{"id":190326,"date":"2025-10-10T11:29:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T11:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/190326\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T11:29:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T11:29:11","slug":"richard-tice-has-15-year-record-of-supporting-net-stupid-zero-initiatives-richard-tice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/190326\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Tice has 15-year record of supporting \u2018net stupid zero\u2019 initiatives | Richard Tice"},"content":{"rendered":"

He never seems to tire of deriding \u201cnet stupid zero\u201d, but Reform UK\u2019s deputy leader, Richard Tice<\/a>, has a 15-year business record of support for sustainability and green energy initiatives.<\/p>\n

The Reform party has made opposition to green energy and net zero part of its policy platform. Its founder, Nigel Farage, has called net zero policies a \u201clunacy\u201d<\/a>; the party has called to lift the ban on fracking<\/a> for fossil gas; and one of the first Reform-led councils, Kent, rescinded last month its declaration of a climate emergency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, companies led by Tice since 2011 boasted of their commitments to saving energy, cutting CO2 emissions and environmental responsibility. One told investors it had introduced a \u201cgreen charter\u201d to \u201cmitigate our impact on climate change\u201d and later hired a \u201cfull-time sustainability manager\u201d as part of \u201cits focus on energy efficiency and sustainability\u201d.<\/p>\n

Another said it was \u201ckeen to play its part in reducing emissions for cleaner air\u201d and said it had saved \u201chundreds of tonnes of CO2\u201d by installing solar cells on the rooftops of its properties.<\/p>\n

A glance at Tice\u2019s account on X reveals contempt for warnings of climate breakdown and efforts to mitigate it. Last year he said<\/a>: \u201cWe are not in climate emergency; nor is there a climate crisis.\u201d In May he stated<\/a>: \u201cSolar farms are wrong at every level\u201d and insisted they would \u201cdestroy food security, destroy jobs [and] destroy property values\u201d.<\/p>\n

He recently adopted the slogan \u201cnet stupid zero\u201d, describing<\/a> efforts to neutralise the UK\u2019s fossil fuel emissions as \u201cthe most costly self-inflicted wound in modern British history\u201d.<\/p>\n

But Steff Wright, a sustainability entrepreneur and former commercial tenant of Tice, found that statements in the annual reports from CLS Holdings and Quidnet Reit, property companies led by Tice, contradicted his public position.<\/p>\n

Wright said: \u201cThese reports reveal that Tice can clearly see the financial, social and environmental benefits of investing time, money and energy into sustainability focused initiatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is a businessperson, and if he has chosen to be a chief executive of at least two companies who have taken steps to reduce carbon emissions and implement energy-efficient innovations, it\u2019s because there is a business case to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2010, the year Tice joined CLS Holdings as deputy chief executive, the company said it was committed to \u201ca responsible and forward-looking approach to environmental issues\u201d by encouraging, among other things, \u201cthe use of alternative energy supplies\u201d.<\/p>\n

The following year, when Tice was promoted to chief executive, the company implemented the green charter and hired a sustainability manager. In 2012, CLS celebrated completing its \u201czero net emissions\u201d building, adding: \u201cThe board acknowledges the group\u2019s impact on society and the environment and \u2026 seeks to either both minimise and mitigate them, or to harness them in order to affect positive change.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the company\u2019s 2013 report, climate change was identified as a \u201csustainability risk\u201d, requiring \u201cboard responsibility\u201d, \u201cdedicated specialist personnel\u201d and \u201cincreased due diligence\u201d. The company\u2019s efforts were rewarded in 2014, when it was able to tell shareholders it had exceeded its CO2 emissions reduction targets.<\/p>\n

Tice launched Quidnet Reit, a property investment company, the following year. When it published its first full accounts, covering 2021, Tice was also chair of Reform UK<\/a>, and already setting out his stall against \u201cnet stupid\u201d. But for his company, fossil fuel emissions remained a priority.<\/p>\n

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The 2021 report stated: \u201cThe company is keen to play its part in reducing emissions for cleaner air,\u201d and detailed investments in solar power which \u201cimportantly \u2026 will reduce CO2 emissions by some 70 tonnes per annum\u201d.<\/p>\n

Quidnet\u2019s emissions reduction efforts continued into 2022 and 2023, with the company stating both years that its solar investments were \u201csaving hundreds of tonnes of CO2\u201d a year. However, after a Guardian report last year<\/a> covered some of Quidnet\u2019s environmental commitments, no mention was made of them in last year\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

Wright said: \u201cSolar initiatives and other energy efficiency schemes have benefited Tice\u2019s property companies whilst he was in charge, but now \u2026 there is a political advantage to gain Tice is all too happy to label these schemes as \u2018perilous\u2019 for investors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tice said critics were \u201cin danger of confusing apples with pears\u201d, insisting the comparisons revealed no contradiction. \u201cI have never said don\u2019t reduce emissions, be they CO2 or other, and where sensible use technology to do so efficiently.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSolar panels on roofs, selling electricity to tenant[s] underneath are [an] excellent double use of [a] roof and involve no subsidies. Solar farms on farmland is insane, involves large public subsidies and often include dangerous [battery energy storage] systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tice said that when he ran CLS, net zero was not a legal requirement. \u201cMy issue has always been the multibillion subsidies, fact that renewables have driven electricity prices higher, made British industries uncompetitive and destroyed hundreds thousand jobs,.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso in annual reports, because of [the] madness of ESG, so banks and shareholder became obsessed with emissions so companies felt pressured to report on all this. ESG is also mad, stands for Extremely Stupid Garbage, and is now rapidly sensibly being abandoned by many companies and banks.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo my position has been clear and logical and never involved subsidies. Big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He never seems to tire of deriding \u201cnet stupid zero\u201d, but Reform UK\u2019s deputy leader, Richard Tice, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-190326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}