Levelling up or Hollowing out?

Decarbonising industry is a vital challenge in achieving net zero; a challenge that requires extensive innovation, and sometimes radical, transformation, often in processes and on sites that have seen only incremental improvements in productivity over decades. Government attention has, perhaps understandably, been focussed on industrial clusters, but significant industrial activity lies outside clusters, in locations where firms may still be vital employers of skilled labour. Earlier in 2022, Alice Owen collaborated with Imogen Rattle, a researcher from the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), to think about what Imogen’s research might mean for places, and what this means for national, and local, policy. This commentary was first published as part of the ESRC-funded Place-based Climate Action Network. Read more here