Online workshop engagement sessions will explain NRW’s new commercial approach
Natural Resources Wales is adapting the way it carries out its commercial activities to meet the challenges facing public funding while protecting the environment, tackling the climate emergency and supporting the Welsh economy through the impact of Covid-19 and beyond.
NRW’s commercial team activity includes areas such as Renewable Energy, Timber, Tourism and Recreation, and Analytical Services. The Commercial Strategy will focus on each individual sector’s requirements and potential and explore ways in which they can benefit from each other to develop an integrated, practical and effective commercial approach.
Sarah Jennings, Director of Customer, Communications and Commercial for NRW said:
“NRW has an important role to play in responding and contributing to Wales’ economic Green Recovery during and after the pandemic. We also aim to support the Welsh timber industry and work with our partners on the growth potential for Welsh timber use. We want to also focus on new and innovative renewable energy projects, and on our tourism and recreation offer, encouraging more visitors to Wales as we emerge from the pandemic.
“Our commercial activities provide an important income stream at a time when public funding continues to be stretched and can support the people of Wales by focusing on certain key sectors where there is not only opportunity to make the most of our natural resources but a way of doing it that is sustainable and distinctly Welsh.
“However, commercial activity undertaken by NRW is not focussed solely on financial benefits. The Commercial Strategy will ensure that equal importance is given to the three P’s – Planet, People and Prosperity. We need to provide the maximum benefit for the communities of Wales, and to tackle the climate and nature emergencies.”
To help explain how the Commercial Strategy aims to work and how developing this new approach will help make working with NRW easier for existing and new customers, the NRW Commercial team is holding a series of free online engagement workshops later this month.
Sasha Davies, Head of Commercial added:
“In developing the Commercial Strategy, we are clearly setting out the principles and overarching ambitions for our commercial activities, within the context of Planet, People and Prosperity.
“We want as many as possible of our partners and stakeholders to have an opportunity to feed into this developing strategy, understand our initial thoughts on this new approach and how we envisage it benefitting them and their businesses, while protecting and enhancing the environment.
“Most importantly, the Commercial Strategy must be deliverable, and it can only do this with proactive and energising discussion and shaping from engaged stakeholders across the private, public and community sectors and so we need and value your opinions.
“We are already managing commercial activities in the context of NRW’s Well-being Objectives and within the remit to deliver against the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources (SMNR) principles. Our aspirations are to do more, to be better, and focus on a sustainable future, ensuring Wales is at the forefront of tackling the Nature and Climate Emergencies through effective management of natural resources.
“The Commercial Strategy will help us achieve this goal.”
To register for one of our Commercial Strategy engagement sessions please email sharon.parry@naturalresourceswales.gov.uk and indicate which one(s) you wish to attend:
- Energy: 24: November 2pm – 4pm
- Timber: 26 November 10pm -12 noon and 2 December 2pm – 4pm
- Tourism and Recreation: 26 November 2pm – 4pm