Engineering priorities for delivering net-zero
The UK is facing the most significant challenge it has ever encountered. The responsibility to drastically reduce our impact on the climate falls on all areas, industries and sections of society.
Decarbonising quickly and effectively to hit our net-zero target by 2050 requires urgent, clear and decisive leadership. It will require large-scale political and policy action and it will need a great number of actions to be taken simultaneously.
Combine this with the increasing interconnectedness and complexity of infrastructure, and it is vital that a joined-up, “whole-system” approach is prioritised. The impact of the growth in electric transport, for example, must be considered in conjunction with the future of heat, the decentralisation of energy and upgrades required to electricity infrastructure.
In this paper, we set out our engineering priorities for upcoming policy decisions that will allow the UK to achieve its net-zero target. These priorities are divided across Transport, Systems and Infrastructure, Sustainable Manufacturing, Efficiency and Heat and Generation and Storage.