Leicestershire CAN (Collaborate to Accelerate Net Zero): Demonstrator will create an environment for well-planned, deliverable, impactful place-based net zero interventions in Leicestershire, replicable to other LA areas. Comprising 4 interconnected work packages, CAN-De will lay the foundations for successful delivery: * Governance: Developing, piloting and evaluating models for good governance in Leicestershire, delivering the 6 governance principles identified in Phase 1, utilising an action and impact tracker to inform evaluation and refine approach, and drawing conclusions on replicability for other LA settings, amending the model for various use-cases. * Decarbonisation Pathway Plan: Innovating within the LAEP framework to streamline delivery, model whole-system approaches to decarbonisation and incorporate the power of citizen landscaping to inform the energy system and create high levels of community engagement and social acceptance, de-risking and accelerating delivery. Outputs will be digitised in a dynamic tool for different audiences, with guidance on the innovation made available for replicability UK-wide. * Community Energy Pathway: A 6-step process to develop community energy capacity across Leicestershire, combining engagement, mentoring, business development and a readiness fund to form a network of start-ups, informed by the DPP. * Advisory Service: A central digital repository hosting a suite of resources, ensuring stakeholders have information and capabilities required to act, effectively communicating the outputs of CAN-De and signposting to simplify the support landscape. CAN-De will be delivered by a consortium of local and national partners bringing academic, technical and delivery experience to create highly deliverable and replicable solutions. It will transform the trajectory of emissions reductions in Leicestershire, creating a self-sustaining model which is not reliant on future funding and can continue long after project completion.

Leicestershire is a diverse, rural county with a complex matrix of actors and wide variety of actions required to achieve net zero. Having developed, consulted on and adopted a new countywide strategy and action plan in 2022, the Pioneer Places programme offers a timely opportunity to explore effective governance and delivery models to ensure those plans can be executed to maximum effect. Across all levels, activity remains disparate, siloed, reactive and un-coordinated. Efforts that are funded, lack the scale, pace, integration and investment potential required to successfully deliver the Net Zero Leicestershire Strategy and Action Plan. Our project presents an opportunity to develop a cohesive structure between local authority and other actors, capable of long-term place-based net zero planning and delivery, able to effectively react to opportunities and adapt to change. Our project will develop an innovative approach and plan to implement: \*An innovative, co-created framework for cross-sector, place-based decision making and governance, defining local mandate and optimising local powers across a place \*A vehicle for delivery which breaks down technological and organisational siloes, enabling a whole system approach to net zero planning and delivery \*An approach to effectively co-ordinate net zero activity, facilitating scale, investment and agile, fast-paced delivery within a complex matrix of actors \*Maximisation of resource, capacity, capability and expertise, including optimisation of the role of community energy. The project will enable us to bring actors together, developing co-ordinated programmes which target priority areas of emissions, understanding the critical interdependencies between heat, power, industry and transport projects, and providing clarity on roles, responsibilities and leveraging the use of local powers. Without the proposed framework in place, we fear that net zero delivery across the county will continue to be ad-hoc, un-coordinated and disparate. Funded activities will not deliver at the required scale and pace to achieve net zero targets in the designated timeframe. Moreover, they will not engender the required level of investor confidence. Our project will develop a structure which: \*Facilitates fast tracked decision making; \*Supports and promotes accelerated place-based net zero delivery; and \*Secures a range of co-benefits through collaborative delivery.