This week, DG Cities’ Director of Innovation & Net Zero, Balazs Csuvar is due to present at the IGPP’s Second National Energy and Sustainability Conference and Exhibition at the Kia Oval in London, where he’ll be focusing on some of the steps DG Cities is taking to help councils simplify, streamline and harness the potential of data to deliver on their net zero commitments. This applies to rolling out EV charging, decarbonisation and more, as he explains…

Strategies for Local Authority Decarbonisation are often grandiose, sprawling documents, outlining tens or hundreds of activities to reach objectives and then sub-objectives. They can be hard to make sense of, let alone implement. Decarbonisation at scale is most certainly a complicated task to deliver – to the extent that many people we have spoken to in the industry think it is close to impossible.

At DG Cities, we have been looking at ways to simplify this great challenge and develop solutions for our local authority clients that can be implemented simply, can provide immediate impacts and solidify gains to build on.

I’m excited to share some of this work with delegates at the IGPP (Institute of Government & Public Policy) conference at the Kia Oval on Wednesday, where I intend to focus on three of our solutions.

1. How we create holistic asset management strategies for housing stock

2. How we simplify and boost EV chargepoint delivery

3. How we use a neighbourhood lens to maximise the impact of even the smallest of projects.

Home-by-home plan

Councils and housing providers need a holistic approach to plan the upcoming capital works programme for their social housing stock. This should be designed to satisfy all council objectives in a timely manner, including decent home standards, compliance requirements and net zero commitments, as well as focusing on minimising disruption to residents and overall costs.

DG Cities has developed an approach to solve this problem. The home-by-home plan is an approach to the analysis and improvement of all properties in an area. It aims to answer the questions around what works should be delivered at which properties, when and how much that would cost. The output is a year-by-year intervention list, determined by the landlord’s priorities and aligned to expected yearly capital spend budgets.

 EV chargepoint licensing

The provision of an on-street electric vehicle (EV) charging network is one of the most impactful steps a local authority can make to encourage transition away from petrol and diesel vehicles. It is crucial infrastructure for anyone without off-street parking and can even be a revenue generating asset for councils.

However, we have identified that the current procurement method utilised by councils is not aligned with the maturity of the market and is not providing the best long-term value for residents. We propose establishing a licensing scheme instead, encouraging market competition, working with the best providers at every point over the coming years and aligning the supply of chargepoints with actual demand. You can read more on the advantages of this in my piece for LGIU.

Neighbourhood-first approach

When delivering components of a decarbonisation strategy, there is a tendency of all stakeholders to focus on solving a part of the bigger problem. A piece of the jigsaw. While this provides some perceived efficiencies at the point of delivery, it does not provide a route to the effective transformation required to meet the broad requirements people face.

This is why DG Cities has been working on establishing a methodology for a neighbourhood-first approach. We envisage all council, or external stakeholder, intervention in communities to be an opportunity to create synergies, build on the trust established by residents, minimise engagement costs and provide a comprehensive service to people. The approach is designed not only to help with reaching net zero, but also to meet broader societal goals around health and wellbeing, social mobility and economic development. 

If you’re at the IGPP conference on Wednesday, keep an eye out for Balazs’s session. To discuss any of these issues or DG Cities’ solutions in more detail, get in touch!