Net Zero Pioneer - Manchester

**Net Zero Pioneer Manchester** will develop a detailed local plan to accelerate delivery of the City's net zero targets using an innovative place-based, whole-systems approach to unlocking a range of non-technical systemic barriers to implementation.

Manchester City Council, with our partners Bankers Without Boundaries, Equans, Manchester Climate Change Agency and Manchester Metropolitan University, recognise the need for significant additional investment in decarbonisation for the city to reach its net zero 2038 goals.

Building on the latest innovations from the BEIS-funded 3Ci initiative and similar projects, we will adapt, refine, and test the aggregation of net zero projects (covering power, heat, mobility, product manufacture and usage) from across mixed assets (domestic, commercial, industrial, public) within a local place to attract a blended portfolio of investments that can unlock decarbonisation at scale.

We will take an innovative approach by working directly with local stakeholders including regional infrastructure operators, social housing providers, transport operators and Greater Manchester Combined Authority to quantify the scale of existing, locally committed, outcome-seeking funds within a discrete location -- Wythenshawe, a town within Manchester. We will collate these investments to leverage new finance (return and outcome-seeking) by engaging both public and private sectors, creating a blended investment portfolio.

Concurrently, we will collate the pipeline of locally committed net zero projects, highlighting the existing decarbonisation pathway, and develop a new pipeline of projects aligned to the blended investment portfolio and informed by the City's Local Area Energy Plan, produced by the Energy Systems Catapult, the Manchester Climate Change Framework and associated research by GMCA.

The resulting net zero plan will have an estimated value of £45m.

It's creation will enable us to address a range of non-technical barriers including: using outcome-seeking funds to leverage return-seeking investment; modelling revenue streams across a blended portfolio; optimising the balance of cross-vectoral interventions; valuing benefits for outcome buyers; using financial disclosure to de-risk public funds; growing local supply chains and skills opportunities; creating an enabling policy framework; designing the right governance, legal, and contractual arrangements for delivery; engaging residents, businesses, and local communities effectively; and building capacity for net zero delivery within local government and relevant stakeholders.

This project will move innovation in net zero financing from theory to practice, to develop a plan that can be deployed at scale and test solutions to multiple implementation barriers, and that can be expanded across the city and replicated by other places in the UK.