Looking Beyond Financial Returns
If we were to capture and bottle the concept of “capital”, its essence would be anything that has the capacity to generate a flow of benefits which can be valued in real terms.
So, what will produce the flow of greatest benefits in the future? Delivering against our global carbon commitments? Eliminating the health and social inequalities within and between our communities? Or is it being the first generation to leave the environment in a better condition than we found it?
Future capital must look beyond the financial return as we seek to meet the greatest challenges we have as a species. With life sciences, energy, space, mobility, aviation, AI, quantum computing, agri-tech and many more critical clusters the Arc is the future frontier in the UK where not only will it drive economic prosperity but also social and environmental gain as well.
Radical Capital seeks to amplify the case for the Arc across many areas of capital: knowledge, human skills, nature, connectivity. In a region of world leading innovation like the Arc, it may well be that the flow of value-added benefit does not need radical new approaches; it may be that radical just stresses the need for collective urgency.
The Arc is home to the UK’s greatest concentration of innovation assets – current capital if you like.
Add to those current assets the brilliance of ten universities, including Oxford and Cambridge and a legacy of innovative entrepreneurialism, and we have the drawing power to attract even greater investment to deliver against our greatest challenges and deliver significant value in, and for, the future.
But there is a complacency with areas of success like the Arc. Not all parts of the Arc are successful, not all communities share in the prosperity. Given the state of infrastructure, the lack of effective connectivity and inequalities still across many of its communities, the potential for greatest gains by levelling up the Arc’s own places has somehow been lost in translation through a national levelling up agenda. This unequal prosperity did in part lead the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) in 2017 to call on Government to invest in this significant economic region to ensure it meets its ambitious growth targets for the benefit of the whole country.
To deliver future value we must act now.
Sustainability is at the core of what we want for the Arc, a green Arc2: delivering positive gain by integrated thinking across all three pillars of sustainability – environment, social and economy. Truly sustainable development provides a market for the innovation the Arc generates, provides homes and skills for the whole local population and uses materials, utilities, land and services in an effective and efficient way to minimise waste. The future value added through such sustainable development can be invested into our communities providing local services to improve our health, wellbeing and overall quality of life. This is the future capital the Arc can bring, lifting the ambition and outcomes for the people not only of the Arc, but beyond and across the whole nation.
The key to future capital then – the future value of our human, natural and physical resources – is to commit to a common vision for positive change that targets better outcomes now as well as in the future. This sort of ambition will not be unique to the Arc: what is unique is the Arc’s ability to deliver against this ambition. If we change nothing, the Arc will no doubt continue to deliver future capital: the question is whether we can seize the full future value of collaboration and create greater economic prosperity, gains for our environment, human health and wellbeing – delivering sustainable development for the Arc and beyond.
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