Decarb Network Symposium: Innovations in UK Building Retrofits

Join us at the first University of Cambridge Decarbonisation Network Symposium. The Network’s Special Interest Groups will come together under the banner of ‘Innovations in UK Building Retrofits’.

Retrofitting and renovation of buildings will be key to reaching zero carbon targets. Much of the UK building stock is aging, with a range of ‘hard to treat’ and historic buildings that are difficult to upgrade. On one hand, technologies that exist face challenges of uptake, consumer confidence, and financial commitments. On the other hand, there is a need for new innovations in materials, energy systems, and processes to tackle buildings and new demands on how they are operated – e.g., innovative glazing, facades, insulation, new types of heat distribution materials, novel ventilation systems, smart operation, robotics etc.

This Symposium aims to identify innovative emerging technologies in this space that can be accelerated by industry-academic collaboration.

Please direct any queries to decarbnetwork@admin.cam.ac.uk.

Let s know if you have access or dietary needs. There is limited parking available, please contact us if you need parking reserved.

Full Symosium Program

Agenda

09:30 – 10:00: Arrival and Welcome

10:00 – 12:30: Workshop - AI/Data Science for decarbonisation of the Built Environment

• Roadmapping workshop on the use of cyber-physical infrastructure to decarbonise the Cambridge University estate as a demonstrator project.

12:30 – 13:30: Networking lunch

13.30 – 16:30: Emerging technologies in Retrofit

• A round of 'quick-fire' technology presentations by selected industry colleagues will be followed by facilitated round-table discussion with all attendees. Please find a speaker list on the symposium program.

16:30 - 17:00 : Wrap-up

17:00 - 18:00: Networking in West Hub

Further Background:

The University of Cambridge is at the forefront of global efforts to achieve net zero, with many of our academics already working with industry and the public sector to accelerate progress. To support these efforts, the University runs a Decarbonisation Network of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) in the following three areas:

• The Hard to Decarbonise Technologies SIG (H2D) led by Professor Adam Boies covers work in technologies including transport fuels, power generation, material flows, building materials and industrial processes.
• The Light Harvesting SIG (LH) led by Dr Sam Stranks covers work in technologies including photovoltaics, photocatalysis, photo-electrochemical devices, solar-driven fuel generation — including their development, characterisation, deployment and end of life.
• The Built Environment SIG (BE) led by Professor Ruchi Choudhary covers decarbonisation of buildings and focuses on collaborations that equally engage industry and the public sector.

The SIGs provide a focus for key technologies in which Cambridge has particular strengths, linking University-wide expertise with a broad industry network. This will provide an invaluable opportunity for academics, industry and public sector stakeholders to identify routes to decarbonisation in a non-competitive setting.

In this special workshop, the three SIGs will come together with industry to explore and identify the most promising emerging and future technologies that have the potential to disrupt the pace of energy retrofitting and thus accelerate UK’s path to net-zero.