Uk Fires

In 2019 UK FIRES set out to support a 20% cut in the UK’s true emissions by placing resource efficiency at the heart of the UK’s industrial strategy. Later that year the UK legislated to reduce emissions to zero by 2050. This changed the context for resource efficiency, the focus is no longer minimising the use of emitting resources, we have to stop emitting all together. UKFIRES refocused within this new context to identify how to achieve zero-emissions using only the technology and energy we will have available in 2050. UK FIRES is the first research consortium to limit zero-emission strategies in this way. Other plans for climate mitigation assume rapid deployment of new energy technologies, such as CCS and Hydrogen, but this is too high risk as we are unlikely to have the zero-emission energy supply required by 2050. In our report Absolute Zero we published the world’s first major analysis of the journey to zero-emissions with the necessary energy restraint, and we are now working across industry, government and academia to identify the economic growth opportunities which are uniquely revealed by the Absolute Zero framework. We will publish reports which map these opportunities on a pathway to 2030 and 2050. UK FIRES research has been reframed from ‘resource efficiency’ to ‘zero emissions’, but the plan to deliver these goals is much the same - deliver services with less resources in order to restrain energy demand and rapidly reduce emissions whilst maintaining economic growth.