Hydro Nation – net zero and the circular economy

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Paul Fletcher of enabling Innovation Partners and a very well warm welcome. This is an event through the Hydro-Nation Water Innovation Service and today, we're going to talk to you about net zero and the circular economy.

First of all, thanks for coming. Especially those of you who've travelled far from what, say, the kitchen to the bedroom, realise that some of you have come further, the living room to the garage maybe. Another webinar, but at least it's not a quiz.

It's like most hibernation events. Truly my objective today, that it's about a call to action and that's really the intention of Hydro-Nation and Water Innovation service - it’s about doing something, rather than just talking.

So, I've asked to be the chair, perhaps, because I've worked for all the organisations represented today - Scottish Government, I spent three years on the Water Innovation Panel Committee. I've worked for Scottish Enterprise, mostly around collaboration in recent years, and my research into collaborative approaches to risk, innovation in the regulatory environment. If you have trouble sleeping, I can email that to you on request.

I've also worked for the Chamber of Commerce on a number of projects, I've lectured at Abertay funnily enough and I'm an associate of Arup and was a part of the original HNWIS team.

I'm also someone who's very interested in entrepreneurship, and how small and medium enterprises can become part of this wonderful process. I advise the Cabinet office in Downing Street for around five years on innovation.

But my passion is innovation and my role today, though, is just simply to ensure smooth running - we keep to time. We have five fabulous speakers I'll introduce to you. As Jonny has already said, we'll have time at the end for questions.

So, the context really folks is, that COP 26, the conference of partners will take place in Glasgow on the 12th of November. So, we can do a woo, but because you're all muted, maybe a thumbs up, or some sort of positive sign.

That will allow us to shape climate policy and all related companies, I hope, to get on the bandwagon around collaboration, partnership, development of products, disruption, and it's really, I think about lifting our heads, folks and looking around, looking up, looking global.

So, the rules are simply coffee is at your discretion and questions, at the end! No one's allowed to eat a bacon sandwich in my presence. So, without further ado, I'll introduce you to our first speaker, Doctor Mark Williams, who's head of Sustainability and climate change at Scottish Water.

Another one of my clients when laying off and I think, Mark, we met when I was working on an innovation strategy at Scottish water. But prior to that, worked with UK water, head of research into climate change, and net zero, so he's a perfect modern colleague, to introduce. Mark, over to you.

OK, thank you, Paul and apologies to my webcam is not working, so you'll hear this disembodied voice coming through to you just now. 

I'd like to take just a quick overview of what Scottish water is doing to support a net zero emissions water sector in Scotland.

So, just to tie this together: so, at the start of 2020 Scottish Water launched its strategic plan for long-term goals that Scottish Water will seek to achieve with partners in Scotland. So, this was developed very much in partnership with the government with key regulators ensuring water quality. Of course, the economic regulator, as well as wider stakeholders and customers to really focus on what the important things are for us as a business and a service in Scotland over the next 20 years.

That came up with three big outcomes beyond net zero emissions, great value of financial sustainability, and service excellence. Within that, you can see a huge range of key, big, strategic goals we need to try and hit. The key message here, is that beyond that zero emissions is one of the three big goals Scottish Water has set. As we all know, that's going to be a hugely challenging ambition for us to deliver on the next couple of decades.

In September 2020, we launched our Net zero Emissions route map. This was a piece of work that we undertook with information and input from experts in zero emissions, in academia in Scotland and in business as well. To truly focused on what are the steps we as Scottish Water you need to take to drive net zero.

One of the key things that we identified is there's a whole range of solutions and things we need to do across different parts of business, in terms of how we run our service, but also in the investment admissions that we cover. This is one of the key things that I wanted to kind of get across here, is that we'll cover not just the operational mission Scottish water. But the emissions associated with our supply chain and the big investment programs that we run.

So, this will be challenges, and very definitely around what we, what we do. We're always looking at the emissions we controlled in our operational space, but also those that we invest in, and collectively, they add up to the best part of 400,000 tonnes of emissions in 2019 and 2020.

This covers, the day-to-day services, the use of electricity in running the waterways for the water service. Also, as I said, the investment, and that's the embodied emissions and the materials we use and the way we build and maintain our assets going forward.

But we've come out with an investment metric of around 2 to 300 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per million pounds of spend and that's what we use to help us try to focus on and drive down these bodies' investment emissions.

So, to achieve net zero, we're going to have to become more energy efficient in what we do, use lower carbon energy products embrace low carbon construction. We realise we can't eliminate all the emissions that this sector will produce. We have to therefore, look at how we store away emissions that we can't avoid. So, very much this the strategic approach and a hierarchy of drive down emissions and then locking away emissions we can't eliminate.

So, what does that look like? We have to recognise the water and wastewater services, as I said, are relatively intense on power to actually run them, waters heavy and requires a lot of treatment and distribution to customers. One of the key focus areas here is we have to drive down the consumption side, find those low energy processes. Those low energy kits that will help us to drive that forward to maximise the energy recovery of our service.

That includes the sludge materials that we have which have a big opportunity to provide power to our service and to look at where we can generate or host on site renewables to displace the use of grid electricity wherever we can.

We've got examples already, so we've got a very active renewables program, seeking to deliver around 90 Gigawatt hours of a new renewables over the next 10 years on our operational sites. Solar farms here in Aberdeen, wind farms that we see around Scotland - small scale wind farms that are providing power here. We already have a lot of hydropower in our system. How can we maximise and find more up change to go from micro hydro within that within our assets? I mentioned there are sludge and bio resources. How do we actually develop more advanced anaerobic digestion technologies to capture more power from materials that we have?

So, I mentioned capital investments. The emissions intensity, as I mentioned earlier on, is quite high, 2 to 300 tonnes per million pound to spend in all the capital work that we do with extensive supply chains.

Our strategy here is to actually seek to drive down the emissions in the design and the procurement of the lower zero emission materials, and the way in which we build our assets.

What does that look like in the design space: How do we look at the types of options we select, can we go for catchment management options? Can we avoid building wherever we can? Can live within those designs up to strip out the carbon and look at different ways of construction to deliver? Looking at the materials themselves how do you take carbon out of each of the elements of material - the concrete, steel.

In this case, here, one of our supply chain partners has come forward with a new way of actually using smart service material that takes out the carbon from all the advocates, who would otherwise have used to create the access roads.

Through to the construction techniques ourselves and here we see an example of the offsite fabrication. Good control, reducing the carbon in a treatment unit that we've then just taken to site to minimise the amount of on-site construction. There is a lot of focus on working with our partners and supply chains to how we find new and innovative ways to deliver net zero investment.

Growing our carbon sink – the key focus here is to recognise we will not be able to eliminate all of our emissions. We therefore need to find ways to store carbon on our own landholdings. We only have about 2000 hectares of land in Scotland a lot of this is under tenant farmer. Hey, can we work with farmers to improve the current storage of their land and also continue to support the farm and activities they have.

This will have multiple benefits - lockup carbon, improving soil carbon storage, improving the resilience of the landscape. Also, increasing biodiversity of the land we own.

This is where we are primarily looking in Scottish water, rather than look to other forms of offset for carbon.

One of the key areas and why the innovation famous have strong is we know that there's a lot of technologies, a lot of new things we will need to do that and not yet ready. We'll have to really engage with some big questions of innovation to support that zero.

A few areas here within our route map: low energy water and wastewater treatment, ammonia and methane recovery. One of the big challenges we will face as sector is that process emissions from wastewater treatment. How do we capture ammonia and methane - and use it as a value recovery process rather than seek to treat it and reduce the process emissions of nitrous oxide and so on.

Through to the use of digital analytical tools, materials search, I've already called out and how we actually find those low carbon materials that we can use in investment planning. Through to the bigger questions for us, which is what's our role in hydrogen? For example.

Hydrogen production could be a very water intense process, so we have a very good interest and how that might proceed. But also understand and are rolling and actually taking hydrogen as a value product as well. So, these are some of the big innovation questions we're starting to grapple with.

One of the key things to kind of call out and refer people back to that Scottish Water net zero route map. We have committed to report on our progress across all of these different areas and share with the stakeholders the journey that we're on. So, how will we actually become more energy efficient, what works for us, what are our challenges, and how they change over time.

We'll be coming to seek to put an update on how we apply to this year. 

Thank you.

Paul: Thank you very much, indeed, Mark. If you're still online, let me just ask you a very quick question.

With your roadmap, and the focus area is, would you comment briefly, again, just on how small companies, engineering companies, and so on, might get involved, what their opportunities are in broad terms?

Mark: I brought some, and we also have a very large supply chain across Scotland of all different scale and sizes. The key thing for us is that, and the reason the route map is set out in this way, is we are trying to point to the big questions and challenge we will have and for which we will need supply chains to work with us to bring forward solutions.

So, there's some good examples already, where we are starting to kind of engage with, looking at some of the hydrogen questions, looking at some of the new and novel products. For example, the most efficient ways of doing things. A lot of our procurement frameworks are geared towards looking for those opportunities now.

So, in terms of innovation itself, if there are products or services that can answer, or can provide some benefit to us, then we want to understand what they are and actually how we will look to pilot them to use them. Ultimately, to deploy them, if that's the right way forward.

So, I would probably be asking people to have a look through the roadmap, if there's interest, to see what challenge we set out in that.

Paul: Mark, thank you very much. 

Now it's my pleasure to introduce Lilian Parkes and Pete Gray Lillian is with Northern Irish Water. Her background really is an energy efficiency and in renewables, but from her CV, she's also a project leader, par excellence, and that's really where her and Pete are going to add some value here. Pete Gray is Arups leader in Northern Ireland. He works across the built environment but leads the water team there. So, both Lillian and Pete will tag team this and it's really about nitty gritty about doing something in Northern Ireland. So over to you both. Thank you.

Thanks, Paul. My name is Lilian, and I am a business improvement project manager and Northern Ireland water. As fellow water companies, I'm sure you know of the significant use of electricity to treat and pumping water around the country for householders and businesses alike.

NI Water provides both water and wastewater services. I'm sure you can appreciate the amount of electricity required to pump it back again and treat the wastewater treatment works. Speaking of NI Water, did you know that we are the largest consumer of electricity in Northern Ireland?

In fact, Northern Ireland water uses around 200 gigawatt hours of energy per annum, which has an associated cost in the region of £32 million. This equates to nearly 70,000 tonnes of carbon emissions.

We're all aware of the climate emergency, an immediate need to action on climate change. I'm glad to say NI Water is not shying away from the challenge to reduce its carbon emissions. In fact, in the last price control period, our energy efficiency work has delivered £2.2 billion worth and efficiency through a comprehensive energy program. The main focus of which was to reduce or personal carbon emissions through improving the efficiency of our processes.

One of our current aims is to work towards 100% renewable electricity by 2027, and this should take us a good step down the road towards net zero. As such, I'm here to tell you about one of our energy efficiency measures and the background of the hydrogen and oxygen demonstrated project.

Then I'll hand over to Pete tell you more about the strategic partnership agreement that is now in place.

A few years ago, NI Water applied for some funding, with the Small Business Research Initiative. That was in order to engage companies and some research and innovative thinking regarding energy storage opportunities. Essentially, the outcome of which would demonstrate high energy storage solutions can be incorporated into NI Waters infrastructure.

The proposed initiatives totally line with the program for governments, for indicator of looking after the planet, considering the use of renewable energy to improve the air we breathe and cutting down on the amount of energy that is wasted.

We were successful in obtaining the funding as part of the process. The Strategic Investment Board Arranged information session to communicate the challenge to interested businesses. Three successful applicants for providing the funding to progress the proposed solution through a desktop exercise, using NI Water data.

During this process, one of the projects provided a solution to not only provide energy storage, but also the potential to improve on the risk water treatment process.

This resulted in the first electrolyser delivered to Northern Ireland, and oxygen trials, and wastewater treatment being carried on. You can see a picture here of the 10 Kilowatt electrolyser.

As we already have operational sites distributed across the country with major electricity grid connections, NI Water again placed to kick start the hydrogen economy in Northern Ireland.

We have already supplied our own water to feed the electrolyser. A ready demand for hydrogen to fuel our heavy goods vehicles on potential to enhance, or wastewater treatment processes by using the oxygen to improve them.

All within the company which I like to think is a trusted brand for delivering what matters to the people of Northern Ireland. As a water business, we recognise the important role that we have as a custodian of nature. Let me consider NI Water and its assets by looking through a different lens.

We consider the potential for the company to have an important role in developing Northern Ireland waters. Northern Islands net zero plans, for the information implementation of sustainable energy technologies.

Approximately 83% of households in Northern Ireland are served by the public service system, with water collecting, treating and safely dispose of the 320 million litres of wastewater each day. It is predicted that over half of Northern Irelands treatments plans will reach capacity by 2027, a significant investment for wastewater and water infrastructure is required.

Acknowledging this, at the end of last year, NI Water was awarded £5 million funding from the Department for the Economy for the oxygen and hydrogen ecosystem demonstrator.

You can see listed here, the purpose of this demo project, with use about one megawatt electrolyser, was to see high risk water process can increase. How green energy can decarbonise transport. Utilising of renewable grid, supplied electricity are possible, for example, use of wind renewables through grid at night, and also, high leading.

Hydrogen technology can assist NI Water to address a kind of emergency. In effect, this project considers a system using resources in a circular economy, and should demonstrate, at a higher scale, a way to contribute to reaching the target of net zero.

Any relevant lessons learned from the 10 kilowatt oxygen from trials will feed into this project.

Let me take you through an overview of the schematic part of the process. But the liquid will come into the risk, works, going through the treatment process, with finally coming out and being used to feed the electrolyser.

Then coming down toward, on the schematic, you can see that the split into oxygen can be stored or used at the appropriate time to enhance the treatment process in a circular economic fashion.

We split, then hydrogen goes to storage, that needs compressed and ready for use. Potentially for the decarbonisation of transport, initially in our heavy goods vehicles, such as sludge tankers or even for third party tools such as busses.

At the top of the schematic, the connection to the grid indicates the use of renewable energy via the grid. Should the demonstrated project ultimately prove successful, then you can scale up.

We can scale up across the re-use water treatment asset base. As I said, we are the largest single user in Northern Ireland. We have 3000 distribution sites with electricity connections across the country. Also, we are the second largest landowner. We acknowledge the importance of collaboration, especially in the innovation space.

With this in mind, we have entered into long term strategic partnership agreement. To complete the demonstrate project, and set up the structure progressing to other sites, should this project to be deemed successful, in which case this is only the start of the story.

You can see the main objectives of the SPA on this line. Now, I'd like to hand you over to Pete, to hear some more about the logistics of the SPA and current status of the project.

I'm just going to talk a bit more about the delivery of the demonstration project that is, as Lillian's mentioned, delivering a 1 Megawatt electrolyser on other associated works.

So, at the procurement model, this is a diagram shown on the screen and this, basically, an innovation partnership procedure was chosen by, NI Water, to deliver this in accordance with the utilities contracts regulations.

A bespoke contract model was developed along the top bar. You can see, just over to the right-hand side, a strategic partnering agreement. An Overarching Agreement was put in place, which will allow NI Water the opportunity to go to deliver the demonstrator project underneath that. I'm also an agreement on an arrangement that could facilitate future deployment of electrolysers across various sites, as Lilian mentioned there.

So, I'm going to focus more on the bottom bar there. What has been developed is a contracting structure, a feed contract. Which is an engineering design contract, to be put in place, an EPC construction contract, and an O&M - operation and maintenance contract.

Those breakpoints allow NI water the opportunity then, if they want to proceed or not, they have those different breakpoints if you'd like between the contracts.

So, just in terms of timeline, there's quite an intense process, December 20 to March 21.

There's an invitation to innovate under this innovation partnership series of innovation meetings with the different bidders reviewing what innovation innovative ideas they could bring. Then we incorporated the ideas and to the final BAFO documents, that NI Water prepared, and then submitted their issue to the bidders for their final BAFO submissions. So, it was quite an interesting process.

One of the case king things that came through that was, I'll maybe touch on that in a minute - how do we develop the design, which was quite interesting?

Key items on the innovation partnership procedure. NI Water collaborated with each party individually and aims to enable the bidders to work with on our water to develop best possible designs to meet NI Water needs.

Confidentiality was key - so these are 1 to 1 meetings with each of the bidders, and within this NI Water will share the intellectual property rights as well.

As I matched a series of pre-arranged workshops were held. It was quite an intense period looking at legal, commercial and also technical aspects of the bidder’s ideas. 

So, in terms of the site that's been chosen for this demonstrate our project, there's quite a high electricity demand on the 1 Megawatt electrolyser. We found some green space Belfast, wastewater treatment works, which is North Nana markers biggest largest wastewater treatment works.

One of the key items was spare grid electricity capacity which was find at the site. One thing we learned, and we were aware of prior to tender on them into the tender process as we talked to the bidders, was scale at the works is large.

It's difficult to show the benefits that the oxygen from a 1 Megawatt electrolyser scale that can provide and this works in terms of energy efficiency and headroom in the works because it's too large.

Through that process and in the BAFO documents we incorporated an offline wastewater treatment trial which will allow the benefits of the oxygen energy treatment capacity to be assessed as part of that trial. So, that was a key point that came out right through the procurement process.

Further information, there's a couple of links there. There's NI Waters website at the top on climate change elements of that. Also, there is an interesting video on the hydrogen economy.

Thank you, Paul.

Paul: Thank you, Pete, excellent stuff and again, it's about doing things. Which really is my flavour and objective for today. So, I'm conscious of the time. So, we'll get to questions at the end, some people have been firing questions in.

But now I'd like to introduce to you, Rebecca Ricketts.

Rebecca is the founding member of circular Glasgow and also that really is in the space of connecting business to net zero and to the circular economy. I know by reputation, that Rebecca always adds and insight and also works at the leading edge. So, for me, circular economy will be on everyone's on lips going forward and, Rebecca, who will explain why over to you.

Thank you very much, Paul. 

So, I'm going to start off by asking everybody, what's wrong with this image (Image of dogs running in shallow water)? Well, in this instance, it's water. Water is the issue.

I think we're all aware that millions of us are already affected by climate change and each of us has a responsibility to take action. But the great news is that, by adopting the circular economy, we can do just that. Over the next 10 minutes, I'm going to very lightly touch on three things.

One is just to give you an overview of what the circular economy is, the second, being circular Glasgow's role, and the third being just to share a handful of examples of businesses within the water industry who are already adopting innovative circular solutions.

So, the underlying principle of the circular economy is about making sure there is enough for everyone, forever.

The intention behind the circular economy is very much to deliver on the Paris Climate Agreements, and that is limiting the global temperatures to only rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Although, renewables, energy efficiency and reducing deforestation make up about a third of the effort to reduce global temperatures, the biggest driver for change is the circular economy.

The current linear economy, where we take stuff, we make it, and then we simply throw it away, it is no longer viable - the circular economy is a direct challenge on that mentality where waste is minimised, and resources are maximised, through long lasting design, maintenance, repair, re-use, remanufacturing recycling, and upside clan.

The Global Circularity is currently at 8.6%, which I suppose highlights both the urgent need to transition towards a more circular economy. But also, what it does do is it throws up the level of opportunity.

The circular economy has real potential to save Scottish businesses collectively at least £3 billion. Not only that, but if you look on the left-hand side of the slide, there's a whole range of business benefits - so, what's Scotland's response?

Over the past five years, circular Glasgow, which is an initiative of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, has been working towards positioning the city of Glasgow as a leading circular city. With the ambition to encourage businesses to adopt innovation, design thinking, and circular strategies to business, to future proof their businesses.

We were the second city in the world to carry out a scan of Glasgow. Carrying out this scan, we identified three core areas that really threw up real circular potential for the city of Glasgow; and those three areas were health, education, and manufacturing.

In terms of manufacturing, we thought that was our core focus. We focused on food and drink and through our collaborations with a local brewery and the bakery, we created a pilot project, which was brewing beer from predominantly waste-bread. Off the back of this work, we then created a whole suite of pioneering programs and tools to support other businesses in other sectors, really look at identifying opportunities themselves, but also importantly, implementing their own circular strategies.

Today there's been a bit of a ripple effect from Glasgow kickstarting this movement if you like. So far we've engaged with over 750 businesses and off the back of our work, Glasgow City Council has now launched the circular economy, route map of the city. The work that we've also done in Glasgow is a starting point which then generated similar programs in other cities in the regions across Scotland, all feeding into the Scottish government's strategic and climate policies.

We were also delighted in 2019 we were finalists at the World Economic Forum only being pipped to the post by European Commission. So, we'll let them away with that. I'm sure lots of you will have seen that only a few days ago, Glasgow was the first city in the UK to sign the circular cities declaration.

Obviously, there's been a huge amount of work done for those of you interested to learn more about the journey that we've been on, then then please do visit Circular Glasgow’s – the story, so far.

So, I guess we can say that we're very much in the eye of a revolution and Glasgow is very much keen to be poised to influence the next stage of that.

But the most successful way of achieving that, is making sure that we all create, and we speak one common language. And working in collaboration with our partners. We have mapped five circular ways, and I'm just going to spend the last few minutes just sharing those five circular ways with you.

The first circular way that we refer to is it's very much rethinking the model. The idea behind this is it's very much challenging that concept - but this is how we've always done business.

We are seeing a real shift of customers now owning materials and products, moving towards using, sharing, borrowing, and renting. A great example of an organisation that is really rethinking every aspect of its business of its offering is DGTL.

This is the world's first electronic music and art festival. Now, if we think about water forefront of mind in 2015, one of the innovations was their sanitation hub where they converted urine into drinking water using pioneering technologies.

Now, once you get your head wrapped around this concept - using the festival as a test bed, the technology demonstrated real potential to be used in areas hit by either natural or man-made disasters providing clean, drinking water, a really smart innovation.

The second circular way, very much looks at thinking tech. Digital technologies, such as the Internet of Things, big data, data analytics, artificial intelligence, are very much considered essential to the adoption of circular economy.

Wai Technologies provides real time monitoring, and control of water networks. The company uses artificial intelligence to provide clients, with critical information, from leakage detection, to demand analysis, so really smart example of how tech can play a role.

Rethinking resources - business is really embracing circular economy, thinking to find radical new ways of repurposing waste, but also looking at saving scarce resources. I love this example, Leafcloud heat tap water to 55 degrees Celsius using waste heat from computer servers drastically reducing gas use. So, essentially, the same electricity is used for computing and heating to save CO2.

The full circular way is very much looking at design for the future. Design for the circular economy plays a key role from designing new systems and processes to designing for durability, re-use, and designing out waste. This is a great example, Canadian firm ecodrain has developed a grey water heat exchanger, specifically for showers that can be installed at any time, not just through building construction - it saves money and energy, with rate of return of approximately 45%.

Then the final, circular way is very much collaboration. Building collaboration across all networks to share best practice and find new business opportunities is vital for any business. Towns and government bodies Turku, the region of Finland, have collaborated to design a systematic circular solution to water management in the area.

By collaborating, this circular approach enables efficient management of water, nutrients, and energy all at a local level. So, what's next? I think we're all aware, and we're all hopeful that COP 26 will be coming to Glasgow.

Obviously from circular Glasgow's perspective, we're very much still working with businesses to raise the benefits of adopting Circular practices. But if we're realistic, these changes will happen, new legislation. Some policies will come in place. So, our recommendation is that businesses are very much at the forefront and pioneering and leading on what is potentially possible.

So, my question to you, just before Paul drag me off the stage is to ask you, in terms of circular economy, how will you do business differently?

Thank you very much.

Paul: Well, thank you so much, Rebecca. That was excellent. Again, really focused on doing, rather than talking, I'm fascinated. Really, about the opportunities in health, education, and manufacturing.

Perhaps, we'll have time during the questions to move to that. So, it is now my pleasure to introduce Katrina Ross.

Who has spent 12 years at Abertay, really in the food and nutrition space, also in sustainability and how the two areas map together. So, there's a link there with the circular economy already.

Katrina was very interested really in waste, around energy, foods and water for the Scottish food and drink sector. I gather to that you're here today, to talk about your two-year transfer for net zero project.

So, Katrina, over to you. Thank you.

Thank you, Paul and for everyone attending the seminar today.

So, I'm just here to give you an overview on our project - Transform Net zero and opportunities that can give.

It is a two-year Scottish enterprise funded project, as part of the Low Carbon Challenge Fund. We got the funding late January this year for the next two years.

The project will focus on low carbon innovation in the food and drink, industry - supporting SMEs to reduce energy food, water waste across their supply chains. Experts at Abertay will assist these companies and give them the opportunities to take advantage of the facilities at Abertay.

To improve their innovation capacity preparing for new market opportunities towards net zero and any long-term transformational change.

The idea of circular economy, resource efficiency, and waste reduction, or re-use, will be promoted in the project.

The demand for this project coincides with the Global Climate Emergency and Scotland targets to Reach Net zero by 2045. Also, for food waste reduction of 33% compared to 2013 figures, by 2025, which really isn't that far away. Scotland has the lowest rate of innovation activity across the UK and as Glasgow prepares to host COP 26 and November, it is crucial that we look at ways to reduce carbon emissions, especially in the food and drink sector.

This leads to the, the benefits of the project, where barriers and issues of existing technologies will be addressed, and SMEs innovation capacity can be increased. 

The project will provide skills, training and opportunities to build in any networks. This will result in cost savings, where companies can be more competitive and energy efficient and prepare for new market opportunities and develop a low carbon vision.

SMEs will have the advantage of tapping into the expertise of academics at Abertay and be able to access its world-class research facilities.

The key specialist areas for collaboration for industry with academia is in the Food Innovation Department, the Environmental Management, and the Computer Games Departments, which I will go over in more detail.

The food innovation experts at Abertay, have worked with many food and drug companies over the years. On many things such as consumer sensory studies, new product development, shelf-life extension ingredient, analysis, and food waste validation.

I'll just talk a bit about the facilities we have in the Food Innovation Department. Our facilities that at Abertay - we are fortunate enough to have the only ISO9001 standard sensory laboratory in Scotland.

This consists of 12 booths that are light, and temperature controlled to carry out any sensory and consumer testing of products.

We also have to fit processing and pilot plant which has an ultra-heat treatment, UHT, and pasteurisation facilities for sterilising liquids. A retort for sterilisation of foods and we've got spray dryers and freeze drying which can be used to retain nutrients of foods - If they are dried to a powder or kept whole like a strawberry. We have nanoscale brewing up to 50 litres. We've also got the vacuum and tray seal with MOP modified atmospheric packaging. Also, Rheometer, texture analysing, homogenisation and particle sizing. 

So, there's quite a lot of equipment. They are for food science capabilities.

I'll just quickly go over some recent projects that we've looked at for virilisation of waste, through our Student Knowledge Transfer Partnerships. We have been working with a company peel tick producing a device which captures and soluble starch from their party to washing. 

Another project is looking at adding value to the water from soft fruits, whether that be used in jam, gin, or yoghurts perhaps.

Lastly, we have been working with a fishing company in Glasgow where the agriculture nets get scraped when the fishermen come in from sea and so, we've been looking at taking the proteins and shells from these nets, before the nets go back out to sea.

So, what we're really keen on is identifying waste streams, and basically adding value to them, rather than just going to animal feed.

The environmental experts that we have as part of the project as well, offer knowledge on energy efficiency and water technologies for wastewaters. Also, looking at environmental technologies for providing innovative solutions for controlling, existing pollutants and for improved bioenergy, for example.

The facilities in the environmental department focus on treatment and recovery of water. Waste and wastewater are relevant to a number of food and drink companies.

The kind of thing we'd be looking at would be organic waste treatment for bioenergy in the labs that have a pilot scale reactors and soil analysis for the production of organic soil conditioner. Also, ways of carbon sequestration in soil, water and wastewater treatments for removing any pollutants.

I'll quickly go over a couple of recent projects at the guys and environmental department have been working on.

The LoCal-Net was their most recent project, which supported and developed low carbon networks to over 280 SMEs in the construction, bioeconomy, and water sectors. Allowing for interactions between these companies and the supply chains, which we will try and do similar for Transform Net zero.

Another project giving individual support was to companies' vegetable packaging and washing process. This was to increase their methane yield through food and farm waste stocks. 

They wanted to see if there was enough waste to have an anaerobic digestion plant on their land. So, this was investigated the efficiency and the perimeters of a larger scale bioreactor, looking at ways to generate heat for local companies.

The next slides I'll just go on to the Applied Games which the Department of Abertay will be also involved with to support SMEs. The applied games are often referred to by different names, you may have heard about serious gamification. There's also X or games, which if you've had a Fitbit and these use game design techniques. There's also edutainment which uses games for education, there's games for change, which looks at behavioural changes.

These all refer to the use of game principles in a strategic way, looking at making an activity or process more accessible and fun.

We do have an example of code red, which is a project that the guys in the gaming department worked on with Coca Cola and this helped employees in over 140 companies to train on their crisis management processes.

We are also very fortunate, as well, to have an emergency technology centre, in Abertay, which has five specialised labs. These are used for creative practice, research events, specialist training - where rapid prototyping or experimental applications can take place.

It is a hub between designers, producers, programmers, and audio specialists who can support industry in any new concepts, and also extended reality, such as virtual reality.

So, applied game design is used to develop engaging products from the ground up. It’s about creating memorable experiences to build on customer skills and potential customers processes.

This image on this slide does Pokemon Go, which is used to encourage users to get active by going out to look for Pokemon and capture them in the real world.

The facilities and expertise available for companies within the realms of the project. Our target audience to that the project would reach out to are for companies that are based in the Lowlands and Uplands of Scotland. So, anywhere other than the Highlands and Islands and there will be food and drinks manufacturing companies ranging from a make to small and medium size enterprises with roughly 5 to 250 employees.

The project journey begins through direct contact and referrals, by supporting agencies and public bodies. We have now had referrals from Zero Waste Scotland and Local councils and working with over 10 companies to utilise waste and carry out carbon assessments for some companies and objectives on challenges will be sort of investigated as well. These will be met through learning alliances, or in skills training and workshops that we will provide.

Any low carbon innovation and process improvements will be identified, and any signposting will be giving if necessary for the conditional funding or support.

We do want to sustain any networks both throughout this project and after the project for any collaborations to then continue. If you feel that you will benefit from the project, my details are on this next slide (k.ross@abertay.ac.uk or tranformnet-zero@abertay.ac.uk ).

Thank you again for your time and I think Paul is going to take any questions.

Paul: Thank you again, Katrina, I'm not sure whether you Rebecca are vying for the Title of Scotland's, Greta Thunberg, but you're both in the running.

So, I think now we will move to some questions. 

Whilst there's a plethora of wonderful things going on with the project level and strategically, it just seems a bit disjointed - how do we really join the dots here. How do we make things Link can give opportunities to the business community. Mark could start with you, please, on that.

Mark: What we're all doing at the minute is reacting the pace to the Declaration of Emergency and the huge increase in interest, coupled with all the initiatives through COP 26. The need to make practical progress across a number of fronts. So, I think, from my perspective, I think, been able to set out your destination of what we've done through the route map really tries to paint the landscape of all the things that are going on within there.

Just to, maybe also points back to the question you asked me. Paul, just around about, how do people get involved in their stuff. How did you see where they fit in?

The story map is a signpost to some of this stuff, one of my colleagues, George Ponton, who I think, you know, as Head of Innovation Scottish water had reminded me there is a portal on our website for innovation. If people have genuinely innovative opportunities, ideas, then please look to that.

But more broadly, I think that the sharing of the journey, share the knowledge of what we're trying to do, where we're trying to share what we don't know.

It's perhaps we are in the formal instalment of what the overall Net zero industry for want of a better phrase - is actually going to look like.

I think we're going through a journey of planning this landscape.

Paul: So, let's move on, and Rebecca perhaps again, it might seem like a simple question but because a lot of this is going to be about behaviour change individually as companies, as nations and so on. What about the yuck factor?

If that's a way to describe it, you’re turning urine into water. Sounds great on paper but will you get the buy in of the public?

Rebecca: I mean, from Glasgow chamber of commerce perspective, we work very closely with businesses.

I think as soon as you can demonstrate the benefits such as opening up new revenue streams, making significant savings and creating new collaborative opportunities, creating USPs attract, media. I think it's about looking at each individual business and identifying a benefit that's going to benefit them. All of a sudden, it becomes very easy to overcome that yuck factor. 

But that isn't a factor that is associated with every part of the circular economy, that's for sure. I is very much looking at what's going to benefit your business and bringing in money is a great game changer for getting around that.

Paul: Thank you for that. Yes, I know it's more complex and Katrina, maybe, close to the same theme. But Rebecca, yourself have described a lot of you real examples at the sharp end. But it's very much around the consumptive end, how people use water.

What about further back, what about upstream, catching things earlier? Are the examples upstream in the catchment area, rather than our own the point of consumption?

Katrina: Certainly, our environmental guys, would be looking into all that. I mean, that's why we're lucky to have this project, because there is so much collaboration between an environmental guy, food innovation and Abertay.

I think that is key when we all seem to have similar goals of, reducing a low carbon emission, and I think collaboration and complementing, everybody else's work as well. Hopefully we can reach these goals together.

Pete: Certainly, there's some work we're doing catchment wide approaches, in terms of green infrastructure and sustainable drainage systems within the catchment. Combined with storm separation removal of stormwater from sewers. Then reducing energy costs and pumping stations and treatment, that's something more tech map.

But a key part of that, being looking at the multiple, the wider benefits: incorporating health, including pathways, and joined sort of cross government approaches to look at all those benefits together to form a business case on that basis, which is quite interesting. I think there's been a bit of a change and that recently in Northern Ireland.

Mark: I would amplify that - standing back and looking at the system. So, the drainage systems in one function, it is how we do that fully integrated approach for managing water and the environment. It extends further looking at the upstream system, what's the overall strategic approach we want as a country for managing heat in the urban environment?

Paul: How you might scale up the project that you're working on either make it bigger in place or to take it to other nations, for example.

Lilian: So, part of the requirement of the SPA agreement was the proposals to come through that were scalable. So, there is room for scalability there, and we can see from the designs of successful bidder.

For example, they would scale up stuck ability of the electrolyser. If we would actually see that as an ethical point, as long as it's a successful demonstrated project, we would then look to see where the electrolyser would work best. 

Pete: Just backing up what Lilian said there, NI Water are considering in the plan right now, for going beyond the demonstrator project. So, that that is something they're actively thinking about.

Paul: I'm interested in perhaps her knowledge here in Scotland, own expertise even in consultancy can be taken internationally globally to generate income or to create the Scottish brand in water as part of the Scottish brand.

I mean, do you see that as a future, where what you're learning know can be taken elsewhere?

Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely, I'm going to hold my hands up, and say, I don't come from a water industry. It's not my area of expertise, by any stretch of the imagination, but the work that we, that we have done. We have started with a pilot project within manufacturing, food and drink.

The example I gave, where we took waste bread, gave it to the brewing Company who were able to produce beer from that. Now, what we were able to do was to create a real, tangible pilot project with real business benefits and real evidence and the story behind it.

This particular pilot projects were then able to take it out to the wider business community.

Off the back of that, we now have businesses in, right across sectors, from events, conferences, food drink, manufacturing, construction, all now, generating their own small pilot projects to demonstrate the potential. 

We also work very closely with partners across the globe. There's some amazing stuff happening overseas, and we're able to share ideas, exchange knowledge, share what works, what doesn't. And through the essence of that, by upscaling, So absolutely.

I think, if we talk about circular economy, but you know what? It's just about getting started. It could be semi-circular. Just take that step, and share, and get going.

Paul: So, my closing remarks are simply that we should look at the roadmap and focus areas through Mark. The opportunities in wastewater that Lilian and Pete are suggesting really as an invitation to innovate to SMEs out there. Rebecca highlighting that only 8.6%, is our level of commitment to the circular economy. 

To echo Rebecca, that's really about opportunity rather than anything negative. Katrina, of course really that that food and drink specialism in Scotland is one example only of where we can really bring companies into the into the net.

You know, arguably, global warming is the greatest change that humanity will witness since the last ice age. I think, I'm the only person here that witnessed that. But it is massive. But that gives us Fulcrum. That gives us opportunity.

I wish you the best in your, in your endeavours to innovate. Thank you very much.