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Delivered through a collaboration between the Local Government Association, the national membership body for local authorities, and UCL, the Net Zero Innovation Network brings together local authorities, universities and other stakeholders to address climate challenges at the local level, and seek routes to achieve council’s net zero commitments.
The Net Zero innovation Network is open to researchers, academics and policymakers working to address local net zero challenges as a forum for open discussion and collaboration.
To join the Net Zero Innovation Network on LinkedIn please contact climate@local.gov.uk
Introducing the Net Zero Innovation Programme
Across the UK, local authorities are declaring a climate emergency, seeking to lead action at a local level to reduce carbon emissions, increase biodiversity, transition to net zero and ultimately improve the quality of life of their residents and the local environment.
We believe that the varying expertise of local authorities to respond to the climate emergency creates a clear opportunity for engagement and knowledge exchange with the research community, as well as for delivery of evidence directly in to policymaking and practical delivery at the local level.
The Net Zero Innovation Programme brings together partnerships of researchers and climate change officers from councils across all the regions in England, providing support to work collaboratively to define and co-create challenges, and the time and funding to work on their problems towards achieving local net zero targets.
Read our FAQs document to find out more about the application process.
The 2020 Net Zero Innovation Cohort
In 2020, the Programme supports a cohort of 12 research/council partnerships on their net zero journeys.
| Project | Council | University |
|---|---|---|
| Low-energy Housing - to design and oversee the construction and evaluation of a new, low-energy housing estate in Barnsley, using the latest research and innovation in insulation and renewable energy. | Barnsley Council | Leeds Beckett University |
| Procurement Carbon Calculator - to develop and test a framework to estimate the emissions from procured goods and services and enable informed discussion with suppliers on how to reduce them. | Cambridge Council | UCL |
| Supporting Schools - to enable two local primary schools embed environmental education, reduce their environmental impact—and have fun. | Colchester Council | Univesrity of Essex |
| Public Health - to provide evidence for decision-makers to focus beyond short-term outcomes and understand the potential implications of climate change mitigation and adaptation on health and the subsequent impacts across a broad range of sectors and services. | Cornwall Council | Univesrity of Exeter |
| Impact of Home Working - to measure the real energy consumption impacts of home working to help with future energy scenario planning. | Durham Council | Univesrity of Durham |
| Care Home Energy Efficiency - to work with care homes to identify any areas of wastage and then present options to reduce energy consumption and increase efficiency. | Hertforshire Council | Univesrity of Hertfordshire |
| Community Finance - to explore a range of alternative financing mechanisms and evaluating them for use on a variety of sustainability projects that may or may not generate a financial return. | Lewes and Eastbourn Councils | University of Sussex |
| Housing Retrofit and Jobs - to address the urgent need to expand the capacity of local supply chains to deliver net zero retrofits at scale, pace and quality, and to connect local residents to these jobs. | London Borough of Lambeth | London South Bank University |
| Modelling Housing Retrofit | London Borough of Sutton | UCL |
| Decarbonisation Training - | North of Tyne Combined Authority | tbc |
| Community Engagement - to develop effective communication strategies focussed on three priority challenges - overcoming resistance to active travel measures, barriers to the uptake of low carbon home retrofitting initiatives and raising the profile of the climate emergency within the Local Strategic Partnership. | South Gloucester Council | University of West of England |
| E-bikes Scheme - to look at both ‘business miles’ and staff commutes to improve local uptake of e-bike schemes. | Worcester City Council | University of Worcester |
Podcasts
Together Towards Net Zero Episode 1: The Partnership Building Workshops
Read the transcript for Episode 1 here.
Together Towards Net Zero Episode 3: The Action Learning Groups
Together Towards Net Zero Episode 2: The Sandpits
Read more about the programme’s pilot workshops held in April 2020 on the Policy Postings blog:
- Net Zero Innovation Seminar: working at the academic-policy boundary
- Going Virtual
- Fostering partnerships between local authorities and universities to deliver climate emergency action plans
- Developing partnerships, changing futures
If you have any further questions about the Net Zero Innovation Programme please email Katherine Welch: k.welch@ucl.ac.uk.
Timeline and milestones
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| October 2020 | Official launch of programme |
October 2020 | Partnership development workshop webinars Three two-hour sessions designed to build the foundations of partnership working techniques. |
November 2020 10.00-12.00 on: 9 Nov 16 Nov 23 Nov | Co-production Sandpits A series of three two-hour sandpits to co-produce and refine projects. An additional drop in session for project teams will be offered on 30 Nov 10.-00-12.00 |
January -June 2021 | Project delivery Development and delivery of collaborative projects. |
July 2021
| Reporting, evaluation, dissemination and next steps The cohort will reconvene for a final series of activities to pull together the outcomes of project work as well as learning gained throughout the process and to prepare and disseminate final outputs. This will include the further support workshops to help people in other councils and universities to implement a similar project. |