‘Net zero needs a departmental home — but not the one it found in Sunak’s recent reshuffle’
If we want to unlock the UK’s full capabilities towards net zero, we must unite business, innovation, communities and social resilience in a department at the heart of government, says Emily Morrison.
‘’’Net zero is creating a new era of opportunity,’ found the UK government’s independent review of progress towards net zero, in January 2023 — ‘but government, industry, and individuals need to act to make the most of the opportunities, reduce costs, and ensure we deliver successfully’.
This UK- centred review brings down to a national and then local level what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found in 2018: that achieving net zero would bring ‘clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems… (which could go) hand in hand with ensuring a more equitable and sustainable society’. This sets starkly the opportunity for societal transformation that a successful transition to net zero presents for people, place, polity, and equality.
The Prime Minister’s creation of a department with net zero in the title is, therefore, a long overdue sliver of progress. But he has situated it with energy and security, and this underestimates both the ‘long emergency’ we face, and the scale of the challenge reaching net zero involves.
Net zero is not a challenge solely of energy regulation, infrastructure adaptation, and crisis mitigation — as the name of Sunak’s new department suggest. It is a challenge of participation. Participation of government, our communities, businesses, councils, investors, hospitals, schools, universities, and voluntary sector. Participation of every family and every household. Participation of people, democratically, in an agenda that needs to be government-led and people-powered; on a scale we have never experienced in history.
Unlocking capabilities and opportunities
Achieving net zero carbon emissions means change to every domain of life and society. As the UK Energy Research Centre’s briefings and the Treasury’s own Net Zero Review (2021) state, it is not just about where we get our energy, it’s about how we change our homes, economies, infrastructure, and ways of life to be more sustainable (UKERC, 2020). Our analysis of the policy levers, assets and innovation currently being invested in by government found that most stopped short of facilitating multi-sector engagement and public participation in net zero. This is a shortcoming particularly given we know 95% of people want to participate in net zero ; and the government’s ‘Mission Zero’ review, published as recently as 13 January 2023, which identified that over half of the policies needed to achieve net zero require public participation.
The UN’s recent analysis is that we can still avoid catastrophic disaster from climate change caused by the increase in global temperatures beyond 1.5C through ‘urgent system-wide transformation’ of societies globally (UNEP 2022a). This shows that net zero is an opportunity of place, economy, and community — not a challenge of energy and security, or even just technology and economy. If ‘system-wide transformation’ is what is needed, why is the net zero brief in government being siloed away from other key cornerstone areas of policy that the government’s own independent review found as critical to deliver it successfully? That report identified research, development, and innovation; the ‘circular economy;’ and a ‘Net Zero Local Big Bang’ as key policy areas (2022, pg 9) — yet Sunak’s restructure is a conscious decoupling of one of those from the net zero brief, and a failure to unite the other two.
Leading — or following?
There is already a thriving and active business, investment, public sector, and charitable community working in public-private partnerships to effect inclusive change towards net zero for local places. The OECD’s analysis found a ‘sharp growth’ in investors’ use of ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) approaches to align investment with low carbon transition (2021), while acknowledging the sector still has challenges — from lack of available data for what will effect what outcomes; where approaches should be targeted; and vast inconsistencies of approaches that do not always align with the public sector’s role in place. Equally important, in every local authority across the country, net zero is being looked at in the round. They know we cannot think about green transport without thinking about policies that enable people to use it; considering what a rise of EV (Electric Vehicles) charging points means for the way wheelchairs and ambulances use pavements; or the positive benefits of less air pollution.
Net zero is where economy, innovation and community intersect. Research from the academic, charity and social investment sectors — including analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit into the distributed economic opportunities of net zero and recent research by Legal & General into the value of a low carbon home — evidence the demand for low-carbon living from consumers and business, and the wider benefits of it in terms of societal and economic outcomes. Our extensive programme of work funded by the Nuffield Foundation considers the evidence in the round and engages in an assessment of the capacity of every place and community to participate in net zero. We seek to explain in depth how policy around transition to net zero can avoid or exacerbate social, economic, and environmental injustice affecting the poorest people in UK society. The government’s own analysis in 2021 stated that, if managed effectively by policy, there can be significant economic and social gains from net zero and co-benefits in terms of population health and wellbeing from net zero, facilitated by opportunities for ‘innovation, employment and investment’. This means we need to organise policy differently in order to accelerate and empower innovation in public-private and community partnership towards UK’s response to reach net zero.
A call for greater ambition
In place of Sunak’s new Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero, a department that brought community, business and environment together would formalise and empower ways of working that innovators in this space are already sold on — and provide opportunities for more ambitious, scaled, and universal benefit to flow across the whole of the UK. Without it, we will still lack the tools, policies, and structures for participation to get a transition right that requires ‘whole system’ transformation. There is an absence of good, consolidated evidence of ‘what works where’ to build sustainability. And (most of all) holistic policies that are person-centred and build participation in net zero are not being provided, resourced, or incentivised.
The pandemic has shown that resilience in communities can enable better bounce-back from shocks. We need to organise policymaking in such a way that capitalises on this now. The wider ecosystem of business, innovation and community is already embracing working together in the places, economies, and communities where net zero will most impact. It’s time for national government to structure a department and policymaking to do the same.
Emily Morrison is the Head of the Young Foundation’s Institute for Community Studies.
