In the net-zero delivery economy, brand is mistaken for identity — a green claim. Brand does one thing: earn trust. Trust is brand made measurable, the one signal communities, investors, regulators and government read. That’s the North Star.

The UK’s net zero economy: £105bn of value, 1.1 million jobs.

Its own report names what decides who captures it: execution.

Execution runs on consent. Consent runs on trust. Almost nobody in the delivery economy measures it.

In June 2026 the ECIU and CBI Economics published The Race for Net Zero: £105bn of GVA, 3.8% of the economy, productivity 48% above average, and a renewable pipeline of 262GW worth £455bn. Of that, 106GW (£157bn) awaits planning. Every gigawatt must clear four gates — the host community, the planning authority, the capital and the workforce — and all four are trust gates.

Why a market report is a trust story

  1. The pipeline leans on what communities understand least. Battery storage is half of it (130GW). Highland pumped hydro alone carries £68bn of investment, and the Loch Ness schemes are stirring local anxiety.
  2. The politics fragment as the economics strengthen. The CBI says so in its own foreword.
  3. Capital prices trust. Policy stability and delivery credibility decide where $2.2tn of annual clean-energy investment lands.

The diagnostic — the delivery economy’s trust shape, Q2 2026

Net Zero delivery economy trust diagnostic · Q2 2026 · published as bands
Clarity
Strongest
Connection
Weak edge
Confidence
Mid
Composite
Functional

Sector reads are published as bands. The Trust Index and its three drivers — scored per stakeholder group, with direction of travel — are produced only inside a measured read. TrustOS never publishes a score it hasn’t measured.

Clarity — strongest in this series. About 84% of global GDP sits under net zero commitments.

Connection — the weak edge, weaker than Energy’s. 23,500 companies, 96% of them SMEs, with no shared voice. One battery fire reads against the whole pipeline.

Confidence — mid, and structural. Only 12% of the pipeline is under construction, so promises run ahead of evidence by design.

Trust band: Functional. Like Energy and Mining, but with the widest gap between Clarity and Connection in this series.

The Integrity layer — building, not defending

For the Energy majors, Integrity became visible when a chair fell. Here it has a different surface.

  1. The planning statement is a conduct standard. What you told the inspector and the benefit fund you promised are on the record, and the community holds the document.
  2. The architecture is built in flight. Nearly half the sector’s firms are under ten years old. Integrity is a capability to design, not a legacy to defend.
  3. Track record travels. Your last project’s broken promise is your next project’s objection letter.

Where this lands

  1. Pipeline developers. SSE Renewables, ScottishPower Renewables, Statkraft, Ørsted, EDF, the Dogger Bank partners and Agratas. No signal fit for a planning committee.
  2. Storage and flexibility developers. The urgent slice: 130GW, organised opposition, a fire-safety narrative and often a one-person comms team.
  3. Hydrogen and industrial clusters. HyNet, Kintore in Aberdeenshire and the Grangemouth corridor, where expectations are forming now.
  4. Cleantech scale-ups and green finance. Promise ahead of evidence, and 1,534 finance firms learning to run trust diligence like technical diligence.

Four operating moves

  1. Treat the project promise as a measured commitment. Name what the planning statement and consultation promised, then measure delivery against it.
  2. Architect Connection. Link the national case to the local experience, and the portfolio to the project.
  3. Run on consent cadence. Hearings, consultation windows and allocation rounds, not the annual report.
  4. Make evidence cumulative. Trust earned at one site should compound into the next consent. This is the TrustOS layer.

The window

Two-thirds of the pipeline is in development or construction, and the early determinations land through 2026–27, as the new UK Sustainability Reporting Standards bed in and before the next general election re-tests the politics.

The race is won project by project, hearing by hearing — and every hearing is a trust event.

The question

Can you show a planning committee, an investment committee and a host community the same trust evidence — by stakeholder, by project, on demand — without commissioning a new report?

If yes, you convert your share of the £455bn faster.

— Dustin Lawrence, Founder, MissionCTRL