How Do Stakeholders Emplace Net Zero Industrial Clusters?

Previously, the spatial details and consequences of the UK’s industrial clusters – for example their locations, territorial coverage, geographical conditions that affect their choices of decarbonisation strategies, and how these strategies in turn may change the landscape and economic conditions of a place – had not been examined by research.

This report summarises the findings from ‘phase 1’ of IDRIC’s Net Zero Sense of Place project which focused on cluster stakeholders, investigating how they think about the geography of industrial clusters, using interviews as well as maps and reports.

This report concludes that industry and policy would benefit from adopting a place-based approach that recognises these geographical considerations more explicitly. This place-based approach would provide a more robust and effective basis to devise an effective UK-wide cluster plan and to anticipate future challenges if cluster visions collide with host communities’ sense of place.