Cambridgeshire Net Zero Financing Framework for Whole System Change (CANFFUND)

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Independent Commission for Climate (CPICC) estimated that £700m p.a. of funding will be required through the 2020s to decarbonise the area, and identified the need for an ambitious funding plan. This project seeks to build on this work, developing a series of practical and implementable place-based finance and funding packages to accelerate the delivery of net zero. Funding and financing Cambridgeshire's Net Zero ambitions is a significant challenge. We must look beyond the public purse and engage with private sector investment.

The CANFFUND Project will look at the financial flows of money to identify where/how money is currently spent/invested through the economy and use **systems thinking** approaches to co-design mechanisms to redirect finance/funding/purchasing toward low carbon, local solutions. The initial focus is on power, heat, mobility and product manufacturing.

Only by working in collaboration with partners and communities, across all sectors, utilising findings from existing and ongoing research programmes, can we identify and be part of the levers and opportunities for new financing innovations, and create the place based, local net zero financing framework we need. The project will bring together stakeholders from across community, business, public sector and investors to share understanding of the challenge and collaborate on solutions. This will build capacity, capability and skills and bring new opportunities to explore, such as the commercial and financial investments required for rural, farming and Agri-tech communities. All of this will extend and enhance work of the Connected Places Catapult, 3Ci project and other research programmes and disseminate learning.

Our project will build on research by 3CI and others and seek to apply concepts of bundling projects together across power, heat and mobility into different proxy places. These proxy places will reflect the rural nature of Cambridgeshire's oil-dependent villages; market towns and low density urban communities, to identify the differences and benefits in 'places' for financing and funding Net Zero. The project uses an innovative "finance-first" approach to investigate the financial opportunities across the whole system and co-develop tangible solutions with all stakeholders and communities.