Whilst the transition is occurring economy wide, it is playing out in place-based situations. This is particularly the case for the hard-to-abate sectors where heavy industry can be the economic driver for a region, or where sectors like agriculture and the fabric of regional communities.
The development of net zero regions or precincts are emerging as communities either driven by industrial transformation or looking to capture collective advantage by the net zero transition seek advantage through identity and renewal, market differentiation or supporting foundational industry narratives.
These niche activities are creating new patterns of industrial symbiosis, pioneering new market mechanisms for insetting and identifying governance arrangements to support shared value creation. There is much to learn from these early experiments, and innovation, technical and policy support can de-risk and accelerate these regional and precinct transitions.
Topics:
CSIRO seeks proposals that can help identify approaches and frameworks that identify opportunities and vulnerabilities of regions and precincts in net zero transition and in particular that support:
- Innovation and market support mechanisms (including enabling digital technologies) for net zero precinct and region transitions;
- Comparative analysis of governance arrangements and how these affect success, resilience and equity;
- Typologies and analytics that identify readiness of regions to transition and expose the aspect of support (for example leadership, industry options, capital etc) that could improve success
- All proposals aligned with this theme should contain a section that clearly describes how the proposed solution is complementary to CSIRO’s Towards Net Zero Mission.