At a major London workshop on 4 February 150 industry representatives and other stakeholders will discuss the output from a year-long government-commissioned study into how the UK’s most heat intensive industries can reduce carbon emissions and improve energy efficiency whilst maintaining competitiveness.

With a keynote address from the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Davey, and insights from leading industry and technical figures, attendees will have the opportunity to discuss the study’s findings, opportunities and emerging issues during a ‘question time’ style morning session. They will also be able to explore critical areas in more depth during afternoon workshop sessions.

The project is part of a government programme to develop decarbonisation roadmaps with industrial sectors to help meet the UK’s challenging 2050 emission reduction targets. The aim is to support the country’s transition to a low-carbon economy while maintaining a competitive industrial sector. A full report of the study’s outputs will be published later this year.

The event is being held at the Royal Academy of Engineering and is being run by a Parsons Brinckerhoff and DNV GL consortium, which was appointed by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to run the project at the end of 2013.

The consortium’s brief was to analyse options for carbon reduction and energy efficiency across eight heat-intensive industry sectors  with the aim of investigating pathways and identifying possible next steps that will need to be taken by industry, government and others in order to meet the UK’s emissions decarbonisation goals. Activity during the previous year has involved a series of workshops with stakeholders from each of the eight industry sectors.

Parsons Brinckerhoff consortium lead, Paul Noble, said: “This is a critical time for energy intensive businesses in the UK. The roadmap process has brought industrial sectors together to share short and longer term challenges and opportunities.   The emerging findings in each sector highlight the need for a programme of action to address the issues and inform the choices ahead.”

The workshop will discuss the emerging findings from the study, listen to the government’s views and share ideas on what should happen next. The eight industry sectors represent around 70% of industrial emissions in the UK: iron and steel; pulp and paper; cement; oil refining; glass; ceramics; chemicals and food.