UK Business and Regulatory Reform Secretary - Peter Mandelson was unexpectedly drenched in green custard today on his way to a low carbon industrial summit in London.

The protester - Leila Deen is a climate change campaigner and member of ‘Plane Stupid’ - the group fighting a third runway at Heathrow Airport. Leila said “democracy is failing people in this country… you have to resort to any means necessary as long as it is not harmful.

The third runway (at Heathrow) will rule out any chance we have of stopping climate change and that will undermine and threaten the lives of millions of people and the future of the planet.”

Department of climate change secretary Ed Miliband and Peter Mandelson today shrugged off the incident, describing the government’s vision of a UK economy that can lead the world in low carbon products and services. The pair outlined a ‘new industrial activisim’ which is to put the UK at the heart of the emerging multi-trillion pound global market.

Mandelson said “Our premise is that the low carbon shift represents a huge economic opportunity for the UK in two ways.

“First, the shift to low carbon offers billions of pounds of cost savings to businesses and the public sector in the form of energy and resource efficiency. The initial cost of the transition to energy efficiency pays for itself quickly and many times over.

“Second, low carbon is already a £3 trillion industry which is set to double in size. We are already one of the world’s most competitive producers of low carbon technologies and services. But these are starting strengths that others will race to match.

“We have to build on them, ultimately by making the UK the best place in the world, to locate or build a low carbon business. To demonstrate or manufacture a low carbon vehicle. To recruit a low carbon venture capital expert or environmental consultant.

“As we will discuss today, that has implications for skills, infrastructure, innovation policy here. It has implications for the ways we strengthen the UK’s supply chain to serve new global and domestic industries. It will need leadership from the regions, who know their strengths and the lie of the land.”

The strategy launch is said to have stemmed from meetings between Miliband and renewable energy companies including wind turbine manufacturers. Discussion is likely to have included ways to help the renewable energy industry such as inward investment and meeting the huge demand for green energy.