The South Yorkshire Sustainability Centre (SYSC) has officially released its Consolidated Research Report.
The report is the culmination of four years of the centre’s work comprehensively showcasing the breadth of SYSC’s research. It is an extensive account detailing the challenges and opportunities facing South Yorkshire’s path to a net-zero future. It is a landmark report that gives regional policymakers evidence and policy recommendations to support faster and fairer decarbonisation pathways in South Yorkshire.
Faster and Fairer Decarbonisation Pathways
Professor Rachael Rothman, SYSC Academic Director, said: “Our report showcases the full breadth and depth of our findings, and provides evidence-based recommendations for how we might deliver decarbonisation pathways that are faster, and fairer.
As Academic Director, I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved through SYSC’s collaborative projects and I know that there's much more that we can do together to build a sustainable future for South Yorkshire.
I invite readers, as they move through the report, to reflect on where research could support their own vital work and to reach out to SYSC to start a new collaboration.
Professor Aimee Ambrose, Professor of Energy Policy at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR), Sheffield Hallam University: “SYSC is a great example of the two Sheffield universities working together with policy and practice partners across the region to move South Yorkshire more rapidly towards a sustainable future.
“Sheffield Hallam's contribution has, amongst other things, helped ensure that fairness and inclusivity are at the heart of the project. We've focussed attention on communities who lost out in previous transitions, voices rarely heard in debates about our future, such as children, and we've explored how the history of places in South Yorkshire shape aspirations for a more sustainable future. We're pleased to see a record of SYSC's contributions to date captured in this report."
Professor Will Eadson, Professor of Urban and Regional Studies at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR), Sheffield Hallam University: "A thriving South Yorkshire is only possible through achieving a sustainable future that also brings opportunity for all.
"Our report shows how this can be achieved through regional partnership and commitment to including the voices of our region’s communities.
"The report is itself a demonstration of this commitment, showcasing how cross-sector collaboration can provide us with the knowledge, understanding and purpose to achieve real change.“
Highlights of the report include:
- To hit net-zero targets South Yorkshire must retrofit over 600,000 houses. That equates to almost 20,000 homes annually to align with the 2050 target. This figure rises to around 32,000 per year to meet the region's more ambitious 2040 net-zero goal.
- The report found that almost 50 per cent of the region’s electrical substations are at risk of overloading due to increasing demand, with an estimated cost of £940 per customer to upgrade the infrastructure
- It highlights that using ‘smart’ digital technology to re-route traffic could cut Sheffield’s air pollution by 21 per cent, with only a 20 second impact on average journey times around the city
- The report emphasises that the transition to net-zero must be designed to reduce inequality by creating high-quality jobs, upskilling and reskilling the workforce and ensuring that the benefits of economic growth are fairly distributed
A 'Just Transition' for South Yorkshire
The heart of the SYSC report is the commitment to a "just transition." Any green transition must also be a just transition if we want to achieve improvements in public health and regional prosperity. Taken together, our just transition research has demonstrated that justice and inclusion are not an add-on to the already urgent list of tasks to be delivered in South Yorkshire but can provide an approach and set of values that underpin climate action and drive meaningful change. These changes rely on adopting new ways of working with citizens, communities, businesses and workers, which underpin our recommendations.
Explore the report
The full report is 244 pages that contain the breadth of our research portfolio of 34 projects. It is divided into 6 thematic chapters, each with a summary of the challenges that the region faces and the SYSC research response as well as recommendations for regional policymakers. Each chapter also contains research case studies that provide more detail on individual projects and links to published research papers.
You can read the full report or choose to focus on individual themes on the publication page. Here, you will also find an executive report which provides the chapter summaries and recommendations for regional policymakers.
