet on that journey”.

Mr Wright’s letter scolded the latest political developments, saying “our once great country needs a new direction.”

“The markets have made it abundantly clear that they will not support a vision based on corporate greed, neither will they support a vision based on inflexible trade union power.

“We need our politicians to come together across party lines embracing the Terra Carta and working collaboratively to implement the fiscal measures needed to deliver a clearly defined future.

“Our country is currently being run in the same way as the old Blockbuster video rental business just before it collapsed. They had a failed business model, but the bosses had no vision for a different model even though Netflix had walked into their boardroom and presented their business plan to them.

“Like the directors of Blockbuster, our political leaders, and the global corporate lobbyists who control them, appear to be only focussed on saving their positions and continuing with business as usual.

“To continue with the Blockbuster analogy, our current MPs appear incapable of understanding that the current business model has failed, and an environmentally sustainable, circular economy is the only way forward.

“A new global model based on the Terra Carta is the equivalent to the new global Netflix model those Blockbuster executives failed to adopt. We can carry on relying on a fossil fuel economy and try to drive growth though consuming more globally produced goods ignoring the environmental damage that is doing.

“Alternatively, we can decide that in 2030 we want to have different type of society which values planetary and personal health above consumer driven growth.

“It is simple business principal that you need to have a clear vision of what you are aiming to achieve and by what point in time before setting out the financial plan to enable that vision to be achieved. With the Autumn statement due in a couple of weeks’ time and COP 27 launching, now is the time for clarity as to which path we want to take.

“I ask you not to allow your voice to be muted by the politicians and their most vocal lobbyists. Whilst the principal of the monarch not getting involved in party politics is one which is important, that in no way should silence the important leadership voice you have as head of the Commonwealth and King of the United Kingdom.”