Emerging green industries, ranging from sustainable electronics and making houses fit for the future to natural product development for the environment, will all benefit from new £25 million UKRI investment announced today. The new investment will bring jobs, skills and prosperity to areas across the UK.
Through the ‘Accelerating the Green Economy’ programme, five new centres will bring together researchers, businesses, local leaders and key partners to help co-develop and deliver new products and processes to bring them successfully to market.
Three of the centres will be in Scotland, one in Wales, and one in south-west England. All involve co-investment from private sector industrial partners working closely with researchers and others to build on existing strengths, allowing green solutions to underpin the growth of local economies.
The centres will launch in October 2024 with UKRI funding support guaranteed for at least the next four years.
Delivering sustainable economic growth
Announcing the funding Dr Kate Hamer, UKRI Programme Director, Building a Green Future, said:
Transitioning to a sustainable green economy is a win-win for all; it creates new jobs, new partnerships and new industries.
Through investment in collaboration between researchers and innovators, we harness our collective effort across the public and private sector, driving innovation to secure the future of our environment and deliver sustainable economic growth.
UKRI’s building a green future strategic theme aims to accelerate the green economy by supporting research and innovation that unlocks solutions essential to achieving net zero in the UK by 2050.
It is one of five UKRI strategic themes aiming to harness the full power of the UK’s research and innovation system to tackle large-scale, complex challenges.
Five new centres
The five new centres are:
REACT: Responsible Electronics and Circular Technologies Centre (electronics and circular economy), Central Scotland
The electronics industry is challenged with:
- large amounts of waste electrical and electronic equipment
- high emissions across the supply chain
- widespread usage of critical raw materials
This centre’s vision is to set the standard for sustainable electronics manufacturing and design, through an exemplary system-level demonstrator across Scotland’s central belt.
With over 130 companies and 10,300 employees contributing to an annual £2.8 billion plus turnover, this sector is instrumental in fostering productivity and growth in central Scotland.
ReMake Value Retention Centre (circular economy and manufacturing), Glasgow
The ‘ReMake’ Value Retention Centre will take a transdisciplinary, systems-level approach focusing on high-integrity sectors.
Manufactured products account for 45% of total global carbon dioxide emissions. However, only 7% are currently recycled and starkly only 2% go through higher-value retention processes such as remanufacturing, whereby worn or non-functioning parts are rebuilt and recovered to an ‘as new’ condition.
Value retention processes have demonstrated reductions of 98% raw material, 99% embodied energy emissions and overall lower waste compared to new products.
Interdisciplinary Natural Products BioHUB Centre (bioeconomy), Wales
The Interdisciplinary Natural Products BioHUB Centre seeks to enhance the industrial potential of eukaryotic microbes, fostering a collaborative ecosystem across disciplines.
The eukaryotic microbe natural products market has grown substantially, with annual increases of 10% to 15%, including markets such as antimicrobials, organic acids and emerging sectors in algal and agricultural natural products.
The potential of eukaryotic microbes, including fungi and algae, goes beyond established markets like industrial ethanol production to address urgent global needs in alternative energy, resilient net zero agriculture and antimicrobial resistance.
Centre for Net Zero High Density Buildings (CeNZ-HighDB) (retrofit housing), Edinburgh and Glasgow
Edinburgh and Glasgow have the highest density proportion of flats in UK (68% and 73% versus London 46%, and a UK average of 19%).
Over the next 20 years both cities combined will have a £35 billion net zero retrofit requirement for existing buildings, including over 200,000 pre-1919 stone buildings and World Heritage streetscapes.
CeNZ-HighDB combines world-leading expertise involving five regional universities
(Edinburgh, Glasgow, Strathclyde, Napier and West of Scotland) with 58 partner organisations. Together, they will design, develop and deliver inclusive net zero solutions for high density buildings and city-town streetscapes.
This centre partners with UK construction industry, product manufacturers, energy companies, public bodies, housing organisations, communities and colleges to accelerate societal critical green economy pilot and prototype projects.
Critical Minerals Accelerating in the Green Economy Centre (critical raw minerals), south-west England
Lithium, tin, tungsten, cobalt, rare earths and other critical and strategic metals and minerals make the green economy work.
South-west England is the leading UK region for potential production of critical minerals with:
- six active exploration and development companies
- a history of metals mining that led the world
- some 70 service and equipment companies (predominantly small and medium-sized enterprises and microbusiness) with a global client base
Each new mine will employ 200 to 350 staff, in high-value jobs that are much needed, and each job will create as many as five times the number of indirect jobs.
The new centre will help accelerate commercialisation of projects for domestic production of critical minerals, and expanding the associated industry cluster that is already operating worldwide to enhance mineral production.
It forms the core of a wider academic-industry University of Exeter initiative to form a Critical Minerals Centre of Excellence.
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