We’re delighted to announce that we have been awarded a significant research project by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) to develop crucial evidence on four hard-to-abate industrial sectors, considering their economic competitiveness, decarbonisation and growth opportunities.
While electrification offers a clear pathway for many industries, some sectors face unique decarbonisation challenges. These “hard-to-abate” sectors include those with unavoidable process emissions, operations requiring extremely high temperatures, or reliance on carbon-based feedstocks that cannot simply be switched out.
Our project will focus on four critical UK industrial sectors: refining, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, cement, and lime, which collectively accounted for 39% of industrial emissions in 2023. We’ll examine both direct emissions and broader supply chain impacts to provide DESNZ with a comprehensive understanding of decarbonisation options, economic trajectories, and growth opportunities during the Net Zero transition.
The research spans three key objectives: understanding each sector’s current state and evolution since 1990, identifying future transition scenarios and decarbonisation pathways, and determining the actions and barriers critical to achieving these scenarios.
We’re excited to be collaborating with leading academic experts on this important work: from Imperial College London via Imperial Consultants, University of Birmingham, Ellaniti, Foresight Transitions and Independent Economics.
This project represents a major opportunity to shape the future of UK industrial decarbonisation policy and support these vital sectors through the transition to Net Zero.
