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Towards net zero for Infrastructure
Our mission
Infrastructure in the UK is responsible for more than half of the UK’s total carbon emissions. As engineers, our responsibility to act is clear.
The Carbon Project aims to provide our engineering community with the information needed to understand the net zero challenge, and to meaningfully contribute to reaching the UK’s net zero goal.
Share your carbon reduction stories
Find out more
The UK government has legislated to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. This target meets the UK’s obligations under the Paris Agreement, and responds to the urgent need for action highlighted by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its report Global Warming of 1.5oC.
But ending the UK’s contribution to climate change under the net zero commitment requires urgent and ambitious changes across all sectors of the UK’s economy – and none more so than infrastructure.
Following the release of ICE’s State of the Nation report in 2020, and ICE President Rachel Skinner adopting the achievement of net zero as her presidential theme for 2021, The Carbon Project aims to harness the capability and capacity of the global civil engineering community towards achieving net zero in UK infrastructure.
Through working with teams of industry experts, The Carbon Project is distilling and disseminating the key information that our members need to start making a change within their practice, and to help deliver net zero carbon emissions.
The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise below 2oC. Alongside this, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 focuses on Climate Action.
ICE is a global organisation with worldwide membership and partners. By using the UK as a case study, The Carbon Project’s members have been able to examine the effect of different interventions in one particular infrastructure system.
The Carbon Project is an industry-wide initiative, bringing together leaders and experts from across the supply chain to tackle some of the challenges that are slowing progress towards net zero.
It represents the start of a long-term programme of collaborative work, which will seek to share knowledge and best practice on delivering low-carbon solutions across the industry.
The work has been driven by a steering group of industry leaders, chaired by ICE President Rachel Skinner and focused on three workstreams where ICE can make an immediate impact and provide focus for our activities before, during and after COP26.
Chair: Kat Ibbotson - Programme carbon and cost manager – Environment Agency
The net zero challenge, in all its scale and complexity, requires a cross-industry response with collaboration at its heart. An open approach to carbon reporting will hasten industry transformation and bolster collaborative efforts. The whole value chain – including asset owner/managers, designers, constructors and product/material suppliers – should be able to contribute to and benefit from these developments.
With thanks to the following working group members:
Chair: Steve Denton - Executive Director & Head of Civil, Bridge and Ground Engineering at WSP
Making progress on net zero carbon design and delivery against the demands of clients, society and pressures on costs requires new skills, refreshed knowledge and professional support, especially when it comes to new regulations, challenging design standards and codes, specification of zero carbon solutions and designing for automated delivery.
Chair: Tim Chapman – Director - Arup
Infrastructure is heavily networked and interconnected, composed of ‘systems within systems’. Reducing the greenhouse gas emissions associated with its use therefore requires a strategic approach. As the majority of the assets that will be in use by 2050 have already been built, we will have to make these assets work more efficiently, to help achieve the net zero target.
The Covid-19 pandemic is an opportunity to ask searching questions of what society truly wants from its infrastructure systems, and whether long-term demand will continue to increase unchecked.
How do we increase the life of one of our greatest assets - our road surfaces - whilst reducing carbon footprint and maximising financial value all at the same time?
After the team at HS2 discovered a vast Roman settlement, we decided to find out what other interesting things have been uncovered in the pursuit of a civil engineering project.
This annual lecture in partnership with the British Geotechnical Association will see Dr Martin Preene, 2021 ICE John Mitchell Medal winner, present a lecture on the topic of hydrogeological conditions and the development of practical engineering solutions.
ICE’s Carbon Champions initiative aims to celebrate individuals and their teams who are committed to achieving net zero. Applicants are invited to submit their examples of carbon reduction in practice, giving details of their project and the carbon saving they have made or plan to make. Applicants must also upload their calculations and methodology as evidence. Applications lacking this supporting evidence (calculations and methodology) will not be considered or reviewed by carbon champion panel.
Everyone is invited to apply for ICE Carbon Champion status individually or with their teams, and projects can be cross-organisational, at any stage, any size, and anywhere in the world. This project aims to build a bank of case studies and raise awareness of how engineers are contributing to net-zero targets.
Apply now