**PROBLEM:** Aviation decarbonisation requires urgent scaling of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) production, with Government mandating 22% sustainable fuel by 2040\[1\]. Simultaneously, local authorities face rising waste disposal costs as Energy from Waste (EfW) facilities enter the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from 2028, adding an estimated £98 per tonne of fossil CO2\. Current approaches to waste-to-SAF development lack integrated frameworks connecting waste availability, suitable sites, and viable finance structures, preventing progression from feasibility studies to investable projects. **OUR AIM:** Our aim is to transform waste-to-SAF from concept to practical delivery pathways by addressing critical barriers identified in our Net Zero Living Phase 2 feasibility study. We will create the first comprehensive local authority-led framework enabling councils to develop investable SAF projects using residual Municipal Solid Waste, positioning the Heathrow Strategic Planning Group (HSPG) area as a leader in regional SAF production whilst creating nationally replicable methodologies. **OUR SOLUTION:** We will develop integrated tools addressing systemic barriers. These include: a replicable siting framework identifying viable locations based on utilities, transport links, and planning constraints; validated feedstock analysis quantifying waste availability and regulatory compliance; economic modelling comparing SAF pathways with traditional disposal under changing policy landscapes; template partnership agreements reducing developer risk and transaction costs; and stakeholder engagement models aligning local authority capabilities with industry investment needs. **END USERS:** Primary users include HSPG local authorities, waste operators, Heathrow Airport, airlines, SAF producers, and the finance sector. The replicable framework will benefit councils nationwide seeking alternative waste management pathways whilst supporting aviation industry SAF procurement requirements. **OUTCOMES:** This project will deliver: •A comprehensive SAF production siting framework and regional site shortlist •Validated feedstock and policy compliance toolkit •Economic evidence base comparing waste disposal options including ETS impacts •Finance and business models to deliver SAF successfully •Stakeholder engagement model and knowledge dissemination strategy **IMPACT:** Success positions the UK as a leader in waste-to-SAF development whilst providing local authorities with practical tools to address rising ETS costs. The project could enable attraction of £1.8bn+\[2\] investment in regional SAF infrastructure, create high-value green manufacturing jobs, and contribute significantly towards the 6.3mt\[1\] annual carbon savings required by the SAF Mandate. The replicable framework ensures benefits extend beyond the initial study area, supporting national aviation decarbonisation objectives whilst strengthening local authority resilience against evolving waste policy landscapes. \[1\] SAFMANDATE \[2\] UKGOVSAFInitiatives

**PROBLEM:** The maritime sector stands at the cusp of a profound energy transition, facing critical decisions on environmentally effective and operationally feasible decarbonisation: research suggests that **70% of ports are already at or near to their ceiling in terms of available power**.\[1\] One key challenge is requirements to decarbonise port-owned and operated vessels by 2030, with biofuels identified as a likely near-term pathway. The project will assess the feasibility of fuel switching, grid connectivity upgrades, and infrastructure phasing, all while aligning technical plans with the operational needs of vessel operators. **PortLAEP** supports our maritime partners in navigating these challenges by providing a framework for port-based decarbonisation, turning strategic ambitions into implementable, real-world plans. **OUR AIM** is to transform complex port energy systems by leveraging our cutting-edge Local Area Energy Planning (LAEP) expertise and thought leadership into developing a bespoke, port-focused methodology. We have previously delivered targeted decarbonisation pathways across port-based local authorities such as Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, South West Wales, and are presently delivering one for Hull & East Riding. **OUR SOLUTION, PortLAEP,** involves creating a digital twin of a port to model how alternative fuels (e.g. biofuels, ammonia, and shore power) can be scaled effectively. It simulates interactions between vessels, fuels, and infrastructure under different scenarios, helping decision-makers clearly understand trade-offs, phasing options, and investment needs. **END-USERS:** The ports of Hull (via Hull City Council) and Neath Port Talbot will validate the digital twin using real port data, ensuring PortLAEP reflects operational needs and supports scalable, actionable decarbonisation planning across ports. **INNOVATION:** This cutting-edge work will deliver: * A dynamic modelling framework tailored for maritime decarbonisation. * A digital twin representing the port's future energy system. * Technoeconomic feasibility studies covering infrastructure and fuel transitions. * A detailed, phased investment roadmap to support implementation. * Enhanced technical capacity within the maritime sector for planning NZ transitions. **OUTCOMES** will empower maritime authorities, operators, and planners with tools and insights needed to make evidence-based, cost-effective decisions. Clearly articulating implications of different technological pathways (e.g. interplays between shore power and alternative fuels) our modelling will drive forward understanding, investment, and emissions reductions. In addition to supporting local action, this project contributes to national maritime decarbonisation by creating transferable insights to accelerate emissions cuts across UK ports. It supports the UK's goals of 30% emissions reduction by 2030 and NZ 2050, while driving innovation and economic growth within maritime. \[1\]BritishPortsAssociation

Digital Twins are a vital tool for modernising, planning, and optimising energy operations. We propose a multi-faceted solution to transform interoperability, based on a foundational data model and cloud architecture, enabling secure linking of data across divisions and regions and from external data services. Our project develops a first-of-a-kind digital twin within a DNO, creating for the first time: * An internal data model for DNOs, taking learnings from the UKPN digital twin programme. * An internal-external data model to enable DNO interoperability with external LAEP and transport forecasts. * End-to-end integration of internal and external forecasts to deliver a dynamic digital twin use case within the East Midlands.

**BUSINESS CHALLENGE:** Detailed transport models are critical for supporting infrastructure investment and increasingly help local authorities understand their actions to decarbonise transport. However, transport models are expensive and time consuming to build. Production inefficiency places a sizeable constraint on progress, hindering organisations that wish to test new interventions/infrastructure or monitor their effects. **PROJECT GOAL:** Our vision is to use AI to address current manual approaches and develop an end-to-end pipeline for full model automation. We aim to develop a system that delivers a first-of-its-kind model, meeting relevant industry benchmarks essential to achieving industry acceptance. We will work closely with users throughout the project to ensure AI is used to address clear user needs. This project focuses on the transport demand modelling stage and builds on feasibility work in Phase 1\. In particular, Phase 2 undertakes more detailed calibration of the demand modelling stage, using AI to in-fill/process/recommend key data gaps.

The UK's natural environment was valued at a stock of £1.5 trillion in 2021, but its habitats decreased by 24% from 1990 to 2024, reflecting a pressing need for investment into nature and natural restoration. However, investment into nature lacks adequate support throughout the planning system. Common hurdles include high transaction costs, planning obstacles, uncertainties in policy-making, and opacity concerning regional opportunities. Land allocation is critical to supporting this investment, as examples in _Heat Network Zoning_ have demonstrated. But this doesn't exist in nature, and is often considered as an afterthought to planning. Additionally, local authorities lack the resources and understanding to address critical land-use trade offs and nature promotion within their required Local Plans. To enable investment, it is critical that allocation of land for nature is promoted within Local Plans. By combining our expertise in the following key business areas: * Geospatial data and digital planning solutions; * Climate finance advice specialising in offsets and carbon credits our solution (NILAT) will aim to reduce ecological habitat losses, restoring the value of natural capital and creating revenue for local authorities. This inclusion of nature in Local Plans will create project pipelines, accelerating investment through certainty and increased financial and social investment analysis.

In many rural areas, the current state of transport data sharing is marked by a critical lack of discoverability, transparency and accessibility, hindering efficient and inclusive mobility solutions for residents. The cost of not opening transport data is estimated to be £15bn with rural transport a key overlooked area. Our project architects a first-of-its-kind Rural Transport data-sharing ecosystem, working in depth with Somerset County Council, while remaining fully-informed by user needs across wider rural authorities. By improving access to rural transport data via data exchange methods, our project will enable multiple benefits including economic/productivity benefits, reduced social isolation, improved access to services, reduced inequality and an enhanced ability to target investment to the greatest areas of need.

Our vision in this project is to leverage the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to streamline and optimize the creation of multi-modal transport models. By combining City Science's expertise in transport models and AI processes with cutting-edge techniques from the University of Exeter, a novel, end-to-end, AI-driven process will be developed, offering significant benefits. Through this project we will deliver a cost-effective, efficient, and highly accurate modelling process that adheres to industry/governmental standards, transforming the transportation sector in the UK and internationally.

This Phase 2 Pathfinder bid is made by Runnymede Borough Council, working in collaboration with the eight Local Authorities and three Local Enterprise Partnerships that make up the Heathrow Strategic Planning Group (HSPG). Our Phase 1 Net Zero Pathfinder project established the concept of addressing decarbonisation challenges at the Functional Carbon Area (FCA) scale. This means working collaboratively across a number of administrative boundaries to better understand the challenges and opportunities that exist to reduce emissions across an appropriate geography that practically influences carbon emissions. The geography of a functional carbon area is one that takes into account the root sources of emissions, and in particular the nature of transport and electricity grid networks. Our Phase 2 Pathfinder project seeks to operationalise this finding, through a series of targeted pilots and extended feasibility studies. These aim to develop some of the most compelling and deliverable ideas arising from Phase 1 for overcoming non-technical barriers relating to **governance/cross boundary collaboration** and **finance.** Specifically: \*Pilot the development of an aviation sector specific local carbon offset market -- getting investment from the airport and airlines into local decarbonisation projects with a particular focus on the delivery of Electric Vehicle Charging Points and domestic retrofit projects. \*Revision of the HSPG Joint Strategic Planning Framework to explore practical planning levers to deliver net zero across the sub-region \*Undertake a sub-regional transport planning study, focusing on airport related movements and how these can be most effectively decarbonised via better collaboration and the integrated roll-out of low barriers to entry interventions, e.g. active travel and bus-based solutions. \*Explore opportunities to explore how better partnership work on energy use between LAs, LEPs and the airport can help hasten the transition to net zero. We want to undertake a specific high level feasibility into the potential for generating sustainable aviation fuel from local authority waste streams. Developing and implementing the above pilots and feasibility studies will enable the delivery of a first-of-a-kind concepts which will allow our programme to maximise innovation and impact, leveraging the region's nationally significant scale and economic power to deliver sector-leading results.

**CHALLENGE:** The UK has the oldest and least insulated homes in Europe \[1\], and there is an urgent need to deliver domestic retrofit at scale. Retrofitting leaky properties can dramatically reduce energy bills, reducing the risk of fuel poverty for millions. 17% of UK emissions come from domestic sources \[2\], so widespread insulation will bring us significantly closer to the UK's 2050 net-zero target. There is an opportunity for digital tools to make this process much easier for consumers by providing convenience and insight into their property's needs, without the need for costly property surveys by retrofit assessors. However, the limited number of digital tools on the market produce reports written in inaccessible language, which are not engaging for consumers, therefore deterring consumers from proceeding with the retrofit process. Existing tools do not join up with directories for installers, nor financing options. This can leave customers unsure how to proceed, feeling that the process is overly complex or the recommended property upgrades are unaffordable. In addition, consumers may not know where to look for finance or what grants they may be eligible for. Additionally, current retrofit tools rely on broad estimates for energy savings and do not feature monitoring to validate these values, further reducing consumer trust in the process, making them less likely to progress. **OUR PROJECT:** Our project uses Humanity-Centred Design to reimagine the design of retrofit reports. We will build on our existing Net-Zero Buildings tool through consumer surveys and focus groups to optimise communication and increase engagement. The project will utilise a Living Lab to trial and test different consumer messaging to maximise retrofit uptake. **KEY OBJECTIVES:** * Design interactive and user-friendly retrofit reports through direct engagement with homeowners * Bridge the gap between retrofit reporting tools, funding providers, and local installers through a streamlined "One-Stop Shop" customer journey approach * Test and validate different messaging/communication strategies through use of a Living Lab \[1\] The\_Housing\_Stock\_of\_the\_United\_Kingdom-BRE\_Trust-(2020) \[2\] EPC\_Action\_Plan-UK\_Government -(2021)

Our team is currently completing a study (funded by CCAV & InnovateUK) examining the feasibility of delivering Dedicated Driverless Spaces (DDS) for articulated buses on two five mile sections of the Hertfordshire Essex Rapid Transit (HERT). A key constraint of our current study is that we can only consider fully physically segregated sections of the HERT. This project will focus on the feasibility of unlocking the full potential of autonomous buses through considering mixed traffic environments through Watford and St Albans town centres at either end of the St Albans Abbey Line, to integrate with our physically segregated route.

**CHALLENGE:** The planning system is one of the key mechanisms to transform where we live and work into net-zero places. Planning is therefore a key lever for Local Authorities to meet environmental targets and create sustainable places. Local plans without a focus on environmental and social considerations can result in decisions that cause new development, infrastructure and land use changes to prevent a transition to a low-carbon future. Public consultation is a vital component of local planning. It helps to embed social considerations maximising the effectiveness of the plans, and also fosters ownership, participation, and ultimately behaviour change. In an increasingly online world, digital tools for public consultation have the potential to offer increased accessibility and convenience. However, existing tools are not comprehensive and are unsuitable for larger schemes. They have not been optimised for usability, comprehension, personal connection or accessibility standards. Users are required to absorb information from piecemeal sources which can cause confusion, reduced participation and inaccurate responses. **OUR PROJECT:** Our project aims to re-invent public consultation in local planning to ensure buy-in for and maximise pace of net-zero delivery. We aim to build a new public consultation and engagement tool that deeply and meaningfully embeds public needs into local planning processes, thereby supporting the development of net-zero places. We will work directly with the public to understand how they would like to receive information about the environment and climate change and how we can optimise feedback mechanisms in the tool. This will enable resulting local plans to have greater potential for transforming the local environment by addressing true citizen need.

As cities and regions seek to decarbonise, shifting away from cars presents a major challenge. In recent years there have been significant advances in the availability of real-time multi-modal data driven by Computer Vision solutions. However, despite access to multi-modal data, traffic network operations in cities are still heavily focused on the flow of cars. Our project develops a next-generation ITS/Network Management system to deliver integrated insights and coordination across all modes of transport including cycling, walking and bus.

City Science will develop and test a first of it's kind tool for providing "Investment Grade Proposals for Portfolio Retrofit". The core idea behind this tool is to help break down some of the key barriers to scalable retrofit and accelerate the decarbonisation of the UK building stock. Key barriers, as recorded by the Green Finance Institute include: * The lack of certainty in the benefits of retrofit measures * A lack of incentives to incur the high upfront costs Our proposed tool addresses these barriers by: * Utilising a highly evidenced, data driven approach to provide the required certainty around the benefits of retrofit measures. * Unlocking access to finance by providing certainty around financial, environmental, and social return on investment. * Providing solutions which best satisfy the needs of all parties In phase 1 of this competition we developed and tested the technical and commercial feasibility of our proposal as well as it user acceptability. Within phase 2 we will test our solution in a real-world environment through collaboration with large portfolio owners and managers, as well as the supply chain.

**BUSINESS CHALLENGE:** Detailed transport models are critical for supporting infrastructure investment and increasingly to help local authorities understand their actions to decarbonise transport. However, transport models are expensive and time consuming to build. Production inefficiency places a sizeable constraint on progress, hindering organisations that wish to test new interventions/infrastructure or monitor their effects. **PROJECT GOAL:** Our vision is to use AI to address current manual approaches and develop an end-to-end pipeline for full model automation. We aim to develop a system that delivers a first-of-its-kind, and meets relevant industry benchmarks essential to achieving industry acceptance. We will work closely with users throughout the project to ensure AI is used to address clear user needs.

Our project defines and demonstrates an Open, Advanced EPC specification and delivery system that brings together for the first time: * The Building Performance Network's standard for in-use monitoring (BS 40101) * Smart Meter Enabled Thermal Efficiency Ratings (SMETERs) * And traditional EPC processes (to ensure wide-spread uptake). By doing this, we create and demonstrate an industry-leading in-use monitoring system that is backwardly compatible with EPCs, driving adoption and understanding, while also supporting the data architecture, open modelling and compliance with the industry standard and best-practice approaches for in-use performance monitoring. Combining advanced remote monitoring approaches with a digitised building survey will overcome the challenges of both methods in isolation and demonstrate a highly accurate and efficient method to drive greater assurance of real-world emission-reducing interventions.

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Independent Commission for Climate (CPICC) estimated that £700m p.a. of funding will be required through the 2020s to decarbonise the area, and identified the need for an ambitious funding plan. This project seeks to build on this work, developing a series of practical and implementable place-based finance and funding packages to accelerate the delivery of net zero. Funding and financing Cambridgeshire's Net Zero ambitions is a significant challenge. We must look beyond the public purse and engage with private sector investment. The CANFFUND Project will look at the financial flows of money to identify where/how money is currently spent/invested through the economy and use **systems thinking** approaches to co-design mechanisms to redirect finance/funding/purchasing toward low carbon, local solutions. The initial focus is on power, heat, mobility and product manufacturing. Only by working in collaboration with partners and communities, across all sectors, utilising findings from existing and ongoing research programmes, can we identify and be part of the levers and opportunities for new financing innovations, and create the place based, local net zero financing framework we need. The project will bring together stakeholders from across community, business, public sector and investors to share understanding of the challenge and collaborate on solutions. This will build capacity, capability and skills and bring new opportunities to explore, such as the commercial and financial investments required for rural, farming and Agri-tech communities. All of this will extend and enhance work of the Connected Places Catapult, 3Ci project and other research programmes and disseminate learning. Our project will build on research by 3CI and others and seek to apply concepts of bundling projects together across power, heat and mobility into different proxy places. These proxy places will reflect the rural nature of Cambridgeshire's oil-dependent villages; market towns and low density urban communities, to identify the differences and benefits in 'places' for financing and funding Net Zero. The project uses an innovative "finance-first" approach to investigate the financial opportunities across the whole system and co-develop tangible solutions with all stakeholders and communities.

City Science are proposing to build and test a first of it's kind tool for providing "Investment Grade Proposals for Portfolio Retrofit". The core idea behind this tool is to help break down some of the key barriers to scalable retrofit and accelerate the decarbonisation of the U.K. building stock. Key barriers, as recorded by the Green Finance Institute include: * The lack of certainty in the benefits of retrofit measures * A lack of incentives to incur the high upfront costs Our proposed tool addresses these barriers by: * Utilizing a highly evidenced, data driven approach to provide the required certainty around the benefits of retrofit measures. * Unlocking access to finance by providing certainty around financial, environmental, and social return on investment. * Providing solutions which best satisfy the needs of all parties In phase 1 of this competition we will develop and test the technical and commercial feasibility of our proposal as well as it user acceptability. Within phase 2 we would then test our solution of an extensive set of live trail buildings to assess it credibility.

**How do you decarbonise a community in the presence of a nationally significant hard-to-decarbonise asset/industry?** **PLACE:** Runnymede is a small Borough in Surrey, measuring only 30 square miles with approximately 79% of its area within the Metropolitan Green Belt. Despite this idyllic sounding location, Runnymede is hampered by multiple proximate carbon producers outside its control: \*Both the M25 and M3 bring significant traffic through the borough. \*Runnymede is five miles from the UK's largest and busiest airport-- Heathrow. Accessibility to Heathrow makes Runnymede a highly desirable business location. However, this also creates significant economic dependence on a hard-to-decarbonise industry and nationally significant asset. As a core member of the Heathrow Strategy Planning Group (HSPG), Runnymede is part of an "Airport Community" that covers 11 Local Authorities all facing a similar dependence. **DECARBONISATION NEEDS:** Runnymede Borough Council (RBC) has a 2030 Net Zero target and has recently refreshed its climate change strategy. However, powerful outside influences ensure considerable challenges remain in decarbonising the borough. This project addresses RBC's critical needs and other HSPG authorities to: \***Work at a "Whole System" geography.** Runnymede is a "part player" in a much larger system, best viewed at the "Airport Community" level. Local strategies (e.g. Local Area Energy Plans - LAEPs) are currently in geographical silos insufficiently joined-up. \***Increase Influence over Externally Produced Carbon.** e.g., addressing the challenge of decarbonising through-traffic, alongside reducing the need to travel within a borough with significant out-commuting. \***Economics/Offset-Markets.** While there is significant investment by Heathrow and local businesses in Net Zero, economic benefits (e.g. international offsets) are largely flowing out of the region. **OUR PROJECT:** Our project takes a "whole system" view of Runnymede, conceptualising the Borough as part of a wider HSPG Airport Community to tackle how to influence currently uncontrolled actors through: \***Coordination/Governance:** Improving coordination, scenario-planning, prioritisation and investment within the Airport Community context. \***Behaviour Change and Influence:** Developing mechanisms to improve influence and coordination with external regions where carbon emissions originate. \***Delivering Local Benefits:** Working with Heathrow and large international businesses to enable decarbonisation funding (insets/offsets) to be recycled locally to maximise change. **INNOVATION:** Our project innovates by considering levers of influence within the concept of "functional carbon areas" and developing new co-operative approaches and synergies to unlock key barriers and maximise mutual benefits within the Heathrow Community. Our innovations cover joint governance, interoperability (e.g. of LAEPs), facilitating behaviour change, developing policy, and promoting offset-finance.

Portsmouth is a waterside city with a commercial international port and naval base with ambitious plans to become net zero by 2030\. Our project takes a whole-system view of Portsmouth as a "City Island", addressing challenges including: * Enhancing Coordination between key actors, sectors, communities and the DNO, * Strengthening Influence through policy and regulation while innovating in finance and behaviour change, * Working Collaboratively with the Port, Navy and shipping sector and wider anchor institutions including the NHS, University, Tourism sector and wider regional authorities to support decarbonisation. By establishing a new dynamic collaboration approach to accelerate delivery of critical infrastructure, our project delivers the innovation necessary to accelerate our route to Net Zero.

Scope 3 emissions are indirect emissions embedded throughout a company's value chain. These can be upstream, such as the indirect emissions fuelled by a company's supply chain, downstream, via the emissions generated by the use of a company's products and services, or part of operations, such as business travel. Scope 3 emissions can account for up to 90% of the total carbon impact within a business. Getting detailed data on Scope 3 emissions is therefore essential to understanding the transition risks that business faces, to improve visibility within investment portfolios and to enable companies and investors to make informed commercial decisions. Omitting scope 3 from contracting or portfolio analysis risks claims of greenwashing but also risks costly mispricing of assets. Our project will create a platform to provide detailed carbon analytics, including scope 3 for unlisted equities and SMEs. Our project creates a due diligence product, that will provide detailed and accurate scope 3 assessments for unlisted assets for use in commercial appraisals, monitoring of supply chains and to conduct sustainability due diligence. We will achieve this by scaling up the process we have successfully demonstrated by combining data consolidation and data in-filling techniques, with Scope 3 estimation approaches employed for listed equities. Our project will link detailed datasets for unlisted equities and SMEs with robust estimation and validation techniques to fill the critical gap in carbon intensity data.

**PROJECT:** Segregated, "Dedicated, Driverless" spaces are the most practical option to accelerate the roll-out of CAVs in the UK, overcoming major challenges such as safety, regulations, liabililty, communications infrastructure and cyber risks. Previous award-winning research conducted by the project team for the National Infrastructure Commission, identified and investigated 9 spatial 'typologies' of road that would benefit from segregated CAV operations. This project puts that research into practice to position the UK at the forefront of CAV deployment applying it in a real-world setting to maximise economic and social benefits. **APPLICATION:**Our project will apply the Dedicated Driverless Spaces approach to The Hertfordshire Essex Rapid Transit (HERT) - a highly-ambitious sustainable passenger transport network identified as being fundamental to greener and more efficienct travel on one of Hertfordshire/Essex's key travel corridors- the A414\. HERT is planned to run from Hemel Hempstead/West Watford, to Harlow in Essex and onwards to Stansted Airport to address critical congestion, support the switch to more sustainable modes and support delivery of 100,000 new homes and jobs.

**PROBLEM:** Rising energy prices are currently sparking a cost-of-living crisis, driving many into fuel poverty, exacerbating inequality while also diverting funds away from necessary energy transition projects. Many forecast that over half of the UK could enter fuel poverty by January 2023\. Local Authorities and communities have a desperate need for long-term solutions they can collectively support that can address the critical issues of poverty and inequality, while also promoting climate action. **OUR PROJECT:** Our project uses people and planet-centric design processes to re-invent Local Area Energy Plans to address the Cost of Living Crisis and deliver Affordable and Clean Energy to communities. Local area energy planning (LAEP) is a process which aims to inform, shape and enable key aspects of the transition to a net zero carbon energy system, garnering commitment, collaboration and partnership between Local Authorities, communities, business leaders and citizens, and, as a result catalyse local action to address critical energy challenges. Our project will use people and planet centred design processes and expertise to design a digital tool that will clearly link LAEPs to wider Sustainable Development Goals to improve energy affordability, reduce inequality, support sustainable communities, accelerate climate action and secure the partnerships necessary for success.

**PROBLEM:** Rising energy prices are currently sparking a cost-of-living crisis, driving many into fuel poverty, exacerbating inequality while also diverting funds away from necessary energy transition projects. Many forecast that over half of the UK could enter fuel poverty by January 2023\. Local Authorities and communities have a desperate need for long-term solutions they can collectively support that can address the critical issues of poverty and inequality, while also promoting climate action. **OUR PROJECT:** Our project uses people and planet-centric design processes to re-invent Local Area Energy Plans to address the Cost of Living Crisis and deliver Affordable and Clean Energy to communities. Local area energy planning (LAEP) is a process which aims to inform, shape and enable key aspects of the transition to a net zero carbon energy system, garnering commitment, collaboration and partnership between Local Authorities, communities, business leaders and citizens, and, as a result catalyse local action to address critical energy challenges. Our project will use people and planet centred design processes and expertise to design a digital tool that will clearly link LAEPs to wider Sustainable Development Goals to improve energy affordability, reduce inequality, support sustainable communities, accelerate climate action and secure the partnerships necessary for success.

**THE PROBLEM:** Moore's Law imposes a fundamental ceiling on what can be achieved by classical computing. This has an extensive impact on numerous applications, described as NP-hard/intractable problems, which simply cannot be feasibly solved on classical hardware. The transportation and energy sectors are home to numerous NP-hard problems. Computation speed is a critical customer issue with demonstrable demand for faster, larger models across both the transportation and energy sector. **OUR PROJECT:** Our project explores game-changing opportunities for faster computation by developing and testing the formulation of transport and energy optimisation problems as Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO) problems and Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithms (QAOA) relevant to different types of quantum hardware. Our innovation builds on techniques such as minor embedding and uses cutting-edge systems being developed in the UK and elsewhere.

Scope 3 emissions are indirect emissions (not included in Scope 2) embedded throughout a company's value chain. These can be upstream, such as the indirect emissions fuelled by a company's supply chain, or downstream, via the emissions generated by the use of a company's products and services. Scope 3 emissions can account for up to 90% of the total carbon impact within a business. Getting detailed data on Scope 3 emissions is therefore essential to understanding the transition risks that business faces, to improve visibility within investment portfolios and to enable companies and investors to make informed commercial decisions. Omitting scope 3 from contracting or portfolio analysis risks claims of greenwashing but also risks costly mispricing of assets. Our market opportunity is to create a platform to provide detailed carbon analytics, including scope 3 for unlisted equities and SMEs. Our project creates a due dilligence product, that will provide detailed and accurate scope 3 assessments for unlisted assets for use in commercial appraisals, monitoring of supply chains and to conduct sustainability due dilligence. We will achieve this by combining data consolidation and data in-filling techniques, with Scope 3 estimation approaches employed for listed equities. As a result our project will demonstrate how we can link the detailed datasets for unlisted equities and SMEs with robust estimation and validation techniques to fill the critical gap in carbon intensity data.

The built environment is responsible for 40% of global energy consumption, 40% of raw aggregate consumption and 25% of the world's wood consumption. In addition to direct demand for materials, all new housing/industrial developments induce additional consumption patterns and new demands for heat, electricity and transport. Collectively, these demands have material impacts on global GHG emissions and biodiversity loss. These issues will neither be overcome by the Future Homes Standard(2025), nor Whole Life Assessment, which both consider only a sub-set of the total impacts of the development(e.g. only operational energy and direct materials). Given the climate and biodiversity emergencies, many developers, stakeholders, local authorities and industry leaders are seeking to create developments that are truly sustainable- developments that reduce material use and make use of re-use and re-cycling opportunities across their lifecycles. Our vision is to specify and develop a new circular design tool for built environment professionals, which takes account of all impacts of the development (including induced activities such as transport, human activity and consumption). This will embed circular approaches at the earliest stage of design, reducing materials use and designing-out unsustainable consumption to deliver truly sustainable developments. By embedding circular decision-making within the masterplanning stage, we will support a step-change in the adoption of circular economy approaches within the built environment.

Our project objective is to build a generative design tool that will automate the optimal design of district heat energy networks. Currently, design is costly and time-consuming and often lacks sufficiently detailed data to ensure system efficiency. In many cases this leads to over-sizing of equipment which increases capital costs which are ultimately passed on to the end consumer or can make projects unviable. By developing a new, cutting-edge, generative design tool our project will accelerate district heat deployment, and enable the UK to meet its 2050 vision of 20% of heating demand being met by heat networks. 1) Using an automated, computer-driven process, we will radically reduce the up-front costs of modelling and system sizing; 2) Using the latest AI techniques combined with detailed geographic data we will optimise system design to increase the affordability of heat networks and maximise their viability. Our solution will radically reduce the cost of district heat and improve its viability. End consumers will benefit through lower heating costs, warmer homes/buildings and reduced fuel poverty. Taking into account multiple design options will allow for greater focus on zero-carbon fuel sources (including hydrogen) which will promote a new generation of true zero-carbon district heat. End users that stand to benefit include Local Authorities, Major Heat Users, Social Landlords, and suppliers of Heat. Direct users that will benefit from improved productivity and accuracy include Engineering Consultancies, Local Authorities, Network Operators and Suppliers/manufacturers.

**As cities and regions seek to decarbonise, decarbonising public transport presents a major challenge. For example, the electrical requirements from electrifying a bus network could be between 1-15% of town's total grid capacity\[1\].** Our previous research evidences that a like-for-like replacement of buses, increases the infrastructure needed by 25%, will push electrical infrastructure beyond its limit and increase costs to operators and consumers. Over 4bn bus journeys are made every year\[2\] and the new National Bus Strategy aims to significantly increase that number describing buses as "the easiest, cheapest and quickest way to improve transport". But, through years of under-investment, bus planning capability and skills have been hard hit. With a new national focus on improving bus services, while also transitioning to zero emission fleets, there is a critical need for new tools to support the industry. **VISION:** Our vision is to deliver an end-to-end, optimisation system for collaborative Bus Service planning. The system will intelligently accomodate the detailed design of zero emission bus routes and fleets, providing operators and public authorities with the infrastructure and passenger modelling insights they need to make informed long-term decisions for their bus network.

The UK Freight system is extensive comprising around 195,000 enterprises, 2.5 million employees, and contributing £121 billion gross value added (GVA) to the economy. In most places, LGVs and HGVs contribute ~30% of transport carbon emssions. Every recent major UK study has noted the significant data limitations within freight with the NIC concluding that, as a result, there is "freight blindness" in the planning system. As a clear symptom of the current inefficiencies, it is thought that around 30% of UK registered HGVs on the UK's roads are "running empty". This is leading to a range of issues such as unnecessary costs, congestion, additional vehicle miles and higher emissions. The first step in developing any new freight solution is availability of adequate data at an aggregate and disaggregate level. Due to the particular commercial sensitivities of freight, wide-spread data is not available. However, modelling can help fill this gap. Our project fills this gap by bringing together extensive geospatial data and models from wide range of sources into a fully open National Freight Model available for use by local authorities, consultants, government and the public. The model will be designed such that route/volume/congestion can be explored and segmented through a wide range of categories to aid downstream analysis and application.

**Current approaches to fleet infrastructure planning focus predominantly on like-for-like replacement of vehicles (with infrastructure planning largely a second-order concern).** Our research indicates that for passenger and fleets services, this like-for-like replacement approach risks increasing the infrastructure needed by 25%, increasing overall infrastructure costs by a similar amount, increasing the likelihood of grid constraints and pushing up costs for consumers. To overcome this challenge, instead of the like-for-like approach, three critical (but inter-related) problems need to be solved simulateneously. Our solution will solve problems together for the first time by building an ALM system and emulator based on hyperheuristic optimisation and AI. The solution will then guarantee the lowest "total cost of infrastructure", delivering critical cost advantage to fleets and lower prices to service users.

Our project examines the feasibility for an ERS demonstrator on an appropriate section of the A34\. The study will validate that a network of overhead catenary cables is technically viable and economically feasible compared to alternative methods to decarbonise HGV traffic using this section of road. The project will include planning, preliminary engineering designs, site (demonstration route) surveys, financial modelling, and liaison with fleet operators using the A34 to understand the business and service impacts. We will work with key stakeholders such as the DNO (SEPD) to establish the grid impacts and mitigations, as well as local road stakeholders to demonstrate safe operation of the proposed system.

**VISION FOR THE PROJECT:** Our project objective is to build a **generative design tool** that will automate the optimal design of district heat energy networks. Currently, design is costly and time-consuming and often lacks sufficiently detailed data to ensure system efficiency. In many cases this leads to over-sizing of equipment which increases capital costs and makes projects unviable. By developing a new, cutting-edge, **generative design tool** our project will accelerate district heat: 1)using an automated, computer-driven process, we will radically reduce the up-front costs of modelling and system sizing; 2)using the latest AI techniques combined with detailed geographic data we will optimise system design to increase the affordability of heat networks and maximise their viability. Our solution will radically reduce the cost of district heat and improve its viability. End consumers will benefit through lower heating costs, warmer homes/buildings and reduced fuel poverty. Taking into account multiple design options will allow for greater focus on zero-carbon fuel sources (including hydrogen) which will promote a new generation of true zero-carbon district heat. End users that stand to benefit include Local Authorities, Major Heat Users, Social Landlords, and suppliers of Heat. Direct users that will benefit from improved productivity and accuracy include Engineering consultancies, Local Authorities, Network Operators and Suppliers.

The UK Freight system is extensive comprising around 195,000 enterprises, 2.5 million employees, and contributing £121 billion gross value added (GVA) to the economy. In most places, LGVs and HGVs contribute ~30% of transport carbon emssions. Every recent major UK study has noted the significant data limitations within freight with the NIC concluding that, as a result, there is "freight blindness" in the planning system. As a clear symptom of the current inefficiencies, it is thought that around 30% of UK registered HGVs on the UK's roads are "running empty". This is leading to a range of issues such as unnecessary costs, congestion, additional vehicle miles and higher emissions. The first step in developing any new freight solution is availability of adequate data at an aggregate and disaggregate level. Due to the particular commercial sensitivities of freight, wide-spread data is not available. However, modelling can help fill this gap. Our project fills this gap by bringing together extensive geospatial data and models from wide range of sources into a fully open National Freight Model available for use by local authorities, consultants, government and the public. The model will be designed such that route/volume/congestion can be explored and segmented through a wide range of categories to aid downstream analysis and application.

Public description MaaS is not yet delivering its full potential, in particular in influencing positive travel behaviours to help decarbonise while providing an enhanced user exprience. It has been widely anticipated that MaaS could provide a user-interface to seamlessly enable multi-modal journeys and a long-term hope that this would lead to increased use of shared mobility solutions. However, MaaS deployments have been piecemeal with limited integration and, most importantly, limited operational coordination and influence to provide a differentiated service to users. This situation has been described by some researchers as 'MaaS lite'. Our project changes this. Using cutting-edge advances in geospatial transport data, we develop a fully-integrated solution that can prioritise the most beneficial modes in real-time and influence positive travel behaviours to radically reduce congestion and transport carbon emissions.

To enable the rapid development of novel optimisation tools for transport and energy networks, by developing and embedding optimisation tools and capabilities.

**PROJECT CONCEPT:** Influencing positive travel behaviours to help decarbonise while providing an enhanced user exprience will be essential to enabling a shift to more sustainable, low carbon modes. With traffic back to 95-100% of pre-COVID levels this will be especially true as we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic. Our proposal develops an optimisation and exchange engine to underpin payment incentives to prioritise sustainable modes. We will enable this by developing an offsetting / "green miles" solution tailored to incentivise low carbon behaviours in the transport sector. The solution will be a world-first to seamlessly integrating: * All (nationwide) public transport options * National micro-mobility options using MDS * Mode-choice modelling * Carbon accounting and * Cutting-edge optimisation techniques developed with the University of Exeter.

This project develops a system to integrate distributed airbourne delivery vehicles into an end-to-end customer delivery proposition. By doing this we will develop and demonstrate a detailed commercial aviation system model and AI capability building on the Alan Turing Institute's BlueBird family of avaition simulation tools. Our solution will be developed to accomodate fully electric and autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with a specific focus on deliveries. Our solution will build on consortium expertise within "Systemised Airspace Design" (SAD) to understand and evaluate future pre-set "three-dimensional networks" in the sky through which UAVs are expected to operate safely within urban environments. The system will combine future airbourne network representations with comprehensive multi-modal ground-based freight networks to provide optimal routing schedules across the full spectrum of future electric and sustainable delivery modes. As a result, the project will address the integration challenges of new air vehicles into both the aviation system and wider freight & logistics sector. With a focus on deliveries, the project will explore both optimal network designs and operational routing across these future networks. Using a multitude of simulations, accomodating the sizing and weight characteristics of deliveries and the operational performance constraints of UAVs we will create a system that can optimise deliveries considering the following factors: * Operational Cost * Time to serve (customers) * Energy Use (by fuel type and electrical network need) * Carbon Emissions and * Air Quality. As such the solution will be able to inform approaches to sustainable aviation and critical infrastructure gaps required to ensure sufficient renewable energy infrastructure to power these future systems. Detailed models of operational performance will also help explore new business models in sustainable logistics.

Up until now, a significant amount of transport infrastructure investment has been focused on getting people from where they live to where they work, or from where they work to where their customers are, in the fastest time possible. An alternative to this is investing in high quality, reliable digital connectivity so that employees, employers and their customers can interact from anywhere in the UK, without the need for physical movement. The challenge is therefore in striking the right balance between transport and digital infrastructure investment to ensure the greatest impact in unlocking and leveling-up opportunities for the entire UK. This project looks to solve this challenge my providing a first-of-a-kind model to evaluate digital connectivity, transport mode choice, employment and geo-demographic data in unison. In doing so, users will be able to fully visualise the relationship between where people live, where they work, how they travel there (if they travel at all) and how well they are digitally connected. From here, the model can be used to highlight regions or demographics where home working is being restricted by a lack of digital connectivity, or where transport infrastructure investment may not be required due to high levels of home working (i.e. a reduction in demand as a result of the shift to home working). In doing so, this project will capitalise on and cement the shift to home working as a result of COVID-19, resulting in significant environmental and social benefits.

This project explores the use of novel algorithms to inform a Heat as a Service (HaaS) business model. The project will demonstrate how the HaaS business model will accelerate energy retrofit and heat supply solutions in domestic properties. The project builds on an innovative, cutting-edge thermal modelling capabilities to develop a new application, demonstrating a viable Heat-as-a-Service (HaaS) business model. Based on a calibrated, detailed and disaggregate understanding of the property energy use, the project will develop simulation to evaluate technical and financial impact of alternative provision of domestic heat and identify how these can be financed to accelerate decarbonisation. The HaaS solution will include provision of heat comfort via: * Energy efficiency retrofit measures * Electrification of heat via heat pumps * Boiler replacement * District heat. The solution will identify the most viable solution for the provision of heat in the property using detailed research from financing of energy efficiency measures in the domestic sector, enabling a single customer interface through which retrofit and low carbon heat measure can be financed and accelerated. The Chancellor has announced a £2bn Green Homes Grant to help the country build-back better, creating jobs and a sustainable recovery. Our solution will extend the options for domestic retrofit, in particular focusing on the decarbonisation of heat, specifically addressing the theme of improving the energy efficiency, heating and cooling of our homes and other buildings.

The introduction of electric vehicles presents extensive new challenges for infrastructure planning and operation, in particular if the grid electricity is to be powered by renewables. For example, to enable optimised, automated control of charge/discharge profiles in grid-based or private wire battery storage systems, such systems will require extensive information and predictive data drawn from the transport network. Similarly, to optimise routing of electric/zero emission vehicles, routing systems will require extensive information and predictive data drawn from the electrical or hydrogen fueling network. In some cases, both networks may need to be optimised simultaneously. Our vision is therefore to provide a fully integrated, real-time transport-electric-hydrogen network simulation and optimisation engine to enable complex optimisations to be run across these multiple networks to deliver the most cost-effective planning and operation of new transport-integrated electrical/hydrogen systems.

Our experience developing transport decarbonisation strategies indicates the need for a new generation of easy-to-access, multi-modal models (including freight) to provide the necessary, detailed intelligence to enable local authorities, citizens, advisors, professionals and campaigners to simulate impacts and develop credible, prioritised pathways to net zero. Our project overcomes this critical challenge and creates a major leap in the availability, access and openness of calibrated transport models across the UK and internationally. The project also overcomes business challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling stakeholders and the supply-chain to shift a larger proportion our business to digital channels both nationally and internationally.

**PROJECT CONCEPT:** Activities within a building matter and can lead to vastly different energy uses, even within similar building types - for example, in a non-refrigerated warehouse energy use could account for 15% of the operating budget, while in a refrigerated warehouses, refrigeration alone could account for 60% of the energy used. This project brings together buildings and activities for the first time developing and implementing a cutting-edge AI-based control and decision support system for non-domestic properties based on detailed Building Management and HVAC system integration. The project then utilises a detailed disaggregate building and process model to develop a costed pathway to net zero tailored to the specific environment & activities. "5D" refers to the three spatial dimensions, the use of AI based on time-series data, and the 5th dimension being business processes/activities.

With the restriction of people's movement small businesses which previously relied on visiting customers now find themselves having to explore the option of delivering to the customer home address to survive. Small businesses do not have much in the way of staff resources nor the logistical support and tools of larger companies, at present they would be relying on consumer satnav which offer A to B routing. Similarly,the volunteer army for delivering supplies to vulnerable people will require local groups to coordinate shifts and area coverage.Suboptimal routing will increase staff time, fuel usage and emissions, costing money and reducing the number of customers businesses and volunteers can reach and support with their resources. With reduced public transport, coordinating staff access to hospital and critical care is also a key issue. Our project develops an optimal routing and scheduling tool for localised deliveries to help businesses and volunteers efficiently and effectively serve their communities. The routing tool will also help understand which services need to be maintained to provide access to hospitals, and provide optimal car-pooling for key health-care staff.

no public description

"RIBA to Reality" is a transformative industrial research project to support the RIBA design process right through to delivery and operations of the next generation of Carbon Neutral Buildings. Using digital twining technology the programme will deliver a hollistic approach to proactive energy control, by elevating Building Information Models (BIM) so it is capable of tracking live or simulating both human building usage and energy demands. The project will also explore new methods of simulating and monitoring transport to and from the site to minimise and monitor its impact on external travel demand. `RIBA to Reality' is uniquely centred around two university buildings as real world test-bed. 1) The Living Systems Institute (https://www.exeter.ac.uk/livingsystems/) which is built and in operation will provide real world data to trial and test the new technology and methods proposed, showing how digital planning assets can be aggregated to create an operational digital twin. 2) Project North Park (https://www.exeter.ac.uk/about/vision/capitalstrategy/featuredprojects/projectnorthpark/) , a £70M visionary capital investment, with the ambition to be carbon neutral over it's life time, is in early stages of design. This programme will explore, how the new technology can then be used to support design decisions at critical stages, in particular looking at how the building could exceed it's already ambitious energy targets by taking into account its wider footprint.

To bridge the gap between simulation and real-world performance of a mathematical model that estimates the thermal efficiency of individual homes.

Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs) analyse the health needs of populations to inform and guide commissioning of health, well-being and social care services within local authority areas. While many are produced with associated open data online, most currently do not provide an easy-to-use interface for practitioners nor do they maximise the benefits of crowdsourcing platforms to obtain greater insights to support health outcomes. While many JSNAs use similar data, their compilation places considerable burden on each local authority which is required to accumulate and analysis this evidence from scratch. This project proposes to create a pilot for a single standardised JSNA, compiling all the relevant datasets for all local authorities in one go. This is expected to create significant time savings for the UK Public Sector. This project then links the JSNA to crowdsourcing systems to enable citizens to take an active role in health outcomes through the crowdsourcing of data such as Air Quality, Cycle Network Quality and indicators of Lonliness, Isolation and mental health. This will also create a step-change in the discoverability of health data and geospatial analsis, enabling practitioners and commissioners to vastly improve their targeting of resources to the areas of highest need. It will also provide national government with a new tool to allocate resources and track and monitor performance to improve the health of the nation.

"Digital Twins in transport can deliver optimised strategies for movement - reduced congestion, reduced emissions, safer operations and greater network capacity. With air quality estimated to kill 40,000 a year, new approaches and optimised strategies are surely needed. Extensive market research, combined with customer insights, demonstrates growing demand for Transport Digital Twins. Digital Twins represent the next evolution of the Internet of Things bringing together the physical and digital worlds. The NIC's publication - Data for the Public Good report - sets out a vision for a national Digital Twin: a digital model of the national infrastructure which will be able both real-time, and strategic simulation. This ambition, driven by clear social, economic, resilience and environmental benefits, demonstrates the wider context of the opportunity. Our project sets out to integrate transport models and 'live' operational data for the first time. This innovation will unlock a range of new optimisation strategies to free up network capacity; improve air quality; mitigate the negative effects of congestion within cities; enhance productivity; reduce costs and risks; and plan for long-term infrastructure. Our project builds on the cutting-edge work of the consortium including existing Digital Twin, real-time telematics and Optimisation expertise."

Digital Twins offer a compelling opportunity to improve the life-time efficiency of assets and systems enabling flexibility in design, up-front risk minimisation and in-use performance enhancement through techniques such as predictive analytics and machine learning. A number of critical gaps exist that currently prevent the wide-spread use and adoption of digital twins in game-changing contexts such as large-scale infrastructure systems or within the enterprise. With applications at scale currently out of reach, many strategic, cost, efficiency, operational performance and risk management benefits are not being realised. The UK has the opportunity to lead this disruptive sector, exploiting emerging technology from our world-class research base. The research identified within this project enables the rapid calibration and validation of large-scale Digital Twin models across a range of contexts. Our project uses these game-changing, disruptive approaches and access to large-scale, real-time data sets to create a new "System of Intelligence" capable of rapidly calibrating and validating real-world models, delivering incredible levels of efficiency, productivity and insights. This System of Intelligence will enable vast improvements to predictive capability over both a strategic and operational time-horizon with applications in any situation where advanced mathematical modelling is required. It will therefore put advanced mathematical modelling into the hands of those who need it when they need it vastly reducing the need for complicated design and calibration. The system will enable us to learn more about critical feedback loops, developing models that are more accurate and more dynamic. This system will provide a globally game-changing proposition within Enterprise software applications, as well as revolutionising the way we model infrastructure systems, supply chains and manufacturing environments driving radical improvements to productivity. As such it will propel the UK and the consortium to a position of global leadership within this fast-growing new market, anchor critical IP within the UK and create significant additionality, including 795 new jobs by 2023\.

Awaiting Public Project Summary