North West wins funding for 'world's first zero industry cluster'
5 Jan 2021
A share of £8 million in Government funding will be invested in developing a comprehensive Cluster Plan to prepare the North West and North East Wales for a net zero future, removing over 40 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere every year and creating thousands of new jobs.
Part of the latest phase of the Government’s £170 million Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge to support industrially intensive areas to establish low carbon and net zero industrial clusters.
The funding has been awarded to a consortium including Net Zero North West, Peel L&P Environmental, the North West Business Leadership Team, Cadent, SP Energy Networks, Progressive Energy, Uniper UK and ENGIE. It is also supported by the Growth Platform (Co-ordinating input from North West Local Enterprise Partnerships), Cheshire and Warrington LEP and the University of Chester.
The group – which unites business, regional leaders and universities to drive investment into the net zero economy – has received UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funding for the second phase of its work to become the UK’s first low carbon industrial cluster by 2030 and world’s first net zero industrial cluster by 2040.
Net Zero North West chairman Carl Ennis commented:
“With the Prime Minister recently laying out his ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution, this new roadmap funding is a timely vote of confidence in our ability to deliver industrial decarbonisation in the North West and make a significant and rapid contribution to the UK’s net zero emission targets.”
The cluster plan will provide a deliverable investment, technology and infrastructure blueprint to support the region’s net zero transition and turbocharge its low carbon recovery post-COVID-19. The North West has the highest concentration of advanced manufacturing and chemicals production sites in the UK and the region is bringing forward a range of world-leading clean growth projects which will help the UK meet its legally binding net zero carbon emission targets.
