Net zero living
Through the Innovate UK-funded Net Zero Living Programme, places across the UK have taken major strides towards achieving their net zero ambitions, breaking through numerous non-technological barriers.
Regen provides the programme with expert support on policy and regulation and over the next few months, we’ll be sharing some of the inspiring insights, best practice and expertise generated by more than 50 wide-ranging projects. We focus on three themes critical for many places: retrofitting buildings, empowering communities, and how to bring in finance to deliver impactful projects.
The aim of this dissemination phase is to help other local authorities understand how they can forge similar paths and help national decision makers and policy-shapers identify how they can better harness the value of place-based innovation.
Buildings and Retrofit
Innovative, place-based approaches are accelerating retrofit across the UK, helping to deliver warmer homes and lower bills while stimulating business growth. Throughout December 2025 we will be sharing insights from the Net Zero Living places and technical advisers, showing how local authorities can use their assets, power and voice to unlock the local retrofit markets of the future. We’ll explore how local authorities have successfully piloted and scaled new approaches, in partnership with the private sector.
We’ve identified three key areas for action:
1. Quantifying ‘the size of the prize’ in terms of wider health, social and economic value
2. Growing a local retrofit market
3. Building skills for retrofit.
Scroll down to sign up to the webinar, read the insight paper and blogs and listen to the podcast.
Insights from the Net Zero Living Programme: Buildings and Retrofit
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Community empowerment
Community participation helps create stronger, more inclusive solutions that deliver better, more equitable outcomes. Throughout January 2026 we are sharing insights from the Net Zero Living places and technical advisers, showing how local authorities have gone beyond traditional consultation approaches, supported by engagement specialists. These approaches demand time and resources, yet the rewards are high.
We focus on three main ways that local authorities have empowered their communities to drive change:
1. Bringing people into decision making
2. Spreading the wealth through collaboration
3. Sharing information and tools.
Scroll down to sign up to the webinar, read the insight paper and blogs and listen to the podcast.
Insights from the Net Zero Living Programme: Community Empowerment
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Planning, pipeline and finance
Local authorities are uniquely placed to build a vision for their area and attract the public and private investment needed to realise it, unlocking wide-ranging benefits for their communities and business growth. Through the Net Zero Living Programme, local authorities collaborated with specialist partners to develop innovative approaches that can help projects progress more quickly from planning to delivery. In different ways, they are streamlining processes, stimulating markets and overcoming market failures, enabling the scaling up of action while managing risk.
We focus on three key stages of project delivery for local authorities:
1. Developing plans and defining roles to maximise impact
2. Building a project pipeline, ready for investment
3. Securing finance by leveraging their unique assets and market position.
Scroll down to sign up to the webinar, read the insight paper and blogs and listen to the podcast.
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ESN Annual Conference 2026
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