Building a Sustainable Sussex: Insights from the January Net Zero Champions meet up

Emily started the session by sharing some of South East Dance's top tips for sustainably managing a building. They are fully committed to South East Dance’s energy efficiency – there aren’t many people who will sleep in their office to monitor energy systems! Emily’s top tip was that sustainability doesn’t work without foundation: get your team involved and make it a part of their everyday.

The idea of collaboration became a clear theme throughout the event. Natasha explained that the Sussex Energy mission is addressing one primary challenge: the current energy demand for Sussex is 14x more than the current supply from renewable sources. The mission aims to achieve net zero energy status by 2040.

Sussex has a strong track record of low carbon energy work and Sussex Energy wants to be a catalyst for this by:

• Facilitating collaboration between Sussex sustainability experts to tackle common challenges these projects face (e.g. through sharing experiences, splitting costs of experts, aggregating demand for economies of scale, etc).

• Promoting the low carbon energy work to get the area better known for this strength and attract investment in for it.

• Using thestrong networks being formed to work on collaborative, scaled solutions to reduce energy used in the region or increase the amount of zero carbon energy generated.

Alice Berry has been tasked with the challenge of getting Brighton to Net Zero. To do this, there is one common thread through every solution: carbon management. Whole-life carbon management means putting carbon reduction at the heart of the Council’s decision making. Whole-life carbon management is split into three different groups:

• Embodied Carbon (the carbon emission from building materials)

• Operational Carbon (the carbon emission during occupancy)

• User Carbon (how the thing that you are building or working on influences the carbon behaviours of the people who are using it) 

Alice has a lovely metaphor to make sense of these groups. If whole-life carbon is a road, Embodied Carbon is the asphalt and the bridges, Operational Carbon is the street lighting and filling the potholes and User Carbon is the user effect, such as the road providing a shorter route or a cycle path - provoking higher number of car trips because it's easier to use. This “people” carbon often outweighs the effect of the others.

Specifically for decarbonising the city’s energy use, the council will look to use the findings of the Brighton & Hove Decarbonisation Pathways Report to inform action. However, getting to Net Zero is not just up to the Council; the Council emits 16,000 tonnes of carbon a year, about 2% of the 762,000 tonnes city-wide. To put that into perspective, this is equivalent to the Council driving a car around the world 2,000 times vs the city doing 95,000 laps.

So, what is it that we can do about these rather challenging numbers? Alice says that there is no silver bullet that will solve everything. Technology won’t get us to net zero. Behaviour change won’t get us to net zero. The best low carbon concrete is not going to get construction to net zero. You need all those things, working together to make a change.

Attack on all fronts!

Incorporate whole-life carbon management into your decision making. Do quantitative research about what you are adding, and how it will affect throughout its life usage.

• Think about how your business fits in with the Brighton & Hove Decarbonisation Pathways Report.

• Check with the Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment and see if it affects your business.

 • Speak out. If things are happening that you think are good for sustainability and Net Zero, speak out in support. Also speak out if you aren’t sure, ask someone for help.

A big thank you to everyone who joined us at our first Net Zero Champions meetup of the year – setting the stage for us to collaborate, share ideas and be inspired in our sustainability efforts this year. 

Find out more about joining our Net Zero Champions group here.

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk