UK-LATAM Net Zero and Resilience Programme

You can read this page in Spanish here and Portuguese here.

The programme will develop long-term business-led research innovation collaborations between these cities and the UK to address city-level challenges related to climate change and resilience utilising UK expertise.

Funded by the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) via the Science and Innovation Network, this programme will identify local net-zero and resilience weaknesses and form challenge calls with local partners to create collaborations merging local and UK expertise. The programme will then seek to test these solutions in a real-world environment and create a platform to expand these solutions with funding from local development banks and the private sector.

More specifically, the programme will:

1. Work with four partner cities, to further refine their current challenges around the decarbonisation agenda. With Monterrey, the focus will be on water resilience.
2. Select UK and local companies with solutions that can support the cities in tackling identified city challenges.
3. Support for UK and local businesses in exploring synergies and complementarities between their solutions and incentivise them to explore internationalisation opportunities.
4. Create the foundations for co-development and testing of the solutions in a real-world environment in the four selected geographies.
5. Work with two observer cities to develop or expand on their existing Net Zero profiles.

The vision is to support the cities in their journey towards Net Zero, create more opportunities for bilateral trade, investment, and equitable and inclusive economic growth.

Challenges:

Buenos Aires, Argentina – Last-mile logistics
Optimise last mile logistics to meet increasing demand for deliveries and reduce the number of freight vehicles in the city centre. 

Campinas, Brazil – Last-mile logistics  
Enable data-driven transport planning and services to encourage a transition to alternative and sustainable transport methods. 

Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara, Mexico – Mobility
Improve the public transport service by enabling data-driven solutions to provide real-time information.

Monterrey, Mexico – Water resilience  
Implement changes and solutions that improve the city’s water resilience. 

To learn more about the project, please contact aline.martins@cp.catapult.org.uk.