While many may be aware of various government and business efforts, both nationally and globally, to become ‘net zero’ industries or sectors, perhaps a lesser well-known initiative seeks to transform cities. The Net Zero Carbon City (NZCC) initiative, a World Economic Forum project run in collaboration with Accenture, aims to accelerate progress towards Net Zero in key cities around the world. In Ireland, Cork city was chosen as the first in a pilot project.
The next phase of the initiative will focus on tailored solutions to curb emissions across the areas of transport, built environment, and power and energy, and fostering public and private sector partnerships to decarbonise Cork
“Sustainability is one of our greatest responsibilities, and we take it seriously by embedding sustainability principles in everything we do and through everyone we work with”, says Niamh O’Gorman, sustainability lead for Accenture in Ireland, who is responsible for the execution of ESG strategy. “We have clearly defined science-based targets against our ESG strategy that deliver on our environmental agenda. And we’re proud of our ambitious and industry leading commitments and targets to achieve net zero carbon emissions”.
What is a NZCC?
The Net Zero Carbon City initiative is about how we look to help cities on their transition to achieve Net Zero, says Karen O’Regan, strategy lead for Accenture in Ireland and one of the executive leads for industry and cross-industry work with the World Economic Forum. “More than 50% of the global population lives in cities around the world, and they account for 78% of our energy consumption and 70% of our emissions. If we’re going to make an impact, then we need to start with cities.”
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“The same holds true in Ireland. Nearly 64% of the population resides in towns or cities where the key emissions are in transport, built environment and energy usage.
Piloting the cause
As part of its commitment to sustainability, Accenture is supporting Cork city in its bid to become a Net Zero Carbon City. Having run this programme globally, Accenture then selected a number of cities across the UK and Ireland to apply its learnings to.
The company convened 18 organisations in the Cork community, including AIB, Cork City Council, ESB, Gas Networks Ireland, Musgrave, and University College Cork (UCC), who share the unifying ambition of transitioning to Net Zero and developing tangible long-term solutions for Cork city.
O’Regan says, “One of the most wonderful outcomes was that in a very short amount of time we were able to bring 18 different organisations on board across public, private and community sectors with no contracts, NDAs or real promise of what this was going to give us apart from this sense of ‘we’re all on this net zero journey’ and we really want to succeed”.
“There was an open invitation for anyone to join at any point. The open invitation is still there for any stakeholder who might want to get involved”.
Choosing Cork
“We were delighted that Cork was chosen as a pilot for the Net Zero Carbon City initiative”, says O’Gorman. “Its success to date is thanks to the commitment and engagement from a diverse set of stakeholders. The objective of the pilot was to test the “toolbox solutions and methodology” that had been developed in collaboration with the World Economic Forum making sure they were fit for purpose in an Irish context.”
Catherine O’Brien, principal director for energy transition and sustainability services at Accenture says that, through the deeply collaborative approach inherent in the city sprint process, the initiative is fostering a long-term partnership approach underpinned by a shared vision and ambition for Cork as a Net Zero city. “Recognising the importance of diverse thinking and inclusivity in the design of climate solutions, we sought to assemble a cross-section of sectors including transport, retail, utilities, finance, research, clean technology, community and industry.”
As part of the first phase of the project, Accenture facilitated a series of workshops, where the participating organisations established how the above drivers relate to Cork city. Information regarding transport/modal habits, the energy efficiency of domestic and commercial buildings, and the current state of power and energy infrastructure for Cork city were some of the areas assessed as part of this process.
The next phase of the initiative will focus on tailored solutions to curb emissions across the areas of transport, built environment, and power and energy, and fostering public and private sector partnerships to decarbonise Cork.
“Cork city has a very high uptake of car ownership”, says O’Regan. “It leads to significant congestion in the city, so there’s a big imperative to think about transport solutions for Cork. We needed to think about how to change behaviours and think about how to get people out of their cars and onto public transport.”
Sprinting to the finish
To undertake this project, Accenture developed a Sprint methodology, says O’Regan. “It started by looking at a city – what are its baselines, what is the starting point for that city? Next, where are the real bottlenecks? Where does the bulk of their emissions come from? Where do they really want to concentrate?”
O’Regan says that understanding why the city wants to make the transition is essential. “Outside of carbon emissions, what’s most important to the city? For Cork, it was mainly around equity. So, as a community and a city, everybody transitions to Net Zero at the same pace and time.” University College Cork (UCC) supported the initiative by preparing a first-of-its-kind emissions baseline for Cork city. The data found that the top three emissions drivers are: transport, built environment, and power and energy.
Dr. Marguerite Nyhan, senior lecturer in environmental engineering and future sustainability at UCC said of the research, “My research group was delighted to support the Net Zero Cities initiative. For this, we modelled and mapped urban emissions in high spatial resolution for multiple sectors including transport, housing, and industry in Cork city. These detailed emissions datasets provided an initial emissions baseline for the city and a foundation for the development of sustainability solutions and a climate action plan going forward.
“The Net Zero Cities Sprint also provided insights into how digital technologies can be used to accelerate our transition to a net zero and sustainable future. It was fantastic to contribute to those discussions which not only focused on technological solutions for emissions reductions but also improved air quality, urban greenspace, human health and social equity.”
Expanding the pilot nationwide
The pilot in Cork has gone so well, with such positive stakeholder agreement, that Accenture is already looking to expand the programme to other cities in Ireland, says O’Regan. “We’re very pleased with the programme’s success and we’re very hopeful to now engage with other cities and roll it out on a national basis. There are active discussions underway to choose the next city.”
Alongside Accenture, the participants in the project are: Action Zero, AIB, Bus Eireann, Cork City Council, Cork Chamber, Cork Healthy Cities, EIH2, Energy Cork, Engineers Ireland Cork, Enterprise Ireland, ESB, Gas Networks Ireland, Green Rebel, Johnson Controls, Musgrave, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) and University College Cork (UCC).