Creating a market for place-based outcomes

West Midlands Combined Authority’s (WMCA) Project CAMPOS (Creating a Market for Place-based Outcomes) looks to alternative funding mechanisms to plug the retrofit funding gap.

WMCA and consortium partners Bankers without Boundaries and Dark Matter Labs won £75,000 Innovate UK funding through the Pathfinder Places programme to investigate if the non-financial outcomes of the energy transition (e.g. health & wellbeing benefits, energy system benefits, and carbon benefits) can help to fund the retrofit funding gap in the region.

The project concluded at the end of June 2023 and the report with the findings can be found here. A handy summary of the project was also created:

There was also a number of open source resources such as this useful Kumu mapping tool of neighbourhood net zero outcomes.

Key conclusions from the work is that demand does indeed exist from ‘outcome buyers’ for regional Net Zero outcomes, but current retrofit delivery doesn’t allow for the evidence base to be collected in a language they understand.

WMCA will now look to apply for a further £5m of Pathfinder Places funding to develop the first iteration of a regional carbon market using the Net Zero Neighbourhoods programme.