Energy Reduction: Bare minimum strategies and the onward journey to true net zero - Rebecca Harlow, Net Zero Carbon Proposition Lead, Places, Arcadis & Hershil Patel, Head of Energy, Department for Education

With ambitious targets being set around net zero commitments, rising energy costs over the last 12 months has provided increased challenge to achieving these targets. The journey towards achieving true net zero is challenged by short term needs to address energy consumption and costs. The panel discussion will focus on the outlook for the next two years and propose that the immediate focus should be on energy reduction and behaviour change across the education estate whilst ensuring the strategy towards true net zero carbon is progressed.

The discussion will include:

• Current energy market forecast
• The immediate need for focus on energy saving over longer-term net zero carbon ambitions
• The role of public finance and private finance in energy reduction measures
• Technology availability and requirements for related skills
• Enablers to behavioural change to support immediate energy reduction outcomes
• 2025 and beyond to achieve net zero

Energy Masterplanning for net zero carbon: Retrofit on the Higher Education estate – Sam Haston, Associate Director, Buro Happold & Dean Drobot, University of Edinburgh

Buro Happold have been working with the University of Edinburgh since 2019 to develop an energy masterplan that delivers against the University’s Zero by 2040 goal.  Through this project, the University has progressed from setting an ambitious target, to developing a deliverable decarbonisation plan.  The Energy Masterplan we have developed in conjunction with key stakeholders in the University brings together robust modelling of energy, carbon and cost pathways, enriched with enhanced costing exercises and detailed building fabric over 60 buildings of various typologies. In this session, we will share the key lessons from our experience at Edinburgh, helping other education estates operators with net zero carbon ambitions to better plan for developing a robust and investible decarbonisation strategy.

Panel Discussion