Event overview
Join us for our hybrid event with great talks celebrating two fantastic energy sustainability initiatives which are working together for a better Bristol – Bristol Energy Network, Laura Penny and Rachel Moffat, and Bristol City Leap, James Sterling.
Talk 1: A game-changing approach towards decarbonisation at city-scale
Bristol City Leap is a world-first and will deliver nearly £500 million into low carbon energy infrastructure, such as solar, wind, heat networks, heat pumps and energy efficiency measures. Put simply, this means a transformative boost in the amount of renewable energy and decarbonised heat powering Bristol. In turn this means a cleaner, greener and healthier place. This helps Bristol meet its carbon reduction targets of becoming carbon neutral by 2030.
Bristol City Leap is also delivering significant social value to the city including over 1,000 new jobs, apprenticeships and work placements, and a new Community Energy Fund worth £1.5m.
About James
James heads up the Communications and Engagement team with responsibility for the company’s internal and external communications strategy, brand development, community engagement and the delivery of our social value commitments.
He’s worked on some key sustainability projects including European Green Capital and Bristol Community Energy Fund. With an unmatched passion for sustainability, James has been an instrumental champion for Bristol’s green efforts over the years, ensuring collective action to keep Bristol on track to be the UK’s first carbon neutral city.
James’ slides
Bristol-City-Leap-GTSW-2024-minTalk 2: Putting communities at the heart of Bristol’s energy system
Bristol Energy Network (BEN) is a member-led umbrella organisation for the stakeholders of Bristol and its surrounding areas who are interested in establishing a clean, green, and affordable energy landscape. With over a decade of experience, BEN has become a trusted partner in guiding communities on their journey towards embracing and achieving clean and just energy transitions.
BEN now plays a crucial role in the development of the city’s community participation in energy. It has an influential voice representing the diversity of local communities and is an important asset that makes connections between the grassroots and policy, representing the community.
BEN has been working with Bristol City Leap to provide support to community organisations in creating funding applications, developing project ideas, and developing joint initiatives for the Bristol City Leap Community Energy Fund.
About Laura
Laura is the Chair of the Board for Bristol Energy Network CIC (BEN), which is a volunteer role in her “spare time”. She is passionate about empowering individuals to benefit from the energy transition and has been working with BEN for a number of years. The community energy sector is equal parts inspiring, challenging, and collaborative, which provides the perfect recipe for exciting innovation and achievements across Bristol’s diverse neighbourhoods.
Outside of BEN she’s an energy strategy consultant, working for a global engineering company, Ramboll.
Laure and Rachel’s slides
Bristol-Energy-Network-at-GTSW-Feb-2024-minWatch the event video
👋 04.13 – Event starts with a welcome from organisers, Ellen, Hannah and Mike
📢 06:45 – 60 second intros – a chance for in-person and online attendees to introduce themselves, ask for help or share something interesting
💚 16:40 – James’s talk
💚 50:00- Laura and Rachel’s talk
❓ 01:13:12 – Questions
Resources and links
One of the perks of holding events online, and having such a wonderful and engaging community, is we share a huge amount of useful resources and information throughout the event. Here’s a summary of what we unearthed.
Links and resources
- OSGeo:UK Hackathon
- Open source real time grid visualisation tool
- Our Ecologi forest
- Introducing Bristol City Leap video
- GTSW event: Bristol’s City Leap: A new hope for city-scale decarbonisation
- LinkedIn post about the award-winning water source heat pump in the heart of Bristol
- Sustainable Energy: Bristol Castle Park Water Source Heat Pump
- Bristol City Leap set to be replicated in York and North Yorkshire
- Bristol Energy Network
- BEN email for anyone who wants to join: coordinator@bristolenergynetwork.org
- Bristol City Council became the first UK council to declare a climate emergency for the city
- City of Bristol Just Transition Declaration
- The West of England combined authorities
- Scott Logic open source proposed tech carbon standard
Community 60 second intros
An opportunity for you, our community, to (very quickly) share something with the rest of us. This can be anything from a green tech project or initiative you are working on, a request for help or guidance or even some knowledge/resource you’d like to share with others
Ollie Cronk – Works for UK software and data engineering consultancy Scott Logic who kindly hosted today’s event. They’re a social enterprise and certified B Crop who have open sourced a proposed tech carbon standard which went live this week. This aims to help navigate the technology space relating to greenhouse gas protocol scopes 1-3. Ollie and his team would greatly welcome feedback and are keen to get other people involved and contributing to the github repository. You can get in touch with Oliver via email at ocronk@scottlogic.com or connect with him on LinkedIn!
Ed Garrett – MD and founder at the Discourse, one of our wonderful sponsors! The Discourse is a design agency and certified B Crop on a mission to enable changemakers to have a positive impact on society and the planet. To achieve this they partner with businesses, predominately in Green Tech and consultancy, as well as charities and non-profits helping them to clarify their message and communicate in a meaningful way through brand, the web and content. As a Bristolian, Ed is super proud of the work that is going on in Bristol and in the Green Tech community and is eager to learn more about how best he, or the Discourse, can support and amplify the impact these organisations are trying to make. Get in touch with Ed via his LinkedIn!
Rob Webbon – From 1Energy who are decarbonising heat at scale in city centres by building heat networks throughout the UK. They’re currently building in Exeter, Rotherham, Milton Keynes and Bradford and are looking to expand out to 10 networks within the next 5 years. They have a net zero strategy which they need support with, so if anyone is involved in carbon accounting for engineering projects, corporate PPA’s for electricity and gas, or net zero strategies in big engineering projects, please do get in touch with Rob at rob@1energy.uk or connect via his LinkedIn.
Crista Buznea – Head of Marketing at Ecologi, a climate access scale up looking to bring an all-in-one solution for businesses. To encourage businesses to get started, Ecologi generously help them calculate their carbon footprint for free. From there, they will help reduce their emissions, form a climate action and engage their employees. Please do get in touch with Crista if you’d like to learn more via LinkedIn.
Sara Telahoun – A climate change consultant working with clients across the public and private sector currently working with 3 Adapt. 3 Adapt have built a land management tool aiming to help land managers and large landowners to understand biodiversity, carbon, and the social and economic impacts of the land that they own and the potential that is in there. Fairly new to biodiversity and nature-based solutions, Sara is keen to share ideas and test the theory that landowners have a lot of potential within the land that they own, so please do get in touch!
Our slides with upcoming events
http://tinyurl.com/2n7hpcbr