THE business case has last week been approved to kickstart a landmark £52million project in and around the Wee County, looking to tackle climate change.

Plans to establish Scotland's International Environment Centre (SIEC), which will be headquartered in Alloa, will progress to delivery as part of the Stirling and Clackmannanshire City Deal.

The full business case for phase one of the wider project, which is looking to create an innovation community in the region to drive the creation of a net zero regional economy, was approved at a meeting of the City Region Deal Joint Committee on Tuesday, September 7.

Ellen Forson, Clacks Council leader, said: “Ahead of the UN Climate Change conference – COP26 – in Glasgow at the end of October, it’s great to see the business case has been approved for Scotland’s International Environment Centre which will be based in Alloa.

“SIEC will play a crucial role in delivering the new technologies we will need to meet our net zero ambitions.

“I look forward to moving on to the next stage which will start to benefit our local region and economy.”

The vision for SIEC – which will be a partnership between Clacks Council, Stirling University and Forth Valley College – is to deliver transformational change in sustainable business practice, “in order that the protection and enhancement of natural resources becomes an enabler of economic prosperity, just transition and wellbeing”.

The centre – which will receive £22m from the Scottish and UK governments and is expected to leverage a further £30m – will bring together external partners from industry, academia, the SME community, government, regulators, regional stakeholders and communities.

According to the business case, SIEC's first phase will create 125 jobs in the region, delivering a skills portfolio supporting 8,805 individuals.

It will provide skills and training opportunities for underrepresented groups, supporting more than 4,400 women and around 1,800 people with a disability.

There will also be opportunities for young people and students to engage with industry and the centre will work with some 300 small and medium sized businesses to provide specialist low carbon support.

The centre is also set to spend at least 38 per cent of its operating costs within the wider city region.

Phase one will see the development of the Forth Environmental Resilience Array (ERA) as well as a high performance data analytics centre and visualisation hub.

This phase will also see the creation of the SIEC Business Accelerator.

Business case documents explained that the development of plans for a large scale innovation community centred at SIEC, “physically headquartered in Alloa” will continue and will be delivered in phase two.

As previously reported, Forth ERA will be a “ground-breaking” regional scale living laboratory with the capability to understand the full water system continuum.

The Business Accelerator will offer specialist low carbon support for SMEs in the region to ensure companies can benefit from the development of Forth ERA and future infrastructure.