Article #4 : the middle two… within our gift : heat and buildings, and transport
Edward Morley
Helping transport organisations to transform their capability to release value, improving performance. Bringing ingenuity and creativity as we solve their most complex and strategic asset management decisions together.
In my last article I introduced descriptions of the UK government’s first three themes for decarbonisation – power, fuel and hydrogen, and industry as a whole.?In this blog I follow up with two areas within our gift – the areas of heat and buildings, and of transport, which includes surface, aviation and maritime. These ideas are set out in the government’s Net Zero Strategy.
We all have a part to play, be that in restricting and reducing consumption, or in being a micro-producer of zero emission power.
I’ve grouped these two themes as those which we are most likely to have an element of control over.?
Whilst the UK remains one of the worst insulated economies (for building standards) and still a relative laggard in the creation of zero-tailpipe emissions infrastructure and ownership (be that Battery Electric Vehicles – BEV – or something else), we do have potential, as individuals, to do something about this.?
For many, we now use our residential properties differently in the post-Covid era and this has changed our heating and power consumption.?Wider geopolitics has also changed the price for heating homes, and this may be the accelerator to the change we need to make anyway.?Where the greatest reduction in heating and power may be to use none at all, the next best options are to reduce (improve loss through insulation / draft exclusion), change habits (heating and usage patterns) and self-creation (where affordable).?As we move forward, these small incremental gains / offsets by many will support both the value for all.
In the transport space, the bow-waves of change in what we are offered to drive are changing, but so also are the needs for which many of us use transportation. Again, the post Covid world has changed to a more dynamic hybrid ecosystem.
In doing so, they have created possibilities and needs not presented in the 2021 Net Zero strategy, from the creation of “place” – where services are provided closer to communities, and for a changing demand for things like broadband services.?I talk more about these in Article #8.
As transport habits change, so there is possibility to change them further, through greater efforts to integrate transport modes to their sweet spots for freight, short and long-distance passenger journeys, and new active travel (walking, cycling etc) options.?The wave of new e-mobility is also emerging as a new “mode” where the service of green first and last-mile travel and logistics become a real opportunity and likely significant share of the market.
These are exciting changes, often being driven by private investment and mass consumer choice.
Yet, be it for heating and buildings, or transport, the initiation of wholesale change is still going to need impetus from government policy and supply chain readiness.?It remains unclear to me whether the transition in this space will be driven by the public purse or incentivised through private investment.?Indeed, the cost model as it is emerging, appears to be different across the four countries of the union.
Heating and Buildings
“improve the energy efficiency of housing and non-domestic properties, ensuring they require less energy to heat, and are less dependent on imported energy.”
?
Challenges:
Choices:
Key policies:
Transport?
Domestic – “transforming to greener, faster and more efficient transport. Our streets will be cleaner and people healthier from breathing cleaner air, walking and cycling more.”
?
Challenges:
Choices:
Key policies:
Transport – international aviation and shipping
“setting out an ambitious position on SAF to decarbonise this challenging sector, whist building on maritime decarbonisation”
?Challenges:
·??????We live in a world of global trade and commerce, where the movement of goods and people has enabled wide global economic progress, social mobility and advances in standards of living requiring imports and exports.?Any significant effort to decarbonise is likely to need to challenge some of this expectation in how we live.
·??????Both aviation and shipping are, for different reasons, difficult to decarbonise without cost increase – and therefore innovation to produce more efficient movement (together with compromises on speed and scale) will need to be considered.
Choices:
·??????Innovate towards new solutions – accept the rebalancing of cost, performance and risk that such alternatives may create.
·??????Re-evaluate the cost expectations of fast goods (everything from fashion to one-time use products to seasonality of foods to non-recyclable products) – and in doing so, re-evaluate the cost / penalty of such choices where we choose them.
·??????Seek to offer slower, but more sustainable solutions – be that movement of freight or people.
Key policies:
I truly believe that we will need incentivised and penalised mechanisms from both ends of the spectrum to achieve the contribution to decarbonisation from heating and transport.?These areas touch every persons life, yet for many the capital investments to make changes will need external support.
We must seek both to consume less of both heating and transport, as much as we must seek new alternatives to the fuels that we use to provide them. We must then do yet more, to reduce and recycle the thermodynamic losses of any energy creation into a circular economy for heat waste that benefits us all.?There is little point in decarbonising if we continue to heat the planet through wasteful behaviours.
A series of articles
In the series of articles that follow this one, I set out to present the visual narrative, and the contributions that are made over seven themes set out by the UK government’s Net Zero Strategy.
UK government’s?Net Zero Strategy.
Video :?navigating a journey to zero
Article #1 :?a description of the journey over time
Article #2 :?a description of the journey over time
Article?#3 : the first three movers… national infrastructure : power, fuel and hydrogen, and industry
Article?#5 : the final two… the world we live in : natural resources, waste and fluoride gases, and greenhouse gas removal
Article?#6 : a complex system of systems
Article?#7 : the mindset and capability for net zero readiness
Article?#8 : so what’s missing?
Delivering transformative change and innovation to put people and place at the heart a sustainable transport system
1 年Great reflections Edward Morley. The key for me is to pivot towards seeing movement (of both people and goods) as an output of our social and economic system, which could be redesigned to allow people to lead fulfilling lives without requiring them to move around so much. We currently treat movement - both current and forecast future - as as input to the design of that system (“our forecasting suggests people will move around this much in future, so we need to design the system to accommodate that amount of movement”). This is more about the distance people travel - or feel they have to travel - than the number of trips they make. We need to work back from the kind of society we want to have (one that is compatible with a finite world); work out how people can get equitable and sustainable access to goods, service and opportunities in that society; and then plan, deliver, operate and integrate the transport and other systems needed to provide that access. Stephen Elderkin Andrew Morsley Andrew Summers Martin Tugwell
Commercial | Procurement | Strategy | Programme Leadership | Innovation | Transport | Public Sector Procurement
1 年Louisa Andrews Really interesting consideration here is the role that learning/training can take.... helping individuals understand the contributions they can make and how to. I wonder if there is an opportunity to pilot this within a region / business function to see if it drives improved net zero behaviours.
Management Consultant at PA Consulting
1 年Very interesting and comprehensive article! On domestic transport, I agree we need to see policy levers being used to encourage uptake of new zero emission vehicles. I think there's a risk of over-reliance on electrifying the existing vehicle fleet. It needs to happen, but the importance of other changes alongside this can't be understated. Perhaps this is a fourth choice under your domestic transport section - change the way we make existing journeys. Connected, reliable and affordable public transport systems (which will need to include significant public subsidy and wholesale change to the current system of privatised rail) both inter-city and within cities, plus some fundamental transport planning changes to enable more active travel within towns and cities would take us a lot of the way towards reducing domestic transport emissions. Coupling that with newer technology - such as mass transit CAV corridors connecting towns and cities - could take us even further.
Simplifying complexity, driving out ambiguity and supporting decisions through digital innovation
1 年Thanks for Article #4 Edward! Systems of systems feedback loops are what come to mind on this. Using outputs as inputs for other systems can only be the way forward for the future. How do you actually integrate organisations, buildings or technologies that wouldn't normally work in the same space?!? Breaking technology on Rolling Stock to generate power for other systems is a great example (but old and probably could be more effective) using modern technology. My question, therefore, is how do we try and draw more from other systems and how can we keep updating our existing systems when the financial business case may not support this?