Countdown COP27 will gather experts to provide practical ideas to help you move faster. The 2nd annual Sustainability Week: Countdown to COP27 aims to prepare you for the event, refine your sustainability strategy, getting you ahead of your competition to become sustainable, and faster. Economist Impact offers an independent guide to sustainability, will help you cut through the topic noise, evaluate other organisations’ climate change commitments and set your strategy for 2023.

Connected Places Catapult is pleased to become a partner of Economist Impact Events’ 2nd annual Sustainability Week: Countdown to COP27.

Join us and other 8,000+ attendees online and 500+ in London to ensure you are part of the sustainable future. Hear more from our experts on the panel on ‘Governments Pledge, Cities Deliver’ on 3 October at 4.35pm.

The appetite for investing in net zero projects is there. The mechanisms to enable these investment flows is what is still missing. The UK is pioneering a new approach to stimulate collaboration between city leaders and urban investors to enable investment flows and support the transition to net zero. How can this model be replicated internationally? How can collaboration between local and national government, industry and financial institutions be ensured? What are the best ways to innovate in financial models, along with testing and deploying them to secure investment?

Use our discount code CPC/S15 to book your delegate pass.

This Playbook is the result of the UK Government commissioning the Catapult to conduct research and provide an overview of how two Indian megacities (Kolkata and Hyderabad) can learn from UK policy interventions in Manchester and London – and vice-versa – on topics such as clean and integrated transport, urban innovation, environmental initiatives, regeneration, and new infrastructure delivery.

It provides an overview of several case studies in these large UK and Indian urban centres and offers a framework for understanding and knowledge exchange between the UK and Indian approaches in planning, implementing and measuring the impact of projects and programmes to support their sustainable development. With a focus on ensuring local company involvement, the analysis also focused on how the two countries’ large cities can leverage and unlock investment with target ecosystems to catalyse innovation and economic activity.

The Playbook’s findings are drawn from detailed analysis of policy and project documentation, and in-depth consultations with select stakeholders in the target cities (Manchester, London, Hyderabad and Kolkata). The delegates from India visited the sites highlighted in the report and were able to engage with the developments in practice. Accompanied by Connected Places Catapult staff, partners and UK government representatives, the delegates from Kolkata and Hyderabad visited Kings Cross Redevelopment and learned about the transformation that took place in the past decade in the area. The Kings Cross Visitors Centre showed the delegates an architectural model and provided and overview of the history of the redevelopment. This was followed by a tour of how facilities, including heating and water systems, are being made more energy efficient to tackle climate change.

The delegates also undertook site visits to the Transport for London (TfL) HQ office where they received an informative presentation from Katherine Howatson, Principal City Planner, on the design and implementation of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) policy, as well as on the Road User Charging scheme also implemented by TfL to address air pollution and traffic congestion. Delegates were especially interested in the technology that has been implemented to track vehicles travelling between zones, and how the technologies and data generated were managed. In Kolkata, for example, police are already using similar technologies to enforce traffic violations.

In the following leg of the visit, the delegates gained insights from Manchester’s leadership when it comes to catalysing transformation of city and wider-regional economy and creating high-value jobs and accelerating economic growth. The delegates met with Steven Cochrane, Partnership Director at Oxford Road Corridor in Manchester, who shared how stable and mature leadership have been key to building the long-term vision and partnerships in the area. He also highlighted the Manchester digital strategy as testbed for initiatives focused on infrastructure and innovation as well as arts and culture – fundamental to harness creativity across all sectors. Pat Bartoli, Director of City Centre, Growth and Infrastructure at Manchester City Council also joined the meeting.

The delegation then had a tour of part of the Oxford Road Development and the University of Manchester’s world-renowned National Graphene Institute led by Prof. Aravind Vijayaraghavan. The academic tours continued with UoM’s state of the art Engineering Campus, the new Engineering Building A, where the delegates were given a tour by Steve Jordan, Assistant Director of Estates and Facilities and Head of Capital Projects, and then a visit to Manchester Metropolitan University’s Fuel Cell Innovation Centre, where they saw hydrogen labs and understood future uses of hydrogen in the city space. Amer Gaffar, Director of Centre led the tour and through his genuine passion, provided an exciting and insightful meeting and tour.

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority team will be organising a mayoral visit to India in the coming year, which will provide an excellent opportunity to follow up from the Playbook and the delegation’s UK visit and create exciting trade and investment outcomes to work on for both countries and their cities.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Catapult’s work in India, please get in touch with Roxana Slavcheva at Roxana.Slavcheva@cp.catapult.org.uk

Connected Places Catapult has started working on an exciting new initiative with our strategic global partner ICLEI South America and the State of Bahia in Brazil. The project will develop long-term business-led research & innovation collaborations between the UK and the State to solve city-level challenges related to resilience, climate change and connectivity, utilising UK expertise.

Funded by the Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office UK, Brazil Tech Hub is one of the initiatives kick-started by the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the UK and the Secretariat of Science, Technology and Innovation of the State of Bahia and the Bahia Research Foundation. The latter celebrated the commitment of the parties to promote efforts to carry out technical scientific, educational and cultural cooperation aimed at the development and delivery of science, technology and innovation programmes in areas of interest for both participant governments.

The initiative will allow partners to carry out a mapping exercise, identifying key challenges for cities in the State of Bahia currently preventing them from becoming more climate-resilient in an inclusive and equitable way. It will also highlight challenges in securing better connectivity and digital access for citizens. Once the mapping is completed, the team will identify local and UK solutions to the identified challenges and priorities, creating opportunities for partnerships between companies, governments and other relevant stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem.

This is just the beginning of the engagement between the project partners, UK-Brazil Tech Hub and the Government of Bahia. The ambition is to move this collaboration forward and enable on-the-ground equitable partnerships between local and UK businesses, test-bedding and an increase in the adoption of innovative solutions by cities across Bahia and beyond. The long-term vision is to create more opportunities for bilateral trade and investment, and equitable and inclusive economic growth in both geographies.

To learn more about the project, please contact Aline Martins.

The Future of Air Mobility accelerator (FoAM) is a challenge-led, 6-month accelerator programme powered by Connected Places Catapult and in partnership with the Future Flight Challenge from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The Catapult will select up to 12 SMEs to join the programme where they will receive support from a consortium of industry, government, academic and regulatory partners on the trial and testing of disruptive innovations. Through a focus on new and emerging challenges within the aviation ecosystem, FoAM will work alongside a consortium of partners to ensure that the programme tackles significant sector challenges and de-risks innovation in the marketplace.

The SMEs selected will have the opportunity to trial their solutions and will be guided through a bespoke programme tailored to their requirements. The programme will include investment readiness, technology and product development support, alongside introductions to aviation stakeholders and potential customers. These activities will be co-designed with the cohort of SMEs to support them in growing their businesses and adapting their propositions to the partners’ requirements.

This application support webinar will cover the overall programme vision, the journey of the programme to date, the programme challenges and guidance on the application process.

To find more about the programme and to apply, simply click here.

The World Cities Summit (WCS) is an international conference series on public governance and the sustainable development of cities. This is an opportunity for government leaders and industry experts to address liveable and sustainable city challenges, share integrated urban solutions and forge new partnerships.

Connected Places Catapult is pleased to become a strategic partner of the World Cities Summit which is being hosted by our partner the Centre for Liveable Cities.

Join us in person to hear from Nicola Yates OBE, our Chief Executive Officer who will give an overview of the global urban city sustainability landscape at the Tomorrow’s Sustainable Cities Today event. The discussion panel will be run by our partner Mastercard City Possible on Tuesday, 2 August, 14:00-15:00.

Also, Prof Greg Clark CBE FAcSS, Chair of Connected Places Catapult and 3Ci (Cities Commission for Climate Investment) will run the Sunday Mayor’s Forum and the Green Finance Track of the main Summit.

To book a meeting with us contact Elena Williams from our Global Team at elena.williams@cp.catapult.org.uk

Minas Gerais was the first Latin American State to join the Race to Zero Campaign, and its commitment to the climate change agenda was demonstrated during COP26 in Glasgow. In December 2020, the UK and the Brazilian state signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) confirming their intentions to further collaborate on strategic areas of mutual interest related to climate change ambition and decarbonisation.

The signature of the MoU has led to a number of collaborative activities, including the project Partnership UK-Minas Gerais In The Race To Net-Zero. The project aimed to enhance the UK-Minas Gerais partnership on the Race to Zero, increasing the knowledge of opportunities for collaboration between UK and local companies and attracting investment for joint net-zero test-beds and demonstrators in Minas Gerais.

The project’s main output was the Race to Net Zero: A Plan for Innovation in Minas Gerais. At a high level, the Plan aimed to analyse the energy market in Minas Gerais, its emissions, regional challenges and opportunities, and identify key levers for potential advancements in accelerating Minas Gerais’s transition to sustainable Net Zero ambitions.

It also aimed at incentivising collaboration among Minas Gerais’s key stakeholders: the State government, city governments, distribution network operators (DNOs), regulators, academia, industry, research and technology organisation (RTO), hubs and venture builders and a large number of companies and startups involved in the lowcarbon scene.

The Plan is available to download in English and Portuguese below:

The Partnership UK-Minas Gerais In The Race To Net Zero was implemented between October 2021 and March 2022. It was delivered by a partnership between Connected Places Catapult, Energy Systems Catapult, ICLEI-América Latina, and the State of Minas Gerais Environment Foundation and funded by the UK Science and Innovation Network.

If you’d like more information about our work on furthering the net-zero agenda in Minas Gerais and beyond, please get in touch with Erika Azevedo at erika.azevedo@cp.catapult.org.uk

Global shipping depends on similar cargo handling facilities, repair yards and a ready supply of spare parts to keep breakdowns to a minimum. Therefore, how do we even start to change a whole system, made up of millions of moving parts that the world relies on?

CPC in partnership with Maritime UK, hosted the International Maritime Hub, bringing together innovators from across the globe working on the challenges of maritime decarbonisation. Here are the outcomes of their deliberations, though in reality the challenges the sector faces are continuous and solutions are unable to be found in one week.

The Department for Transport, Knowledge Transfer Network and Maritime UK hosted a session bringing together representatives from many of the projects in the recent Clean Maritime Demonstrator Competition, funded by the Department for Transport and delivered in partnership with Innovate UK. This was pivotal as a starting point for discussion.

Connected Places is pleased to be working with industry and academic partners in four of these successful projects, based at ports across the UK including Portsmouth International Port, PD Ports, Aberdeen Harbour and the Port of Tyne.

As part of the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan (announced in March 2020) to position the UK at the forefront of green shipbuilding and maritime technology, the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition (CMDC) is a £20m investment from the government alongside a further £10m from industry to reduce emissions from the maritime sector. The programme is supporting 55 projects across the UK. Government funding has been utilised to support early-stage research relating to clean maritime. The programme will be used to support the research, design and development of zero-emission technology and infrastructure solutions for maritime and to accelerate decarbonisation in the sector.

Key speakers on the day:

• Robert Courts MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Maritime, spoke about the importance of making our transition to net-zero an economic opportunity for the UK.
• David Tozer, Head of Maritime and Land Transport at Innovate UK shared more on the high levels of engagement from industry.
• John Hutchison, Head of Maritime, Department for International trade outlined the support available to businesses and innovators

Five Clean Maritime Projects projects were showcased:

1. Electric charging infrastructure – Portsmouth Harbour
2. Hydrogen fuelled survey vessels – by Acua Marine
3. Clean energy offshore service vessels – Bibby Marine
4. Feasibility of electric port operations – Port of Belfast
5. Vertically Integrated ‘cloud based’ port operations – General Electric & Teeside University

Technology has always influenced the way the UK undertakes trade and the twenty-first century is no different from the sixteenth. The following organisations presented the impacts of new technology within the maritime sector:

Compagnie Maritime Belge (CMB), a Belgian shipping company, showcased an impressive range of hydrogen-powered innovations. These included hydrogen-powered heavy goods vehicles, floating hydrogen refuelling stations, multi-modal hydrogen refuelling hubs and hydrogen survey vessels.

BAE Systems, Varuna Marine Services and Lloyd’s Register, with a special introduction from Paul Little, founding Principal and CEO of The City of Glasgow College. Delivered thought-provoking presentations in the regard to the future of clean maritime. These ranged from the circular economy (shipbuilding in a modular format and decommissioning) to the handling of new propulsion systems, ways of working and regulatory aspects.

Whilst these challenges may seem vast in their complexity, much progress has been made in recent years and throughout COP26. As a result, the future for clean maritime looks promising.

Connected Places Catapult is pleased to see not only the progress at COP26 but also the work already ongoing in the UK with the Government’s support to accelerate our transition to a greener maritime and ports sector. We look forward to sharing more about our own work, together with our partners across industry and academia over the coming months.

To find out more about our Clean Maritime activities, simply click here.