Industry, schools, hospitals targeted in £1bn strategy

The UK Government is set to invest £1bn to cut emissions from industry, schools and hospitals.

Building on the Prime Minister’s10 Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution published last year, the new Industrial Decarbonisation Strategy sets out the government’s vision for building a competitive, greener future for the manufacturing and construction sector. The Government hopes the measures will create and support 80,000 UK jobs over the next 30 years while cutting emissions by two-thirds in 15 years.

The blueprint includes measures to build on expectation of 2TW hours of the UK industry’s energy supply switching from fossil fuel sources to low carbon alternatives by 2030. This will help industry to increase its use of low carbon energy sources to around 40 per cent of industry’s total energy consumption.

To kick start the process, £171m from the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge has been allocated to nine green tech projects in Scotland, south Wales and north west, Humber and Teesside in England, to undertake engineering and design studies for the rollout of decarbonisation infrastructure, such as carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) and hydrogen.

To reduce carbon emissions from public buildings including hospitals, schools and council buildings, £932m has been directed to 429 projects across England. The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme funds low-carbon heating systems, such as heat pumps, and energy efficiency measures like insulation andLEDlighting.

The government will also introduce new rules on measuring the energy and carbon performance of the UK’s largest commercial and industrial buildings, including office blocks and factories, in England and Wales. The move could provide potential savings to businesses of around £2bn per year in energy costs in 2030 and aim to reduce annual carbon emissions by over 2m tonnes – approximately 10 per cent of the current emissions from commercial and industrial buildings, the equivalent to removing emissions from a town the size of Doncaster.

Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: “While reaching our climate targets will require extensive change across our economy, we must do so in a way that protects jobs, creates new industries and attracts inward investment – without pushing emissions and business abroad.”

Other key commitments within the Strategy include:

to use carbon pricing as tool for getting industry to take account of their emissions in business and investment decisions;
to establish the right policy framework to ensure uptake of fuel switching in industry from fossil fuels to low carbon alternatives such as hydrogen, electricity or biomass;
to establish a targeted approach to mitigate against carbon leakage that meets the government’s domestic and global climate goals, while keeping businesses competitive;
to develop proposals for new product standards, enabling manufacturers to clearly distinguish their products from high carbon competitors;
to explore the role of coordinated action on public procurement to create demand for green industrial products, helping to drive down costs and allowing a broader market to develop;
to use the government’s Infrastructure Delivery Taskforce, named ‘Project Speed’, to ensure the land planning regime is fit for building low carbon infrastructure;
to work with the recently re-constituted Steel Council to consider the implications of the recommendation of the Climate Change Committee to ‘set targets for ore-based steelmaking to reach near-zero emissions by 2035’;
support the skills transition so that the current and future workforce benefit from the creation of new green jobs;
an expectation that industrial emissions will fall by two-thirds by 2035, and by at least 90 per cent by 2050, compared to 2018 levels; and
an expectation that at least 3 megatons ofCO₂is captured within industry per year by 2030, compared to minimal levels at present.

The areas receiving £932m government investment through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) in England include Greater Manchester Combined Authority which will receive £78m to decarbonise 15 bodies of the Greater Manchester public estate, including Transport for Greater Manchester, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, Greater Manchester Police, the Royal Northern College of Music, and various Greater Manchester community buildings, including 36 schools and 22 leisure centres. The buildings will get extensive upgrades, including air source heat pumps, solar panels to generate and create their own electricity and new lighting systems.