Creating better places
Places across the UK are seizing the economic and social opportunities that come with decarbonisation and creating warmer homes, cheaper local energy, new skills, and more secure work for their communities.
These pioneering places know what they need to do. But their teams are overstretched and they have limited resources and investment. Innovate UK is providing funding, insights, and specialist technical assistance to nearly 300 businesses and local authorities so they can adopt social, cultural, policy, and technical innovation and help their place prosper.
This has led to more collaborative approaches, more effective planning frameworks, and better procurement and financing models that are rooted in user-centred decision-making, ensuring new products and services reflect what local people actually want and need. It has accelerated the adoption of low-carbon solutions and open up new markets for UK businesses at home and internationally.
Programme themes
Buildings and Retrofit
Scaling sustainable retrofit approaches and developing the resources, skills and capacity needed to accelerate demand.
Community Empowerment
Bringing local people into decision-making so they help shape the future places they want.
Planning, Pipeline & Finance
Attracting the public and private investment needed to help communities and businesses thrive.
UPCOMING EVENT
Net Zero Living Insights webinar series
Register now to join a series of webinars that will equip you with knowledge and practical guidance around three areas of place-based innovation: Buildings & Retrofit; Community Empowerment; and Planning, Pipeline & Finance.
Read more and register
How we help
Optimising opportunities
Local places are already acting, but often with limited capacity and siloed strategies. We help them align local ambition with the right delivery models, know-how, and partnerships so they can embed innovation into everyday ways of working.
Accelerating adoption
Successful adoption of net zero solutions means proving they deliver immediate, real-world benefits. We help local authorities and business co-design solutions with communities and prove impact locally. We then share learnings quickly and widely to develop best practice and reduce risk.
Scaling what works
When good ideas stay stuck in pilots, we all lose out. We drive the commercialisation of innovation by showing how local authorities and businesses can turn their new approaches into scalable, investible solutions. We create shared standards, reveal new routes to market, and support UK business exploration of overseas opportunities.
IMPACT STORIES
Sharing our impact
Whether you are tackling citizen engagement, unlocking finance, scaling what works, or seeking new low carbon solutions, you’ll find practical lessons in our project stories that help your place or business go further, faster.
Explore our stories
INSIGHTS
Insights and analysis
Our reports and perspectives bring together a wealth of insights about what it takes to transform local systems and services for the benefit of UK citizens. Here we share our most important learnings to help you on your own innovation journey.
Explore perspectives
Our Experts
Our strategic partners
Related Events and Recordings
Wed
3
Dec
2025
Wed
10
Sep
2025
Preliminary market engagement for Net Zero Innovation - Insights for the public sector and suppliers
12.00 - 13.30 GMT | Online
Watch now
Thu
10
Jul
2025
Wales - A destination for a sustainable collaboration across sectors
10.00 - 15.30 | Newtown
Read more
Thu
26
Jun
2025
Join the Net Zero Places Innovation Network
Register with the Net Zero Places Innovation Network to receive Net Zero Living programme updates.