The UK's Net-Zero Target
With the passing of legislation in June 2019 the UK must now reach net-zero greenhouse gas (GH) emissions by 2050. To achieve this, a step change is required to both reduce emissions and where this isn't possible to offset those that are harder to avoid producing. This is a huge challenge as the demography of the UK shifts and is made even more complex by the legacy of an economy that has been powered by fossil fuels for decades.
On 26 February 2020, I had the pleasure of charing an evidence gathering session for the 2020 version of the ICE's flagship State of the Nation report. Following the UK's new legislation, the ICE announced that the "to inform policy development, the ICE has made a commitment that its annual State of the Nation report for 2020 will focus on identifying specific interventions to ensure that the UK's infrastructure sector makes a positive contribution to the net-zero GHG emissions target."
The ICE released a short policy paper shortly after the Government's announcement which explored the role of the infrastructure sector in contributing to the 2050 target, including a range of options for affecting change, the paper ("Civil engineering insights into the UK's 2050 greenhouse gas emissions net-zero target") is definitely worth a read and formed the foundation of the evidence gathering session that I chaired.
With the help of the ICE's North West Regional Director, Emma Antrobus, we were able to secure a presentation from Cadent Gas who are responsible for operating and maintaining 82,000 miles of gas network that serves 11 million homes and businesses. Cadent's External Affairs Manager, Jonathan Collins, kindly took us on a brief 'tour' of some of the projects that Cadent Gas are involved in to help reduce the impact of the gas network on GHG emissions. Cadent are looking at a number of really interesting initiatives (which I won't go into here on social media) and are certainly worth watching out for.
In terms of the debate, we had an impressive circa 60 people attend the event from a range of civil engineering disciplines, and covering clients, consultants and contractors. The rules of the debate were clear, we were not there to discuss the 2050 target itself (or to debate the policies/politics that have resulted in the legislation), nor were we there to discuss the underpinning climate science. What ensued was (in my opinion) a full hour of debate with the audience participants.
We discussed a range of different issues, from increase use of electric vehicles (and the infrastructure required to ensure we can operate them across the country with the electrical supply required to meet the demand, as well as the need for electric vehicle technology to advance enough to not need excessive charging times). Equally, it was raised that the need to individuals to own their own vehicles was decreasing, what with the new generation of young professionals who have grown up without the need to own physical assets such as houses and cars. As one member of the audient put it, 'bricks and mortar are no longer safe investments, nor are they affordable for a large percentage of the popuation'. I'm inclined to agree with the statement, particularly when the majority of the time, cars are sat, parked on driveways or in carparks. Couple this with the fact that in 2018, we collectively travelled 254 billion miles the highest ever recorded and you can see the logic that tackling the way we travel is a large incentive to help reduce our GHG emissions.
Other participants noted that there is also a need to tackle the way that clients (and we as an industry) procure projects. With there being an overwhelming abscence of consideration to sustainble practices when assessing tenders. The business case approach that is outlined in teh Green Book (published by Her Magesty's Treasury) has been criticised for not being wide reaching enough when considering the benefits of a proposed scheme (the ICE has also released a policy paper on 'Civil engineering insights into alternative ways of appraising infrastructure procurement' that I intend to cover in a separate post). I'm also in agreement with this. If we truly want to make a difference with new projects going forwards, we need to make a concerted effort as an industry to move all of the measures that are promised as part of bids, from that bidding stage and firmly into the delivery phase (and not remove them from scope under the broad headding of 'value engineering' - personally in most cases we should call a duck a duck and rebadge what is currently labelled as 'value engineering' as 'cost cutting'. The longer we accept the falsehood, the harder it will be for our industry to truly change).
The final point I want to pick up here in this post (and let me be absolutely honest, I'm not able to provide an account of all the points raised during the discussions, the discussion was fantastic), we are discussing the need to reduce our GHG emissions to meet the target of net-zero by 2050 (various local authorities across the country have set out plans to meet that target ahead of 2050), as engineers and problem solvers, do we understand our own carbon footprint? Do we know how our lives impact on these targets and what we can do to make changes? Should we not actually live the values that we are suggesting our clients and the ultimate end users (the general public) live?
I'd like to leave those final questions with you and feel free to post your thoughts in the comment space below.
The ICE will be publishing the 2020 State of the Nation report later in the year and I'm looking forward to providing an update on what made it in alongside the evidnece gathering from the other regions across the UK.