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Net Zero Centre

A world-leading centre in science and technology research for decarbonising our economy and society, and addressing key environmental issues.

Based in the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences (NMES), the Centre serves to highlight, nurture and facilitate discovery and applied research to address the challenges for decarbonising our society and reducing the environmental impact of our manufacturing, infrastructure, and cities.

The Centre also fosters the next generation of King’s change-makers by educating scientists and engineers on the holistic context of these challenges and developing technologically aware social scientists, lawyers, and policy makers. 

"I'm not aware of any other Higher Education institution that has a dedicated Net Zero Centre like the one at King’s. While it may be the first, it will certainly not be the last."

Chris Skidmore OBE, former MP and Chair of the Independent Government Review on Net Zero

Priorities

The Centre focuses on four key priority areas:

Decarbonisation for industry, business, and society

Supporting the transition to net zero carbon in industry, transport, and the energy sector by developing new technologies to reduce CO2 emissions in conjunction with exploring optimisation models for the carbon finance markets to help the decarbonisation process.

Sustainable, low carbon green manufacturing

Designing and developing processes and products to reduce and reuse waste and minimise environmental impact from new designs to retrofitting.

Resource allocation for equity and sustainability

Optimising the equitable allocation of resources to reduce energy consumption and reduce environmental effects.

Resilient urban infrastructures and environments

Making our cities adaptable and liveable with low carbon, environmentally sustainable technologies alongside developing new solutions for energy efficient connectivity.


Interdisciplinary seminar series

Every month we host a speaker to discuss a new research idea and foster collaborations. A half-hour talk is followed by discussion, and we encourage speakers to engage with colleagues on research related to our four priority areas, to create new interdisciplinary connections and to develop collaborative proposals.

We welcome speakers from centres, institutes, and research groups across King's, as well as industry and other research institutions.

KCL NMES NET ZERO CENTRE -Lecture Series_Website 368 x 208

Our research and engagement

A new approach to recycling plastics

Dr Alex Brogan, Lecturer in Chemistry, shares his research on biotechnology and how he is harnessing the power of biology, in particular nature's toolkit enzymes, to degrade plastics back to their constituent building blocks, so they can be reused in chemicals or in new plastics.

 

Reaching Net Zero by creating a profitable market for tree planting

Professor Raúl Rosales, Professor of Practice in Net Zero Asset Management, is supporting the UK government to reach its Net Zero targets by creating a credited and profitable market for tree planting in the UK.

Working with academic and industry partners, Raúl has sketched out his vision for how over 100,000 hectares of land across England, Wales and Scotland could be made economically viable for tree planting in his latest policy paper.

Forest hopefully right size!

Making food out of waste

Dr Miao Guo from the Department of Engineering is working to create food out of waste, enabling circular economy in food production and the possibility of dealing with global food shortages. Working with her research group and industry partners, they have have found that processes to convert agricultural food waste to protein could provide three times the daily amount the average person needs, and feed every person in the world.

Explore more

Research

Research

Discover our research in the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences.

About

About

Find out more about the Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences, King's College…