A new initiative to accelerate the 'drive towards building a low carbon future' has been announced by Hub North Scotland in partnership with Built Environment – Smarter Transformation (BE–ST), and the Innovation School at Glasgow School of Art (GSA).

The initiative – 'a unique partnership between public and private sector organisations' – aims to pave the way to using low carbon construction solutions to tackle critical issues such as the housing crisis while helping to meet key national policy aims around net zero carbon emissions, place-making and ensuring economic outcomes benefit everyone.

Hub North Scotland has collaborated with BE-ST and GSA to develop a 'three-strand programme' for its territory, which stretches from Argyll and Bute in the West to Orkney and Shetland in the North and Aberdeen in the East, and includes 16 local authorities, health boards as well as the police, fire, and ambulance services.

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The three strands – leadership, learning, and low carbon construction – will be used to bring together the public and private sector to establish not only how to meet net zero carbon planning challenges, but also how to do so in new and innovative ways.

Highlighting that the new was driven by hub North's Strategic Territory Partnering Board, who recognised a joint approach across the region was the best way of helping the public sector organisations meet their requirements and policy aims, Paul McGirk, Executive Chairman of hub North Scotland, said: "We need greater collaboration to create a net zero carbon infrastructure in the built environment, not just in the hub North Scotland territory but also across the whole of Scotland. By working with BE-ST and GSA, we are giving our public sector partners the opportunity to look together at new ways of doing this which will help them meet their requirements and at the same time unlock potential additional investment opportunities."

Douglas Morrison, Deputy CEO at BE-ST, added: "Innovation and collaboration are key to finding and embedding solutions to the net zero carbon challenge. Both the leadership and skills workshops will create opportunities for these two critical drivers to take shape and accelerate progress in a unified way."