The route to net zero: Workshop 2, South West

Overview

Following the first South West Infrastructure Partnership (SWIP) co-production workshop, attended by over 120 participants, registration is now open for the second online route mapping workshop.

Building on the findings of the previous event, the latest workshop will explore how the net zero decarbonisation challenge in South West England maps onto the Balanced Pathways in the Climate Change Committee's Sixth Carbon Budget report, launched in December 2020.

Using an online collaboration whiteboard, the workshop will explore this mapping through the lens of interdependency between infrastructure services, sectors, and users’ needs. The results will inform the selection and population of the principal strands of SWIP’s Integrating Route Map for South West Infrastructure Decarbonisation.

The workshop is open to anyone interested in delivering net zero in South West England and is most relevant to those working, living, or studying in the region.  SWIP is keen to engage with all disciplines and stakeholders.

SWIP is being supported by the University of Bristol and ICE South West in running this series of net zero workshops.

To aid the planning of Breakout Groups for the workshop, please indicate your preferred area of interest from the options provided during the online booking process. We shall configure the actual Breakout Groups in the light of this information.

Background

Effective and efficient decarbonisation depends on an integrated and systemic approach across all societal service and economic sectors, including the infrastructure that underpins them.

A major challenge is that responsibility for decarbonisation is distributed across many sector stakeholders, with varying scales of remit, all of whom need to account for their sector’s interdependencies with other sectors.

Failure to join up thinking, purpose and practice across these stakeholders will undoubtedly lead to ineffective and inefficient decarbonisation actions. Joined up decarbonisation solutions will undoubtedly create greater value and impact.

Given infrastructure’s integrative and underpinning role, it is crucial that its own decarbonisation actions dovetail with those of the sectors it supports. Thus, the infrastructure sector’s decarbonisation route map must align and integrate with those of the other sectors.

While decarbonisation route maps will have many generic components, they will also have sector and place specific elements, which need to be properly understood and integrated. The South West has a unique combination of geographical, environmental, and economic factors that decarbonisation schemes must embrace.

The route mapping co-production process

The South West Infrastructure Partnership’s initial decarbonisation workshops, held in 2020, confirmed the need to develop an Integrating South West Regional Infrastructure Decarbonisation Route Map that will underpin attaining the net zero goal.

SWIP has undertaken a co-production process to generate this route map. This route mapping process is co-ordinated by the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Bristol. The process consists of a series of online workshops that will elicit sector and cross-sector information using a digital canvas tool. The coordinators will synthesise the information into a consolidated draft route map for the SWIP community to shape further and ultimately endorse.

The kick-off workshop took place online on Wednesday 27 January 2021.  A third workshop will take place on 15 April 2021 (12:30-14:00). The formal launch of the Route Map will take place during ICE President Rachel Skinner's virtual visit to the South West region on 13 May 2021.

Details of these events will be announced in mid-March.