#053 James Taplin - Net Zero Living

On The Edge

In today’s episode I speak with James Taplin, Lead Technologist for Urban Living at Innovate UK, about the benefits of a place-specific verses a place-agnostic approach in addressing the transition to net zero, and in particular about a £60m government programme called Net Zero Living working with 52 places to collaborate and accelerate the transition to net zero. 

James was previously a Sustainability Advisor at Forum for the Future, and has a PhD in Biodiversity and Climate Relationships from the Uni of York

He’s also a writer of really beautiful and thought provoking posts on instagram and I know that I am not alone in looking forward to reading his first book one of these days.

And just so you know, in the interests of full disclosure Liminal are a current delivery partner of NZL and convening the 52 places and leading on the delivery of the Community of Practice together with Urban Foresight and Forum for the Future.We discussed the following:

• What is Net Zero Living and how did it come about?
• What are no-regrets Net Zero solutions and how to scale them.
• What are local authorities on the front line of the net zero transition.
• About the co-benefits of achieving your needs/goals in a better, net-zero way.
• How to balance hope and despair when working on climate innovation.

Here are a few links to some of the things we discussed:

⁠https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/programme/net-zero-living/⁠

⁠https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/perspectives/accelerating-net-zero-delivery-unlocking-the-benefits-of-climate-action-in-uk-city-regions/⁠

⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamestaplin/⁠

⁠www.weareliminal.co/ontheedge ⁠

If you enjoyed this conversation then also check out Episode 52 with Dan Thompson about the Running Out of Time Climate Relay and Episode 51 with Hannah Scott who is the co-founder of the Climate Tech Supercluster.