Part of our RESEARCH Pillar

To meet net zero targets, we need to retrofit our cities—not just buildings, but entire urban areas. While government funding has jump-started building retrofits, there’s an urgent need to overhaul the wider built environment to cut energy use, lower emissions, and promote sustainable living.

That’s where Urban Retrofit comes in. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (part of UK Research and Innovation), the project will investigate how cities can be planned and ‘retrofitted’ for net-zero living, as well as conduct research on place-based approaches to an environmentally sustainable future, providing evidence to support local and national decision making.

The Institute for Urban Excellence will support capacity-building and lesson-sharing as part of the international Urban Retrofit Hubs network. These hubs will disseminate the results of the project’s research, including solutions that will bolster place-based resilience and a toolkit designed to close the implementation gap between national policy and local delivery.