The Geographer: Sustainable Heat (Summer 2025)

The Geographer

Sustainable Heat

And the Future of Energy in Scotland

“In the 21st century, I think the heroes will be the people who will improve the quality of life, fight poverty and introduce more sustainability.”

FRSGS

• Deep Geothermal Energy: Untapped Opportunity?

• Community Heat and Queens Quay

• Warm Buildings, Water, Waste and Megawatts

• South Georgia at 250

• Universities in Crisis: Student Fees and Debts

• RSGS Into the Red Report

• Reader Offer: Night Train to Odesa plus news, books and more...

Bertrand Piccard

The Geographersustainable heat and energy

Welcome to the 66th edition of The Geographer (not counting the two special editions we produced, for the Covid lockdown and COP26). The chosen topic for this edition is sustainable heat and energy. Much of the public discourse on energy over the past 20 years or more has focused on electricity, whilst heat often gets overlooked. Yet heat is accountable for as much as 60% of energy requirements. The heat sector is still active in Scotland and the UK, and Glasgow is probably at the forefront in Scotland, although the sector is not as established as it is in other countries throughout Europe, and certainly hasn’t had the same attention or funding. A brief scan, though, quickly reveals the depth of the topic, from the provision of district ‘shared’ heating systems across whole neighbourhoods, to the many different potential sources of heat that are out there. These include heat from water in old mine-shafts, air or river water source heat pumps, ground source heat, heat from sewage, heat from waste, etc.

One source used extensively on the continent, and of great interest to RSGS, but still relatively embryonic in the UK, is deep geothermal heat, where boreholes of 5,000ft or more can reliably tap perhaps 50–70°C heat and could potentially power thousands of homes, but this is only one of many potential options. Ultimately, to be energy secure as a nation (and to deliver against net zero) we will need a mosaic of heat and electricity choices, all of which we can control without relying on precarious international relationships. And, as a rule, we will need better insulated homes. Heat matters, and whilst there are some great innovative schemes surfacing in various parts of the country, an awful lot still needs to be done.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr Roddy Yarr FRSGS at the University of Glasgow, whose excellent ‘Feel the Heat II’ conference in February was the inspiration for this topic, and who has helped secure a number of the contributions for this magazine. Perhaps with the summer upon us the need for heat might seem less conspicuous, but the sooner we can understand the relevant issues and embrace the many opportunities represented, the sooner we can guide the next steps towards a more sustainable future.

Mike Robinson, Chief Executive, RSGS

RSGS, Lord John Murray House, 15-19 North Port, Perth, PH1 5LU tel: 01738 455050

email: enquiries@rsgs.org www.rsgs.org

Charity registered in Scotland no SC015599

The views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the RSGS.

over the Salvesen Range at the south-eastern tip of South

Masthead: Geothermal energy factory during winter sunset, Grindavik, Iceland. Image by Samuel Barkos from Unsplash.

RSGS:

a better way to see the world

RSGS visitor centre and exhibition

The Fair Maid’s House visitor centre reopened to the public on 10th April 2025, and will be open to welcome visitors until late October. During this period, the visitor centre will be open each Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 12:30pm to 4:00pm. We are also delighted to unveil a new exhibition, showcasing a collection of striking and rarely-seen glass slide images from our archives.

visit

the exhibition

Education Matters appeal

Back in 2020 we asked for your help to respond to the Covid crisis by creating a series of online lessons and support materials, to help bolster the teaching of Geography across Scottish schools. Thanks to that response, we managed to create 32 Chalk Talks, video lessons which have now had over 100,000 views on YouTube, and have helped teachers and pupils across the country, complementing teaching of the key examinable topics within the Scottish secondary school curriculum. Following the success of that project, we have launched an Education Matters appeal (www.rsgs.org/appeal/educationmatters), through which we hope to cover extra topics such as fieldwork skills, weather and climate, insight into university geography and interdisciplinary learning. Please help us to develop these invaluable education resources. This is a great chance to excite, inspire and inform young people, and further equip teachers to raise more awareness amongst students of the breadth and skills geography offers. Thank you to all of you who have already contributed to this appeal.

Policy round-up

In addition to the Into the Red report released in May (see page 5), we have been engaged in all sorts of policy initiatives: as part of the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan Advisory Group; in correspondence with Ministers and other political leaders; as guests at the First Minister’s speech on climate commitment; and in giving evidence to the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee in the Scottish Parliament. We continue to input to discussions around the future of education, and are also involved in discussion on poverty alleviation with the Scotland Demands Better group. Mike Robinson spoke for the Scottish university SAGES conference in Stirling, for the young 2050 Climate Group in Dundee, and at Our Dynamic Earth for Balfour Beatty’s sustainability conference in April.

Cover image: Sunset lenticular clouds

Georgia. © Stephen Venables

A Wild Night In

Join us on Friday 5th December, at Perth Concert Hall, for an evening of inspiration with some of Scotland’s leading wildlife filmmakers, including Gordon Buchanan, Mandi Stark, Doug Allan and Libby Penman.

They will share some of the wilder stories from behind the lens, and the inspiration that shaped their careers.

This is a one-off opportunity to hear from remarkable and passionate filmmakers who spend their lives capturing many of the images that help reveal the beauty and wonder of the natural world.

Tickets are £30 for general admission, £25 for RSGS members, and £17.50 for U18s, and can be booked at www.rsgs.org/events

Historic maps and peatlands

A new collaboration between the James Hutton Institute and the National Library of Scotland has digitised the extent of historic moorland using a combination of artificial intelligence and 180-year-old maps. The collaboration has, for the first time, allowed for the classification and localisation of over five million hectares of moorlands as they appear in the first edition Ordnance Survey maps, produced between 1843 and 1882. Researchers hope this will provide an additional method for identifying areas of converted peatlands that contribute to 10–15% of Scotland’s annual emissions of CO2 equivalent.

See-through solar

Researchers have set a new efficiency record for converting sunlight into electricity using transparent solar cells. “[This] could be the next big step in building integrated energy solutions,” said Professor Morten Madsen from the University of Southern Denmark, one of the key researchers behind the breakthrough, which could allow entire skyscrapers to serve as power stations by transforming their windows into solar panels. “The large glass facades found in modern office buildings can now be used for energy production without requiring additional space or special structural changes.”

The CitySolar project (www.citysolar-h2020.eu) is the first to overcome the main challenge with transparent solar cells: the balancing of efficiency and transparency. The combination of perovskite (a calcium titanium oxide mineral) with an organic layer allows the cell to harvest electricity from near-infrared and near-ultraviolet light, leaving light from the visible spectrum to pass through.

Donation of books

In March, we were grateful to receive from Sue Murray, a granddaughter of RSGS co-founder Professor James Geikie, a donation of three historically important books. The biography of James Geikie, written by Sir J S Flett and Marion I Newbigin, and the two geology books written by James’s elder brother, Sir Archibald, are much appreciated, filling a gap in our knowledge of James Geikie and Marion Newbigin, and probably of Geikie’s employee James Croll.

Discovery Day

28th June

Join us for our next Discovery Day, at the Fair Maid’s House on Saturday 28th June, which will be themed on the 250th anniversary of the discovery of South Georgia. We are delighted to welcome broadcaster and historian Dr Vanessa Collingridge, renowned mountaineer Stephen Venables, RSGS Writer-in-Residence Jo Woolf, and Margaret Wilkes alongside the RSGS Collections Team. Together, they will delve into the rich history of Antarctic exploration, drawing on rare maps and archive pieces from the RSGS Collections, and stories from modern-day expeditions to one of the most remote locations on Earth. During each two-hour tour, visitors will hear from all four expert speakers. Tickets are available to book now at www.rsgs.org/events

Latest Fellows and Medallists

Little Amal and team, Livingstone Medallists

In February Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a ten-year-old Syrian refugee child, and the team behind her, became the latest recipients of the RSGS Livingstone Medal, in recognition of their work in raising awareness of refugees and human rights. Little Amal is the creation of The Walk Productions, designed to communicate a message of resilience and hope to anyone around the world who has been forced to leave their home, and draw attention to the experiences of young refugees. Read more at www.rsgs.org/ blog/little-amal-awarded-livingstone-medal.

Gina Hanrahan FRSGS

In April we were delighted to present RSGS Honorary Fellowship to Gina Hanrahan, for her outstanding contributions as a leading figure in environmental policy in Scotland and beyond. Previously Head of Policy and Advocacy for WWF Scotland, Gina is currently a Senior Specialist in Climate Policy for Principles for Responsible Investment, where she continues to play an active role.

Polly Murray FRSGS

In May we presented RSGS Honorary Fellowship to Polly Murray, one of the most accomplished women adventurers of the past 30 years. A celebrated mountaineer, skier and educator, Polly is well known for her achievements in extreme environments (including being the first Scottish woman to summit Mount Everest) and her commitment to inspiring the next generation through exploration.

Remap the Future competition

This summer, the St Andrews Centre for Critical Sustainabilities is hosting an exhibition at the Wardlaw Museum about hopeful futures, titled Rewrite the Future. We are inviting Geography pupils in Scotland to join in by remapping the future, to create maps of their communities that show what they could look like in a sustainable future. The deadline for the competition is Friday 27th June, and commended maps will be displayed in the Wardlaw Museum as part of the exhibition in August. Submissions should be sent either physically to Sustainable Maps, Wardlaw Museum, 7 The Scores, St Andrews, KY16 9AR, or digitally to geographer.royal@rsgs.org

Hugh Raven FRSGS

In May we were pleased to present RSGS Honorary Fellowship to Hugh Raven, for his role as a key figure in Scotland’s environment sector. Hugh has made many contributions to soil conservation and land and marine management in Scotland, as well as philanthropy and practical engagement at Ardtornish Estate.

Judith Robertson FRSGS

In March we presented RSGS Honorary Fellowship to Judith Robertson, for her long-standing involvement in social justice campaigning for the rights of many disadvantaged groups. Judith was Head of Oxfam Scotland, before in 2013 she became Programme Director of See Me, Scotland’s national campaign to end mental health stigma and discrimination. From 2016 to 2022 she served as Chair of the Scottish Human Rights Commission. Today, Judith is Executive Director of Befrienders Highland, a voluntary organisation that provides support and companionship to people experiencing loneliness, mental health challenges, and social isolation.

Alexandra Shackleton FRSGS

In May we were pleased to present RSGS Honorary Fellowship to Hon Alexandra Shackleton, for her contributions to polar heritage and keeping the Shackleton legacy alive. Alexandra has been a valued supporter of RSGS for many years, maintaining the strong connections we have had with the Shackleton family for over 120 years. In 2014, she helped present the RSGS Shackleton Medal to the organisers of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, and she played a key role in the successful Festival of Shackleton event held in Dundee last December.

Prime Minister Mark Carney

In March, RSGS Fellow Mark Carney became Canada’s 24th Prime Minister when he was elected as Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and his position was confirmed when his party won the general election in late April. Mark hails from the Northwest Territories, grew up mostly in Edmonton, and was an ice hockey goalkeeper. He graduated from Harvard and Oxford, where he achieved his Masters and Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil), and is a former Governor of the Bank of Canada.

As Governor of the Bank of England, Mark had a strong hand in the response to the banking crisis, and helping mitigate the financial fallout of Brexit. He co-chaired the climate finance initiative (GFANZ) at the Glasgow COP26, was a UN Special Envoy on Climate Change, and was more recently part of the UK taskforce which saw the creation of a UK National Wealth Fund. He was awarded RSGS Honorary Fellowship in 2019.

Little Amal in Lewisham, London. © David Levene

Measuring forest carbon

Forests play a vital role in Earth’s carbon cycle by absorbing and storing around eight billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. However, deforestation and degradation, especially in tropical regions, are releasing stored carbon back into the atmosphere, worsening climate change. A major challenge for scientists and policymakers is the lack of accurate data on how much carbon forests store and how these stocks are changing owing to factors such as rising temperatures, increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and humandriven land-use changes.

The European Space Agency’s ground-breaking Biomass satellite, designed to provide unprecedented insights into the world’s forests and their crucial role in Earth’s carbon cycle, was launched from French Guiana in April. Developed by over 50 companies led by Airbus UK, Biomass is the first satellite equipped with a P-band radar which is capable of penetrating forest canopies to measure woody biomass (trunks, branches and stems) where most forest carbon is stored. These measurements act as a proxy for carbon storage, the assessment of which is the mission’s primary goal. Biomass data will improve knowledge of habitat loss and its effects on biodiversity. The mission also enables the mapping of subsurface geology in deserts, ice sheet structures, and forest floor topography.

See www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/ Biomass for more information and progress reports.

RSE: a friend and a Fellow

Our long-standing friendship with the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) was strengthened in March when our Chief Executive received an RSE Fellowship for his work on science communication. Mike was delighted with the accolade: “I’d like to thank all of those who put me forward for this honour. It means a huge amount to gain this scientific recognition, and will no doubt help cement RSGS’s relationship with RSE over the coming years. RSGS and RSE have long collaborated and it is great to see more geographers becoming Fellows of this august institution.”

RSGS is working with RSE on a number of shared events this year. In May we participated in a panel discussion during the Peter Wilson Lecture on national collections, and in September we are co-hosting an evening as part of the Curious festival, with author Michael Smith, looking at stories of polar explorers.

WHO’s pandemic accord

In April, in light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization’s 194 Member States established a process to draft and negotiate a new accord on pandemic preparedness and response. This was driven by the need to ensure communities, governments, and all sectors of society (within countries and globally) are better prepared and protected, in order to prevent and respond to future pandemics. At the heart of the proposed accord is the need to ensure equity in both access to the tools needed to prevent pandemics (including technologies like vaccines, personal protective equipment, information and expertise) and access to health care for all people.

Scotland map jewellery

Alistair Henderson, RSGS member

For the past couple of years, I have been a volunteer helping a great bunch of youngsters (post-school/college) with a learning support background who are ‘Crafting Together’ in Clydebank. There are a few sessions where they create textiles, jewellery and artwork. The items are then sold in a shop in Glasgow’s Buchanan Galleries, at craft fairs and online.

As an ex-Geography teacher, I was impressed with the jewellery made with compressed Scotland street maps, which we send to awamu, an organisation in Kampala, Uganda. Master bead maker Sarah Namaganda works with young women of the awamu skills development programme to turn the paper into beautiful Scotland map beads, just for us! Our jewellery makers in Clydebank use these beads to make the Scotland map jewellery collection (craftingtogether. scot/collections/jewellery). Each item tells a story of skills development, employability, health and wellbeing, from Clydebank to Kampala.

Bill Berry (1940–2025)

Alan Werritty FRSGS and Alan Tricker

In 1964, having studied geography at Liverpool University and biogeography at King’s College London, Bill Berry was appointed to the Geography Department at Queen’s College Dundee, later the University of Dundee. Teaching students in the classroom, the laboratory and the field was the major focus of Bill’s academic career. Initially, field instruction included a very popular annual honours field course in Bettyhill, Sutherland, with studies of the flora on sand dunes, peatbogs and cliff areas. Later, field classes extended to Switzerland and Spain.

Bill’s interest in cartography became the impetus to develop Digital Cartography (now Geographical Information Systems, GIS). He was a pioneer in Dundee, the ‘go-to’ person for both staff and students. This laid the foundation for instruction in GIS, a key generic skill in today’s undergraduate curriculum. His GIS expertise enabled him to collaborate with colleagues in research projects, including the innovative use of GIS in the analysis of crime statistics.

The value of his contribution was evidenced at Bill’s funeral, when former students recalled field trips, a love of the landscape, and how digital cartography nurtured their careers, and former colleagues mused over Bill’s wise and helpful counsel.

SES Three Peaks sponsored event

RSGS legacy leaflet

get involved

Blog highlights

20th September

The Scientific Exploration Society (SES), founded by RSGS Livingstone Medallist Colonel John Blashford-Snell, is organising a Yorkshire Three Peaks adventure trek on Saturday 20th September, to raise money to enable it to continue providing grants to young British explorers and to help fund the SES-Raleigh Explorer Bursary Award. SES is looking for teams to enter and/or people to sponsor/donate. Starting at 6am, the walk is 24 miles long and involves 1,600m of ascent of Pen-y-Ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside. There will be organised support for participants along the route (water drop-offs, etc) and a barbecue at the finishing line. Please see www.justgiving.com/ team/ses-explore-y3p for further information.

We continue to make weekly additions to our blog (www. rsgs.org/blog), covering a range of interesting topics and news about our work. Recent posts include:

The Parallel Roads of Glen Roy. The RSGS Collections Team shares an 1818 article by Sir Thomas DickLauder on the parallel roads of Glen Roy, one of the first scientific papers on this remarkable glaciological phenomenon.

The Scottish Women’s Himalayan Expedition. It is 70 years since Monica Jackson, Evelyn Camrass and Betty Stark set off from Kathmandu on the first recorded Himalayan expedition organised solely by women climbers.

Degrees of Uncertainty. Universities across the UK are facing significant financial challenges, staff cuts and uncertain futures. What are the underlying reasons that some of these longstanding institutions are struggling?

A call for positive leadership. RSGS Chief Executive Mike Robinson considers why we need to see a huge step up in vision, leadership and positive investment.

STV filming in FMH

In May we had a visit from STV at the Fair Maid’s House visitor centre. A team had come to film for their weekly entertainment show What’s On Scotland, which acts as a guide to Scotland’s vibrant culture, music and arts scene During their visit, they spoke to RSGS Chief Executive Mike Robinson and RSGS Writer-in-Residence Jo Woolf about the Fair Maid’s House and RSGS. Look out for the episode on the STV website.

Please look out for our new legacy leaflet, enclosed with this issue of The Geographer. We are keen to continue to build our archives and include more of the stories of our members and supporters. Legacies and donations remain one of the best ways to ensure we can continue to make an impact, making up about a quarter of our income

Energy and AI

The development and uptake of artificial intelligence (AI) has significant implications for the energy sector. A typical AIfocused data centre consumes as much electricity as 100,000 households, but at the same time AI could transform how the energy industry operates.

A report from the International Energy Agency (www.iea.org/ reports/energy-and-ai) provides comprehensive data to help policy makers and other stakeholders analyse both sides of the issue. Based on new global and regional modelling and datasets, as well as extensive consultation with governments and regulators, the tech sector, the energy industry and international experts, it includes projections for how much electricity AI could consume over the next decade, as well as which energy sources are set to help meet it. It also analyses what the uptake of AI could mean for energy security, emissions, innovation and affordability.

University problems

With well-publicised problems at the University of Dundee and throughout the sector (including another round of voluntary redundancies, this time at Edinburgh and Aberdeen) the sustainability of the current structure of higher education, not to mention the sustainability of workloads for those remaining staff, should be of concern to all of us. Not only is this crisis in danger of precipitating a ‘brain drain’, as lecturers and academics leave the sector or move to universities abroad, but there is a real risk of closures of whole departments, and possibly even whole institutions. It is likely to impact the student learning experience too.

The Blackhillock battery

Zenobe, the UK’s leading owner and operator of grid-scale batteries on the GB transmission network, announced in March that Europe’s largest battery site had begun commercial operations. The site is located between Inverness and Aberdeen, at Blackhillock near Keith, to address grid congestion from Viking (443MW), Moray East (950MW) and Beatrice (588MW) offshore wind farms. The project will significantly reduce the amount of wasted clean energy and is an important milestone to achieving the UK government’s mission to have a net zero power grid by 2030.

As Britain increases its reliance on renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, batteries like Blackhillock will ensure that excess power can be stored and then used during times of increased demand. The site is expected to save consumers over £170 million over the next 15 years, and prevent approximately 2.6 million tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.

Into the Red: the cost of climate inaction

Mike Robinson, Chief Executive, RSGS

In May, RSGS released a major new environmental report titled Into the Red underlining the critical fact that the most expensive response to climate change is to do nothing. The report draws from around 120 economic reports, written over the past two decades, underlining the consistent findings that the sooner we take action in Scotland to tackle climate change, the better off (and safer) our society will be. Into the Red, a reference to both economic debt and the rising global temperature, highlights how climate change is already costing Scotland billions each year and, if left unchecked, these costs could rise to 5–20% of GDP (around £11bn–£45bn per year) by 2050.

As the report makes clear, climate change is not just an environmental and social risk, it is an economic one, but we are slipping further and further into the red. Dr Richard Dixon, consultant and lead author of the report, commented,

“From flooding and wildfires to impacts on human health and local economies we found a wide range of estimates, but the bottom line is that climate change is already costing society billions of pounds and those costs are going to increase.

Reducing emissions and making society more resilient could mean reducing the future bill by tens of billions.”

Key economic risks

Rising economic costs: climate-related disasters and changes to Scotland’s economy already cost billions each year. If unchecked, these costs will continue to grow.

Flooding as a major threat: flood damage costs could quadruple by the 2080s, affecting homes, businesses, and infrastructure. Nearly 300,000 homes are already at risk.

Health impacts: heat-related deaths and illnesses are increasing, with costs projected to reach £2.2 billion annually by the 2080s.

Disruptions to agriculture and food supply: droughts, wildfires, and new plant diseases threaten food security and could significantly increase food prices.

Drought is forecast to triple by 2040; damage from wildfires to quadruple by 2050.

Regional disparities: vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, including rural areas and minority populations, face the greatest risks. Major infrastructure costs are most likely to impact coastal defences, transport, water supply and sewage.

Global and local risks: delayed climate action could result in up to a 60% reduction in global GDP by 2100, fuelling economic inequality and triggering mass migration.

Economic cost projections for Scotland

2050s £11bn–£45bn £328m–£388m £1.2bn

2080s even higher £633m–£819m increasing £1.7bn

Sources: Scottish Government, Climate Change Committee, LSE estimates

The cost of delay vs the cost of action

Delaying climate action could shrink Scotland’s GDP by 20% by 2050 and require an extra £30bn annually in emergency response and infrastructure repairs. It will also exacerbate social inequality and disproportionately harm vulnerable communities. Investing in climate action on the other hand is far better for the economy. Every £1 spent on flood prevention for instance saves £9 in damage and recovery costs. Investing 3–5% of GDP into adaptation would also be a fraction of the cost of future damage, and actions like retrofitting homes for energy efficiency could have saved UK households £70bn over the last decade. Delaying action will lead to unmanageable costs and potentially irreversible financial and social damage Recommendations

The Scottish Government, in collaboration with the UK Government where needed, should:

1. Ensure a minimum proportion of public expenditure is net carbon positive.

2. Create a Climate Wealth Fund.

3. Establish an independent Climate Oversight Body.

4. Mandate climate expertise on Boards.

5. Invest in climate education and skills training.

6. Publish and deliver an ambitious Climate Change Plan.

7. Fund ongoing studies on climate impacts.

The full report is available on the RSGS website, or you can request a printed copy by emailing enquiries@rsgs.org

“The most expensive response to climate change is to do nothing.”

Powering communities through heat networks

Paul Steen, Head of Business Development North, Vattenfall

Scotland’s drive to decarbonise heating is gathering pace; and one of the most promising innovations leading the charge is already warming homes on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

Vattenfall, a European energy leader with over a century of experience, is rolling out low carbon heat networks across Midlothian and beyond, and looking to set a new standard for sustainable living.

So, what exactly is a heat network? In simple terms, it is like a central heating system for an entire community. Instead of each home or building having its own boiler, heat is generated centrally, often using renewable or recovered sources, and piped into homes and businesses through a network of underground, insulated pipes. The result is a highly efficient, low carbon, and reliable way to deliver heating and hot water at scale.

geographical area where heat networks are expected to provide the lowest-cost solution for decarbonising heating.

Under heat network zoning, Scottish government will work with industry and local stakeholders to identify and designate areas where heat networks are expected to be the lowestcost solution to decarbonising heat. Heat network zoning will be essential to speeding up the development of new heat networks.

“A heat network is like a central heating system for an entire community.”

Vattenfall’s flagship Scottish initiative is its 50/50 joint venture with Midlothian Council, known as Midlothian Energy Limited (MEL). Vattenfall has also been selected as preferred bidder for a network that will capture heat from the wastewater network and use heat pumps to supply existing buildings and the new Granton Waterfront development.

Together with Midlothian Council, MEL is building heat networks that will eventually serve up to 10,000 homes, with the first phase already supplying new developments in Shawfair Town and Craighall Village. At the heart of the network is the MEL Energy Centre, which captures heat from a nearby recycling and energy recovery facility, a sustainable source of energy that would otherwise go to waste.

Even before the permanent infrastructure is fully operational, the system is already delivering. For now, it’s powered by hydrotreated vegetable oil, a low carbon fuel that slashes emissions by up to 98% compared to gas. When fully up and running, the MEL network will prevent over 2,500 tonnes of carbon emissions each year, equivalent to taking 1,200 cars off the road.

But delivering this kind of transformative change is not without its challenges. Vattenfall, like many heat network developers in Scotland, is navigating a complex and still-developing regulatory environment.

On 3rd April this year, Scottish government made a very positive decision by announcing a requirement for public sector buildings to connect to heat networks where possible. This has given heat network operators more certainty to invest in nationally important, strategic infrastructure that will be at the heart of Scotland’s low carbon future.

Further decisions are required. One of the most important issues is zoning. A heat network zone is a formally designated

While the Scottish government is considering introducing a permitting scheme for heat network zones, developers need clarity and certainty, including exclusive development rights, to justify long-term investments in large-scale infrastructure. Without that, planning and delivering networks becomes riskier, slower, and more expensive.

There’s also the issue of statutory undertaker rights. Unlike electricity or gas providers, heat network developers currently lack the legal powers to access land or install infrastructure without lengthy negotiations. This gap adds unnecessary friction and delays, undermining the urgent need to decarbonise heating.

While these powers were introduced in principle in previous legislation, industry needs them to be implemented much quicker. With current government funding schemes nearing their end, industry needs clarity about whether future heat network projects, like Vattenfall’s ambitious Granton Waterfront development, will receive the long-term financial support and customer assurance they require.

Despite these challenges, the benefits of heat networks are becoming increasingly clear. For customers, they offer reliable, stable heating that isn’t vulnerable to the spikes of international energy markets. For developers, they simplify compliance with environmental standards and reduce the need for individual heating systems in every building. And for communities, they create jobs, support education, and deliver infrastructure that can adapt to future low carbon technologies.

At Shawfair and Craighall Village, Vattenfall’s work is already proving what’s possible. The company is also investigating large-scale thermal storage in partnership with Scottish universities, turning heat networks into energy storage systems that can balance demand and improve resilience. And with every metre of pipe laid, it’s not just about decarbonisation; it’s about building a fairer, more sustainable energy system for everyone.

As Scotland accelerates towards its climate goals, projects like MEL offer a compelling glimpse of what the future can look like: clean, connected, and community-powered.

Queens Quay and Scotland’s renewable heat revolution

Anne Johnstone, Head of ESG, Vital Energi

Imagine harnessing the power of Scotland’s abundant natural resources to heat entire communities sustainably and affordably. That’s precisely what’s happening at Queens Quay, Clydebank, through an innovative district heating network designed to transform the way homes and businesses access heating, significantly reducing carbon emissions and lowering energy bills.

Heating buildings is a significant contributor to Scotland’s carbon emissions, accounting for around 20% of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions. This substantial share underscores the importance of transitioning to lowcarbon heating solutions. Heat networks, or district heating systems, offer a viable path forward.

Heat networks provide warmth by distributing hot water through insulated underground pipes from a central heat source to multiple buildings. Unlike the conventional heating systems we are used to, where every home and building has its own boiler, a district heat network centralises heat generation, making it possible to achieve significant energy efficiency improvements. Heat networks are also agnostic: once the pipes are in the ground, the heat source can come from anywhere, allowing utilisation of green energy sources and waste heat.

One of the standout aspects of Queens Quay is its scalability. The network currently serves key local facilities including West College Scotland, the new Clydebank Health Centre, Clydebank Leisure Centre and numerous homes, avoiding over 2,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually by replacing natural gas boilers. Future expansion to serve additional areas, such as the Golden Jubilee Hospital, is expected to increase carbon savings to around 5,000 tonnes per year, the equivalent of taking 2,600 cars off the roads each year. This substantial reduction is critical to West Dunbartonshire Council’s, and Scotland’s, goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2045.

“The large-scale heat pumps draw energy from the River Clyde.”

The Queens Quay heat network is currently unique in Scotland. The large-scale heat pumps draw energy from the River Clyde, extracting ambient heat from the river and elevating the temperature via a natural ammonia refrigerant cycle and then supplying renewable heat to connected buildings. This approach significantly reduces reliance on fossil fuels, contributing directly to Scotland’s ambitious climate targets.

Financially, district heating provides long-term cost stability, insulating users from volatile fossil fuel markets. While upfront investment in infrastructure is required, ongoing operational costs are steady and predictable, providing security to customers connected to the network.

Queens Quay was completed in 2020 and remains unique in Scotland, primarily because it became financially viable due to the support provided by the now-withdrawn Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). The RHI provided crucial governmentbacked funding which enabled this ground-breaking

The Queens Quay heat network also exemplifies collaboration among diverse stakeholders, including the local authority, national government, private sector, government agencies and the local community, showcasing how collective ambition can drive meaningful environmental change. This collaborative model provides a blueprint for other communities in Scotland, the UK and further, demonstrating how significant decarbonisation can be achieved in urban areas.

Scotland, with its natural assets, world renowned engineering skills and expertise, and access to a highly educated workforce, is perfectly positioned to lead in renewable heat deployment. Queens Quay not only represents technical innovation but serves as a powerful demonstration of how integrating renewable energy into urban infrastructure can substantially reduce our collective carbon footprint, enhance energy security, and offer lasting economic benefits.

However, if Scotland wishes to replicate the success of Queens Quay elsewhere, the Scottish Government must address the cost of electricity. With electricity prices rising disproportionately compared to gas, future heat pump-based district heating projects risk becoming financially unviable without ongoing subsidies. Additionally, linking renewable heat networks to curtailed wind energy, currently lost when the grid cannot absorb it, could improve the economic case by providing low-cost electricity to power heat pumps. Addressing these economic barriers is essential for unlocking wider deployment of district heat networks and achieving Scotland’s net zero ambitions.

Queens Quay.

Transforming social housing for a sustainable future

Duncan Smith, Head of Energy & Sustainability, River Clyde Homes

The way we heat and power our homes is set to undergo a radical transformation as the UK moves toward becoming a net zero country by 2050. This shift represents one of the most significant challenges the housing and social rented sector faces over the coming decade.

Transitioning our homes from traditional central heating systems that rely on fossil fuels, such as gas, to renewable alternatives, including heat pumps and low-carbon heat networks, will require the rapid development of skills and expertise. Getting this right is crucial to ensuring the transition is successful and sustainable.

However, in addition to achieving net zero, social landlords must also meet the Scottish Government’s legally binding target of reducing fuel poverty by 2040, as outlined in the Fuel Poverty Bill. This means 95% of our homes must be outside fuel poverty within the next 15 years.

The central question is how to retrofit our homes to make them less energy dependent and more energy efficient, thereby complying with the new Social Housing Net Zero Standard. Currently open for consultation from the Scottish Government, this standard is likely to serve as the benchmark we need to meet by 2033. But how can we do this in an affordable and sustainable way?

One such project is Huntly Drive, a deep retrofit and lowcarbon heating initiative in Greenock. It involves four modest 50m2 flats in 1950s cavity construction; homes similar to many across Scotland.

The key objective is to reduce the demand for space heating by combining fabric improvements with heat pump technology. An important consideration is the cost of low-carbon electricity, which currently stands at around 27p per kWh – much higher than gas, which costs about 7p per kWh. This underscores the importance of maximising the efficiency (Coefficient of Performance, CoP) of heat pumps in social housing.

This project has taught us how to over-clad cavity walls with external insulation and position windows to minimise thermal bridging and heat loss, thereby improving internal comfort. We have also focused on reducing air leakage using airtightness measures. These insights help us determine which retrofit measures are suitable for occupied homes (lighter retrofits) and which require more extensive work, such as when homes are vacant.

“The key objective is to reduce the demand for space heating.”

The primary goal is to reduce the demand for space heating in socially rented homes and provide affordable, clean heating options through low-carbon heat networks or individual heat pumps. Equally important is understanding the lessons we can learn from these efforts and how to integrate them into our ongoing retrofit programmes. While the goal may sound straightforward, the reality is complex. There is no one-sizefits-all solution, especially given the diverse and historic housing stock we manage.

These lessons are vital. They will enable a transition to renewable or low-carbon heating systems, such as heat pumps, in a socially and environmentally sustainable manner, aligning with the Scottish Government’s commitment to a ‘just transition’.

At River Clyde Homes, we are piloting several small-scale projects to inform and refine our retrofit strategies moving forward. These include a variety of zero-emission heating systems and fabric improvements, all guided by core principles aimed at delivering sustainable housing for those most in need.

These principles focus on:

• thermal comfort: ensuring homes are warm, dry, and comfortable for residents;

• affordable heating: reducing energy demand and providing low-carbon, sustainable heating options to support a just transition;

• health: maintaining good ventilation and internal air quality to promote healthier living environments;

• sustainability: lowering emissions through operational improvements and considering embodied carbon while stimulating local supply chains for environmentally friendly products;

• resilience: designing homes that can adapt to future needs and the impacts of climate change;

• value for money: ensuring current investments do not hinder future improvements.

This project will also guide us in prioritising retrofit measures for immediate implementation and planning future phases. An essential aspect is designing and specifying heat pumps to maximise their performance, as they are more complex and less forgiving than traditional gas boilers.

Operationally, we have gained a better understanding of how we limit our carbon footprint through using products and materials, such as hemp-based insulation produced locally in Jedburgh, that are environmentally friendly and support regional supply chains.

Looking ahead, we must also consider how to future-proof our homes, in terms of both asset management and resilience to climate change. Measures such as enhanced drainage, shading, and deep-flow rainwater gutters are being incorporated to mitigate risks like overheating and increased rainfall.

Air quality remains a critical consideration, especially as homes become more airtight and better insulated. We are monitoring ventilation systems continuously through Internet of Things sensors to ensure they perform effectively.

From a tenant’s perspective, practical measures inside the home can significantly improve long-term living conditions. For instance, thoughtful placement of electrical sockets at waist height, planned now, can reduce future rewiring costs and make daily living more convenient.

Though our pilot projects are small in scale, their scope is substantial. They will help River Clyde Homes understand what works best and how to achieve our net zero obligations while ensuring a just transition and delivering value for money to our

Community energy and heat

Calum Watkins, Chairperson, Glasgow Community Energy

Around a fifth of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions come from heating the places we live and work, with more than three-quarters of this coming from homes. The vast majority of homes in the UK rely on gas boilers, but the UK Government is moving to phase these out in the next few decades. Efforts to replace these systems with renewable heating are progressing steadily, with options ranging from air and water source individual heat pumps to communityscale district heating systems.

Across Scotland, there are opportunities for communities to contribute to this significant transition, but these are not often realised by government or industry. The Scottish Government has a statutory target to see that heat networks supply 7TWh of Scotland’s heat (and cooling) demand by 2035, much of which is expected to be delivered through large private companies. However, there are multiple ways for community energy groups, like Glasgow Community Energy, to participate. Community energy refers to the delivery of community-led renewable energy, energy demand reduction and energy supply projects, whether wholly owned and/or controlled by communities or through a partnership with commercial or public sector organisations. Our vision would be the participation of community energy groups in delivering affordable clean heating in three ways. Firstly, shared ownership in district heating schemes presents a significant opportunity for citizens to purchase a financial stake in these projects. As part of the Scottish Government’s heat network delivery plan, there is a commitment to support the development of community engagement and ownership or co-ownership of small heat networks where these are appropriate. Tailored support and advice are available through the Community and Renewable Energy Scheme delivered by Local Energy Scotland.

Together, these would enable smaller-scale renewable energy schemes, especially community-owned and run ones, to sell their power directly to local households and businesses at more affordable rates; something Glasgow Community Energy hopes to see happen in Glasgow.

Glasgow City Council’s Local Heat and Energy Efficiency Strategy is seeking to support the development of new district and community heating schemes as well as delivering fabric improvements to energy inefficient buildings.

“Our vision would be the participation of community energy groups in delivering affordable clean heating.”

Consideration of suitable locations for community-led district heating is being incorporated into the council’s Community Renewable Energy Framework. Glasgow Community Energy has begun assessments of four of these locations in collaboration with researchers at the University of Glasgow, and early discussions with local organisations around community-owned heat networks for homes and businesses are underway. Many of these homes are traditional solid-walled buildings, of which Glasgow has more than 70,000, generally built before 1919. These buildings pose additional technical challenges such as dampness and poor insulation. In shared buildings, such as traditional tenements, these problems are compounded by the challenges of reaching agreement among owners with diverse interests and financial priorities.

One of our partners, Locohome Retrofit, was funded by the Scottish Government to assess the feasibility of retrofitting a typical tenement block. They found that a comprehensive retrofit could reduce energy use by around 80% but would cost upwards of £40,000 per flat. Prohibitive costs, limited grant funding, technical complexity, the absence of heat network regulations, and variable coordination by the factors who often manage such buildings creates huge challenges for owners and tenants.

Secondly, communities could receive payments from the significant infrastructure required to provide heat networks through community benefit funds. The Scottish Government Good Practice Principles encourage developers to offer community benefit packages as standard for all onshore renewable energy projects, ensuring that the benefits of wind, solar, and other renewable energy projects are shared with local communities. Heat networks are not covered by these current principles; however, exploration of various ownership models and heat network regulations is ongoing.

A third option would be for community energy groups to wholly or partly own local renewable electricity generation, supplying heat pumps or district heating schemes with affordable clean power. The community energy sector has considerable experience in building and operating cost effective, renewable schemes with enough power generation for more than 250,000 UK households. Clean heat solutions will require the supply of affordable electricity to ensure customers connected to these systems actually benefit from cheaper bills than if they used gas. Proposals as part of the draft Westminster Local Electricity Supply Bill would establish a Community Electricity Export Guarantee and a Community Electricity Supplier Services Scheme.

Looking to the next decade, there are considerable obstacles to meeting the ambitious UK, Scottish and regional targets of decarbonising heating and improving the energy efficiency of homes. Widespread, community-led initiatives with shared ownership, community benefit funding and local energy generation can accelerate change if their potential is recognised, valued, and supported.

Green roofs and solar panels

Kate Patfield, Senior Press Officer, Ordnance Survey

Ordnance Survey (OS) has released data on over 40 million roofs in Great Britain into the OS National Geographic Database (NGD), a geospatial database designed to provide rich, authoritative data on Britain’s landscape, infrastructure, and built environment. The data was almost entirely captured using automated feature extraction, utilising Machine Learning (ML) methodologies in some processes.

“OS has identified the presence of solar panels, revealing that 5% of buildings across Britain have them.”

The OS NGD already holds a vast amount of information on buildings, including their use (eg, commercial, retail, residential), construction material, age, number of floors (47 million in total), address count, and basement presence. All of these features are available in the OS NGD Buildings theme alongside the brand-new roof enhancement data. They can be cross-referenced with other OS NGD themes such as Address and Land Use to unlock valuable insights that can support projects and businesses across the public and private sector.

Roof shape and aspect: to support risk assessment and retrofitting

OS’s new roof data includes:

• roof shape: identifying whether a roof is flat or pitched, which helps assess flood risk for insurance purposes and supports carbon net zero initiatives, retrofitting and solar panel suitability, as well as potential for development.

• roof aspect: determining the predominant orientation in eight directions (eg north, northeast, east), supporting green energy planning and wind risk modelling for insurers.

The enhanced roof data allows for better building representation by modelling roof shape, benefitting industries like architecture and urban planning.

Roof material: from fire risk to green energy planning

OS now provides data on the predominant roof materials for 25 million addressable buildings, categorising them as waterproof membrane/concrete, fabric, glass/polycarbonate, green roof, metal, thatch, or tile/stone/slate (on 92% of buildings).

This data will support multiple sectors to:

• help identify fire risks (eg, listed buildings and thatched roofs).

• support green energy solutions by mapping solar panel and green roof potential.

• aid in heat loss modelling for energy efficiency planning and maintenance.

• improve mobile network planning, helping determine suitable locations for infrastructure.

Interestingly, only 0.1% of British buildings have thatched roofs. The built-up area with the highest total number is Sidmouth, East Devon.

Green roofs

A green roof is defined as at least partially covered with vegetation, usually specifically installed on a waterproof

membrane. This new dataset will be invaluable for sustainability and biodiversity projects, supporting:

• urban biodiversity (eg, shelter for pollinators, air filtration, oxygen generation).

• energy efficiency (eg, reduced urban heat islands, increased cooling system performance).

• enhanced solar panel efficiency.

• improved retail and commercial spaces, making urban environments more attractive.

Solar panels

For the first time, OS has identified the presence of solar panels, revealing that 5% of buildings (nearly 1.3 million) across Britain have them, and are mostly domestic. Scotland has the highest proportion of domestic solar panels. The top three districts in Britain are Stirling (15%), South Cambridgeshire (14%), and Peterborough (13%).

This data will revolutionise market analysis and investment strategies for:

• property valuation and energy efficiency ratings.

• green financing and investment.

• renewables incentives programmes.

• carbon footprint analysis for businesses and residential areas.

Access points to key public buildings

Also being introduced is the mapping of pedestrian and vehicle access points to major public buildings. The data is set to enhance emergency planning and response times, improve situational awareness, and help wheelchair users navigate key public buildings more easily.

The data includes access points to: hospitals; sports arenas (5,000+ capacity); railway stations, airports, and ferry terminals; shopping centres (50+ units); conference centres (500+ capacity); and concert venues (1,000+ capacity). These 88,000+ access features provide a new level of detail, including: access type (eg, public, private, emergency); level (eg, above/below ground); and accessibility details (eg, ramps, obstructions).

John Kimmance, Chief Customer Officer for OS, said, “This is the most significant collection of new and existing data for buildings in the OS National Geographic Database since it was created in 2022. With the addition of the new roof data, OS can support so many different sectors with achieving key insights and deliverables, from insurance and property to local authorities under pressure to meet biodiversity net gain targets. And we’re not stopping here: more building datasets are in the pipeline for future release.”

Other new data in this release includes building height enhancements, streetlights, tunnels, three additional land use site descriptions (beaches, wind farms, military training areas) and additional information in the OS NGD Geographical Names theme.

We need a Heat in Buildings Bill, but it must be the right Bill

Gillian Campbell, Existing Homes Alliance

It’s not an understatement to say that how we heat our homes could make or break Scotland’s climate change commitments. Heating buildings accounts for around a fifth of our carbon emissions: we can’t get to net zero without the vast majority of Scotland’s homes switching away from fossil fuel heating, to clean systems such as heat pumps and heat networks.

Switching from fossil fuel heating isn’t just about tackling the climate emergency. It also presents a great opportunity to tackle one of this country’s greatest injustices: the fact that more than a third of Scotland’s households are living in fuel poverty.

As well as reducing carbon emissions, switching to clean, renewables-based heating helps with energy security. By reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, we’re reducing our exposure to volatile fossil fuel markets; the primary reason for energy price increases over the last few years has been our over-exposure to international gas markets.

Back in 2021, the Scottish Government’s Heat in Buildings Strategy included a commitment to introduce legislation requiring homes to meet a minimum energy efficiency standard and transition away from fossil fuel heating. However, the introduction of this legislation has been beset by delays.

In November 2023 the Scottish Government consulted on the content of a Heat in Buildings Bill, which would ban the use of fossil fuel heating from 2045. In advance of this deadline, those buying a house would be required to end their use of fossil fuel heating within a set period following the purchase. It was also suggested that those living within a designated ‘heat network zone’ would be required to end their use of fossil fuel heating earlier than 2045, where there was a heat network available for connection.

The consultation also proposed that homeowners and private landlords would be required to meet a new minimum energy efficiency standard. This is critical for tackling poor energy efficiency as one of the drivers of fuel poverty. Improving the energy efficiency of our homes reduces energy demand, making homes easier and more affordable to heat, healthier for occupants, and reducing the burden on the grid.

That consultation closed in March 2024, and a Heat in Buildings Bill was included in the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government in September last year. After months of speculation, the Acting Minister for Climate Action made a statement to the Scottish Parliament at the start of April 2025, signalling a shift away from prohibiting the use of fossil fuel heating, towards an approach based on statutory targets.

We now expect a Bill to be introduced later this year, and while it’s good to see some progress after months of delay, it’s important that the right Bill is brought forward.

A strong Bill that includes clear, achievable targets and standards on zero emissions heating and energy efficiency is essential to provide much-needed clarity for homeowners and landlords. It should set out a clear timeline, enabling people to plan works, carrying out upgrades at the most convenient and affordable time, and in some cases, to move ahead of regulation with confidence.

We will need a scaled-up supply chain and significantly more people working in the clean heat and energy efficiency industries to enable us to switch away from fossil fuel heating.

A Bill which sets out a clear timeline will give businesses certainty, providing a visible pipeline of work, so they’ll have confidence to invest in scaling up, creating jobs and training opportunities right across the country.

It must protect the most vulnerable by requiring that the regulations contribute to tackling fuel poverty as well as cutting emissions. The legislation must also include appropriate exemptions and exclusions, so that it gives clarity and certainty, while also being achievable and affordable. And decarbonising heating should be phased in over time, so that industry can gradually scale up to meet growing demand.

“Heating buildings accounts for around a fifth of our carbon emissions.”

We don’t yet know what the Bill will look like. However, based on the Minister’s statement, there is a risk that it may not be sufficient to get us to net zero by 2045. A target-based approach that seeks to incentivise, rather than compel, action will only work if it has a robust delivery plan.

Alongside the Bill, we need an expanded framework of advice and support to help people upgrade their homes. That includes continued grant and loan support and longterm affordable financing, so warm, healthy homes are more affordable to more people.

While legislation is certainly not a silver bullet, it is the foundation upon which awareness raising, advice and support services, and industry investment can be built. Bringing forward the right Heat in Buildings Bill is an opportunity to put Scotland back at the forefront of tackling both climate change and fuel poverty.

Photo by Carl Tronders on Unsplash

Geography, energy and Scottish innovation

Bruce Gittings FRSGS, Institute of Geography, University of Edinburgh

Three years ago, I moved house, and amongst the several discoveries which represented someone else’s accumulated bad decisions were three heating systems, two hot water cylinders and an electricity bill that took my breath away. Something had to be done. Although well within the boundaries of the City of Edinburgh, like many others in Scotland the house is not on the gas grid. Using oil or propane would have saved money, but neither seemed to have a future, nor did they do much for my green credentials. Therefore, I looked towards a more sustainable solution: a heat pump.

The first heat pump in Britain was designed by the visionary Dr Graeme Haldane, and installed at his house at Foswell by Auchterarder in 1928. The operation of a heat pump is rather like witchcraft; it magically generates heat. You put some electricity in, and get out a lot more heat than you would had you just burned the electricity directly. It works much like an air conditioner or fridge in reverse: instead of taking heat from a smaller space, concentrating it and dissipating it in a larger space, it takes heat from the larger space (outside) and brings it inside, warming the house, in my case through familiar hot-water radiators. There are snags; the water temperature is lower than with conventional boiler systems, and the house takes longer to heat up. Also, the heat pump is a complex piece of engineering and it may not last as long as a gas boiler.

When my heat pump was installed, I seriously considered solar panels to generate at least some of the required electricity, but the costs did not add up. However, the tripling of electricity prices later in 2022 made me look again. A colleague advised you should cover your roof with as many panels as possible, so I decided to install a large 9kW solar array connected to a 20kW battery which will store electricity for use in the hours of darkness, and in winter evenings when heating demand peaks. The government provided an interestfree loan to allow the costs to be spread.

“The operation of a heat pump is rather like witchcraft; it magically generates heat.”

There are two types of heat pump in use domestically: ground source, which needs either a big garden you don’t mind being dug up, or a few expensive boreholes; and air source, which extracts heat from the atmosphere. Whereas the deeper ground stays at 8–10°C all year round, differing air temperatures greatly affect performance. I chose air source, and the government then provided a generous subsidy that will all but pay for the system over seven years.

Solar can’t power a heating system through the winter months – there just isn’t enough sun – but the battery can be charged using cheap power from the mains overnight, which is then used during the day and evenings. This not only saves money but assists in balancing the national grid and preventing expensive and polluting gas-fired power stations being turned on to meet peak demand. However, as I write this in January, the power generated from my solar array is still making a significant contribution to my daily needs (25%). Even better, in June the 1.2MWhrs generated greatly exceeds my electricity needs and allows energy to be exported to the grid, which over the last year has almost exactly balanced the costs of the winter. The result is my electricity (including heating) costs are effectively zero. It took two years for the feed-in tariff to grow in line with electricity price rises, and the costs remain subject to the vagaries of the market, but getting a fair feed-in tariff is now possible.

Energy production is certainly a geographical issue. While Scotland may lack sun, we are the kings of wind, and the two work well together; when the wind doesn’t blow, the sun often shines. Unfortunately, wind turbines need space and would be regarded as too noisy for most domestic situations. Personally, I find commercial wind turbines inoffensive and the land beneath them remains useful. I have my doubts as to the wisdom of covering good agricultural land with solar panels, but why have we not made an easy planning decision that all new buildings should have the entirety of their roofs capable of solar generation?

The UK is a growing importer of power, dependent on Europe for 28.7TWhrs of electricity in 2021 (up from 7.1TWhrs in 2010), the majority coming from French and Belgian nuclear power stations. This situation is clearly unsustainable. Scotland remains a net exporter of electricity, with wind generation having replaced declining nuclear generation, and the thankful closure of all of our coal-fired stations. But it’s more complicated than that; we could decide when to generate with these older technologies, but we can’t decide when to turn the sun or wind on and off. One thing is sure: our demand for energy seems likely to continue to grow.

Renewables experiences

Andy McCandlish

We moved into our current home in 2006, a west of Scotland rural house dating from 1793 with metre-thick rubble-built walls and slate roof, draughty doors and ill-fitting windows. At the time it was heated using an ageing oil boiler that positively drank fuel. To compound the misery, oil changed price at an alarming rate. It was a lottery each time you called for a fill, ranging from under 30p a litre to well over 70p a litre depending on time of year and world crisis levels. With a capacity of 1,200 litres, that peaked at over £1,000 per fill more than once and set us on a track, fairly quickly, to getting that reduced in any way we could. This was for both financial and ecological reasons; it just felt like an enormous waste to throw this volume of resources at a house just to keep it habitable.

We started with the windows, doors and insulation. Doors and windows quickly dealt with the coat-flapping draughts, but insulation wasn’t quite as straightforward, with our house sporting a ‘room in roof’ design. It was tackled one room at a time as and when we could afford the expense and upheaval. Plasterboard was pulled out, 100mm Kingspan squeaked between the roof and wall members behind, then the plasterboard refitted. We have now covered most of the house and very quickly felt an enormous difference to both comfort and bills after fitting.

As the original Feed-in Tariff was about to close in 2011, we fitted 3kW of photovoltaics, the maximum we could fit on our garage roof, which has since proven to be one of the best investments we could have made, not only bringing in upwards of £1,400 per year these days, but also insulating us from the worst of the electricity price rises through the spring, summer and autumn months.

In 2019 we took the plunge and got rid of the oil system altogether, fitting air source heating (an 11kW Mitsubishi Ecodan unit) and a small 4kWh Powervault battery through a sponsored scheme with Octopus Energy. The air source has been excellent, keeping the house at a steady 18–19°C (our choice of temperature, it could go much higher) and only took a short time to get used to. Rather than turning the heating on in the morning and evening to warm the house, letting it chill at night and during the day, it needed to be kept on all the time within a few degrees. If the temperature was allowed to drop too low it took too long to recover it, unlike the hotter oil heating. It now means the house is kept between 17°C at night and 18–19°C during the day, but despite that constant heat our bills have fallen to an estimated half. Much better all round and it has performed flawlessly for six years now.

The 4kWh battery worked reasonably well but it was clear from the start that 4kWh was no more than a

token gesture, especially with the demands of an air source system. With the experience gained we recently upgraded this to a higher power, higher capacity system of 20kWh, an amazing difference that has seen our bills fall straight away. We only fitted it at the end of February 2025, but comparing March and April this year to the last few, it dropped the electricity bill from £475 in 2023, £415 in 2024 to £218 this year. These aren’t particularly scientific numbers as I can’t recall the temperature or conditions of the last few years, but it gives a fair indication of the benefits we can expect: to possibly have halved the bill, and likely dropped it to around £80 per month or thereabouts, averaged out over the year. Incidentally, that bill includes running an electric car, hot water, heating and all other household needs, as we don’t have any other form of fuel.

“We fitted 3kW of photovoltaics, the maximum we could fit on our garage roof.”

To squeeze the last of the efficiency out of our systems I also loaded up a Raspberry Pi with the Home Assistant operating system. This is a superb, open source operating system that effectively brings all the various systems together so they can work in tandem. For example, when we are generating an excess of solar power and the battery is full, the hot water will automatically trigger and fill up for free during the day. This is just one use of this excellent system that can control everything from individual plugs to heating and hot water, even running multiple devices when our electricity tariff is low (Octopus Intelligent Go: at the time of writing, 7p between 2330 and 0530, and whenever it sees fit to charge the car; 28p the rest of the time). It also has the ability to read power

Heat pumps in Alaska: a ‘no brainer’ solution

Andy Romanoff, Executive Director, Alaska Heat Smart

“Heat locally,” says Steve Behnke, board member of Juneau, Alaska non-profit Alaska Heat Smart (AHS). “Nearly all the heat we need is in the air outside the walls of our homes.” Behnke is referring to the abundant thermal energy available in the moist maritime environment that keeps Alaska’s southern coast cool in the summers and mild in the winters. Heat pumps, the latest and greatest heating devices taking the world by storm, are adept at pulling this thermal energy from the air and transferring it into buildings. Alaska Heat Smart thrives on how this energy works to bring its myriad benefits to Alaska residents.

The capital city of the state of Alaska, Juneau, lies tucked inside the rugged and remote rain-soaked coastal curve of the Gulf of Alaska. Juneau shares this wild 1,000-mile coastline, which stretches from Ketchikan at its southern end to Kodiak Island at its western edge, with four dozen smaller communities, many with indigenous roots reaching back more than 10,000 years. Rich with culture and history, many of these places lie within the largest remaining intact temperate rainforest on the planet, the Tongass National Forest. Alaska’s capital is home to roughly 32,000 residents of the region’s approximately 75,000 who make their livings from fishing, mining, tourism, government, or essential services work.

of local resource development,” says Behnke. “With today’s improvements in heat pump technology, we’re able to put this abundant clean energy to work in our homes and buildings.”

The result? An average oil-burning home in one of the region’s 100% hydroelectric power communities will likely cut its heating bills by 50% through replacement of fossil fuel heat with that of a heat pump.

“‘Nearly all the heat we need is in the air outside the walls of our homes.’”

However, the combination of rapidly improving heat pump technology and clean inexpensive hydropower hasn’t been quite enough to encourage a rapid exodus away from fossil fuels. Concerned community members, the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly, and climate and energy focused non-profits recognised that homeowners needed help to understand the benefits of heat pumps, to learn what their homes required, and to find financial assistance needed to offset high upfront costs of a heating system switch. AHS was founded in 2019 to help provide these services.

The region is characterised by residents’ high reliance on marine resources and by the high value placed on them for subsistence, commerce, recreation and cultural continuity.

Fuel costs for transportation and heating are also high and often create a major economic burden. Roads to regional communities do not exist, and all supplies, food and fuels arrive by ocean barge or jet service. Oil heat dominates the region, along with scattered propane or wood heating, and significant electric space heating in communities with low-cost hydroelectricity. Half of the housing stock is old and energy inefficient, further exacerbating the reality that heating costs are some of the highest in the nation. In 2024 heating fuel prices across the region ranged from $4.50/ gallon all the way up to $7.50/gallon.

At the same time, much of the region is continually bathed in precipitation. Annual rainfall totals can reach above 200 inches in some mossy corners. Early newcomers to places like Juneau recognised the rain’s potential and put it to good use. Hydropower development began in the 1890s by the gold mining industry, which needed low-cost energy to extract gold from the hills. “Juneau has been able to build on that early clean energy economy and 130-year-old foundation

Six years later, AHS has assisted over 1,000 households in ‘heating locally’ and today offers a wide array of assistance programmes across the region to help homeowners lower their heating bills using local clean energy. AHS staff answer questions and offer guidance about switching to heat pumps from electric baseboard heating or oil-burning systems via their empowering Home Energy Assessment Program. While education is integral to all of AHS’s operations, financial incentive programmes are vital as well: adding a heat pump to a home has an often prohibitive upfront cost. AHS addresses these costs with diverse grant-funded programmes that can support the installation of a heat pump or the addition of home energy efficiency improvements.

“Most of the heating oil burned in Juneau and other regions of Alaska travels hundreds or thousands of miles, burning fuel along the way, before landing as heat in someone’s home,” Behnke says. “That’s a bit nutty when you really think about it and consider the heat pump alternative. Heat pumps transfer heat from the outdoors to indoors, at a fraction of the cost of burning delivered fossil fuels. The choice is a nobrainer. Our job at Alaska Heat Smart is to share the magic of heat pumps and energy efficiency with Alaskans, help them learn how to bring these gifts to their homes, and in many cases, help them cover the costs and keep money in their wallets, all while eliminating carbon pollution from heating.”

For more information or questions, please reach out to me at andy@akheatsmart.org

Esbjerg’s pioneering energy transition

Jesper Frost Rasmussen, Mayor, Esbjerg Municipality, Denmark

The green transition is on everyone’s lips. In Esbjerg, we don’t just talk about it; we make it happen. The City Council of Esbjerg has set an ambitious goal to become CO2 neutral by 2030. As Denmark’s sustainable energy metropolis, Esbjerg does not just want to be part of the green transition; we want to drive it and help shape it by leading the implementation of sustainable solutions that make sense for our citizens and businesses. And in our humble opinion, we are well on our way. Diesel-powered city buses have been replaced by electric buses, all waste collection vehicles run on biogas, and we are well underway in establishing charging infrastructure so that Esbjerg’s citizens are not hindered when they make the green choice to buy an electric car.

However, the greatest potential for CO2 reduction lies in partnerships and collaboration with others. We are working in multiple ways to establish climate partnerships with local companies and communities and to create strong frameworks for businesses. In 2025, the number of climate partners is now 40. As a climate partner, companies receive, for example, consulting assistance for starting climate accounting and access to an exclusive climate network.

From fishing port to energy metropolis

Esbjerg’s journey from a bustling fishing port to Denmark’s energy metropolis is a testament to the city’s adaptability and commitment to innovation and collaboration.

In the 1960s, Esbjerg was Denmark’s largest fishing harbour, but as the fishing industry declined, the city pivoted to become Denmark’s hub for oil and gas following the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1970s. Large portions of the workforce that had previously worked at sea were redirected into the offshore oil industry.

In the 1990s, Esbjerg was once again ready to adapt when wind turbine exports took off. When the first large offshore wind farm, Horns Rev 1, was put into operation in 2002, Esbjerg’s businesses saw a new growth opportunity. Years of experience in the oil and gas industry could be transferred to a new business area. Today, Esbjerg is Europe’s leading port for handling and shipping wind turbines. Since 2001, 23.6GW of offshore wind turbines have been shipped from the port of Esbjerg. This development has been matched with necessary investments in infrastructure. A 93ha port expansion will be ready by the end of 2025. A crucial investment, in particular considering the declaration signed in Esbjerg in 2022 by government leaders from Denmark, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, aiming to make the North Sea a green power hub for Europe. With the Esbjerg Declaration, the four countries committed to a shared goal of quadrupling their offshore wind capacity to 65GW by 2030 and increasing it tenfold to at least 150GW by 2050.

Green hydrogen: the next step

With the enormous offshore wind potential in the North Sea, Esbjerg’s geographical location makes it ideal for supplying green electricity, and the city is undergoing another green transformation, this time to become a centre for green hydrogen and future power-to-X hot spot.

In 2024, European Energy established the first hydrogen production facility in the area, leveraging renewable energy to produce green hydrogen. This hydrogen will not only serve local needs but also be exported, supporting the broader European energy market. And the way is paved for more. In addition, hydrogen production plants will produce CO2 neutral surplus heat, which has the potential to supply households in Esbjerg with district heating.

Harnessing the power of seawater

Esbjerg’s ambitious goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030 is well underway, not least thanks to a new, ground-breaking district heating system, which was recently put into operation, catering to the heating needs of 25,000 households in Esbjerg and the neighbouring town of Varde. A greener facility that leverages the area’s potential, integrates energy sources, and allows us to replace a coal-fired power plant with more sustainable solutions.

The solution includes two large seawater heat pumps which will harness heat directly from the Wadden Sea. With a total heating capacity of 70MW, the CO2-based heat pump system is the largest of its kind globally. It operates in tandem with a 60MW wood chip boiler, fuelled by sustainably sourced wood chips, a 40MW electric boiler plant that serves as a backup load facility, and surplus heat from waste incineration. Connecting all these energy sources is what we will use to heat the city in the future. This transition not only reduces CO₂ emissions by 120,000 tons per year but also sets a precedent for other cities aiming to lower their environmental impact.

A green role model

The world looks to Esbjerg for inspiration regarding greener energy solutions. The city’s position as a green role model attracts delegations from all over the world. As a member of the World Energy Cities Partnership, Esbjerg cooperates with other globally recognised energy capitals for a lower-carbon energy future. Esbjerg currently has the presidency of the organisation, now for the second term. During our presidency, we have placed particular emphasis on enabling the exchange and sharing of insights through academic partnerships and strengthening the possibilities for business-to-business cooperation.

“The greatest potential for CO2 reduction lies in partnerships and collaboration with others.”

The world’s largest CO2-based seawater heat pump. © DIN Forsyning

Energy transition opportunities in the Glasgow City Region

Dr Roddy Yarr FRSGS, Director of Sustainability, University of Glasgow

Glasgow and its city region is blessed with an abundance of natural and built environment resources. These resources can enable the city and the region to deliver a truly transformative and socially impactful energy system. A system that is sustainable and that serves the needs of people, communities, organisations and businesses.

My role is to lead the development and implementation of operational sustainability interventions and initiatives that support the University of Glasgow’s Sustainability Strategy. As a civic university, we recognise our role in making our own institution more sustainable, and enabling and facilitating others working towards net zero and climate resilience.

treatment works; energy from waste facilities, existing and under construction; rooftops and vacant and derelict land that can be used to deploy large-scale solar PV arrays, city and region wide.

Feasibility and economics

“The City Region’s local authorities have set out their plans to develop large-scale heat networks.”

Having declared a climate emergency in late summer 2019, the University, like many public sector bodies in Scotland and the UK, set about developing the pathways to transform our energy system.

Emissions from gas used for heating buildings make up 20% of the UK’s carbon footprint. At the University, this figure is 34% because of the number and scale of the buildings. So, one of the main issues to be addressed is the decarbonisation of heating and the use of fossil gas as we transition to a low carbon future.

Like many organisations in Glasgow and Glasgow City Region, district heat networks are used to generate energy and distribute heat to communities and businesses across a local area. These areas are often related to a cluster of buildings, both commercial and residential. These networks with a centralised energy centre are an efficient way to generate significant volumes of heat and sometimes power. There is less maintenance of lots of individual boilers in each building, and there is good overall system efficiency. The drawback is that these systems are based on burning gas and that is not compatible with net zero commitments.

Policy and regulation

District heat deployment and electricity decarbonisation are supported by both the Scottish and UK governments. Regulation is coming forward in Scotland, with numerous consultations on new and amended heat and buildings policy.

Importantly, all of Scotland’s local authorities are mandated to develop large-scale district energy networks where this is feasible and economically viable. The City Region’s local authorities have set out their plans to develop large-scale heat networks or expand those that already exist.

Supply and demand

Glasgow and Glasgow City Region is made up of eight local authority areas and it is Scotland’s largest metropolitan area, spanning 3,346km2, with a population of approximately 1.84 million people. So what can a region of this size and complexity do to tackle heat decarbonisation? Luckily, the nature and scale of the region is such that it has access to a multi-megawatt abundance of natural and built environment energy resources. Wind energy; ambient heat from the River Clyde with its huge catchment area and tidal nature through the city of Glasgow; waste heat from sewers and sewage

Feasibility of deployment of heat networks and the economics of these are two aspects that currently feature strongly in the debate around heat and power decarbonisation. To decarbonise heat, we need to move away from gas as a fuel and towards clean electricity. Renewable electricity generation has relatively low carbon emissions and reducing, but while becoming very cost effective to generate, it is expensive to consumers at the point of use, compared to gas for heating. Clearly this issue has to be resolved if the scale of power generation needed is to be economically viable and to enable a fossil fuel transition to be universally adopted. My hope is that, if we can begin to reduce power costs to large-scale district heat networks, perhaps by private wire connection for strategic assets like hospitals, then deployment and operation of sustainable heat networks in dense urban and metropolitan areas will happen more quickly, being more efficient and cost effective than individual gas boilers.

Examples

Some of the larger-scale projects and developments that are in play in the City Region at the moment help to illustrate what is happening in the area.

Queens Quay river source heat pump, West Dunbartonshire Led by West Dunbartonshire Council and part-funded by the Scottish Government and forming part of a £250m urban regeneration project in Clydebank, the Queens Quay Energy Centre is a £15m energy project that draws heat from the River Clyde using a 5MW heat pump system. Operational since 2021 and showcased at COP26, this is the largest water source heat pump installed on a major river in the UK. There is a 2km district heat network that transmits heat from the energy centre to homes, businesses and organisations in Clydebank.

Energy systems installed at Queens Quay.

Clyde Heat, Glasgow

Enervate’s Clyde Heat project is a large-scale water source heat pump-led heat network in Glasgow currently being designed. This project will utilise heat from the River Clyde to provide competitive, low carbon heat, potentially supplying the Peel Group’s Glasgow Waters development, the proposed Therme development, the Scottish Exhibition Centre and Events Campus and many more sites. This is proposed as a 15MW water source heat pump, generating 74GWh per annum within the current masterplan. The project will save 210,000 tonnes of CO2 over the lifetime of the project against a gas counterfactual (circa 70%). The ‘heat-on’ date is set for 2027.

Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland (AMIDS), Renfrewshire Council

Renfrewshire Council has developed an innovative sustainable heating system that recovers waste heat at Laighpark sewage treatment works at Paisley. The first of its kind in Scotland,

the fifth-generation renewable energy network works by directing treated water from the sewage works into a new energy centre, where low temperature heat is extracted and channelled through a 3.7km underground pipe loop. Heat pumps at each building on the new development site at AMIDS upgrade this heat to suitable levels for heating and hot water.

“The region has access to a multi-megawatt abundance of natural and built environment energy resources.”

The network provides a cost-effective route to low carbon heating, an attractive proposition for major manufacturers locating at AMIDS, and over time it will fund its own running and maintenance, being future-proofed to supply further developments nearby. Renfrewshire’s ‘RENZERO’ programme will extend the heat network to deliver further growth in two phases, an extension to AMIDS and a new network for Paisley.

Clyde Heat Network Masterplan.

Queens Quay Energy Centre, Clydebank.

Scotland’s opportunity for clean heat leadership

Nicola Mahmood, Head of Region, Scotland, Aira

As Scotland strives to meet its net zero targets, the decarbonisation of home heating remains one of the most pressing, and complex, challenges. Residential heating currently accounts for 19% of Scotland’s carbon emissions, with over 2.5 million homes still reliant on gas boilers, leaving Scotland as one of the most gas-dependent nations in the world.

Only 40% of the UK’s gas supply is sourced domestically, leaving us heavily exposed to volatile international markets. Our gas reserves have been in long-term decline for over 25 years, well before net zero entered mainstream political or public debate. The reality is clear: the era of fossil fuel heating is ending. The future lies in sustainable, homegrown energy solutions, driven by renewables and the full electrification of our heating systems. The sooner we embrace this transition, the more secure, affordable, and climate-resilient our energy system will be. Air source heat pumps, which offer up to four times the efficiency of gas systems, are widely seen as a key solution to reducing domestic emissions and future-proofing our homes. Yet despite their potential, Scotland is in danger of falling behind in this crucial energy transition. In 2024, just 2,500 heat pump grants were awarded under the Home Energy Scotland grant and loan scheme. For comparison, England and Wales distributed the same number of grants in just two weeks through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme. Growth in the heat pump sector last year tells a similar story: while Scotland achieved an 18% increase, deployment south of the border surged by 67%.

The technological solutions are ready. One standout example is the newly launched Aira Indoor Unit Compact, a cuttingedge, ultra-slim heat pump system designed for the demands of modern homes. This is one of the smallest indoor units available, at just 40cm wide x 25cm deep x 72cm high, and it delivers powerful, efficient heating. It’s built to meet the heating and hot water needs of households of up to six people, thanks to a modular water cylinder system (available in 150l–300l sizes) and outdoor units offered in 6kW, 8kW and 12kW variants.

“The future lies in sustainable, homegrown energy solutions.”

This innovation goes beyond hardware. Aira uniquely combines hardware, software and data to offer one of the most intelligent systems on the market, complete with a 15-year guarantee for peace of mind. By switching to an Aira Heat Pump and our optimised clean energy tariffs, households can save over £500 a year on their energy bills, and live more comfortably at home with consistent temperatures.

Switching from a gas boiler feels like a big change for many, but it represents one of the most impactful decisions a household can make, both for climate and cost. Each wellinstalled heat pump not only slashes emissions by at least 75%, but reduces heating costs and strengthens Scotland’s energy security by reducing dependence on volatile fossil fuel markets.

This disparity is not due to lack of innovation or ambition from the industry, but rather a reflection of policy and public engagement differences. We could benefit from more investment in education; a national advertising initiative to actively inform homeowners about the benefits of heat pumps, while raising awareness of the available financial support.

In Scotland, homeowners have access to one of the most generous incentive schemes available, offering a minimum of £15,000 in grant and interest-free loans to switch to a heat pump. Despite this positive scheme, the application remains difficult to navigate for many households, limiting uptake at a time when momentum is critical. There is now a clear and urgent need for reform; streamlining access, increasing support, and introducing public awareness efforts to drive the clean energy transition forward.

The forthcoming Heat in Buildings Bill (HIBB), due originally for publication this summer but now delayed, must set a clear target for renewable heating installations and firmly commit Scotland to decommissioning the gas grid by 2045. This policy clarity is essential to unlocking large-scale investment in skills, infrastructure, and innovation across the energy sector. Aira is already making significant moves: our Stirling hub forms part of a £300 million UK-wide investment, and our skills academies in England are rapidly building the workforce needed for a net zero future. With the right policy commitment through the HIBB, we stand ready to expand our presence and bring hundreds of high-quality clean energy jobs to Scotland.

Scotland has the ingenuity and industrial capability to lead in clean home heating. With the right policy and public engagement, we can empower households to embrace efficient, climate-friendly heating, and take our rightful place at the forefront of the clean energy revolution.

Scottish Water: pioneering sustainable energy systems

Donald MacBrayne, Business Development Manager, Scottish Water Horizons

Scotland’s public owned water utility, Scottish Water, is making significant strides in reducing its carbon footprint and promoting environmental sustainability. Whether that’s the restoration of hundreds of hectares of peat bogs to improve water quality and lock up carbon, planting thousands of hectares of new forests to sequester carbon and improve biodiversity, electrifying the vehicle fleet, reducing carbon in the capital investment programme, or hosting some of Scotland’s largest wind farms on its assets, it all contributes to Scottish Water’s Net Zero Emissions Routemap. In fact, Scottish Water delivered 12,000tCO2e savings in year two of our Net Zero Emission Routemap.

A major part of that Net Zero Emissions Routemap is a commitment to harness renewable energy sources. Scottish Water’s wholly owned subsidiary, Scottish Water Horizons, is tasked with delivering all of Scottish Water’s retrofit renewable power projects, and with the delivery of renewable heat projects.

One of the key initiatives undertaken is tapping into the heat beneath our feet. By utilising the heat contained within the wastewater system, Scottish Water Horizons is harnessing a reliable and sustainable source of energy that is suitable for supply into district heat networks. The sewerage network in Scotland extends to over 30,000 miles of pipes and pumping stations. By extracting thermal energy from wastewater, it not only reduces reliance on fossil fuels but also means that local extraction points for energy can be created wherever there is a sufficient flow in the wastewater network. Having local energy supply like this, close to the point of demand, means that there is less carbon and disruption associated with digging up and reinstating roads to bring in large sources of alternative energy normally located outwith towns and cities or on their periphery. The wastewater also happens to be warm to start with, leading to another efficiency and carbon advantage over many other sources of renewable heat.

collaborative approach with other public sector bodies has been at the heart of why the first five wastewater heat recovery projects in the UK all happened in Scotland. Collaboration is the key.

In addition to the work to extract thermal energy for district heat networks, Scottish Water is investing heavily in developing ‘behind the meter’ renewable power projects like solar, wind and micro hydro. With an installed capacity of 37MW of solar photovoltaic systems on over 90 sites, Scottish Water seeks to harness the energy of the sun to power our water and wastewater treatment facilities. This portfolio is growing by the month. As well as reducing the carbon impact, this helps to reduce Scottish Water’s operating costs, which in turn keeps customer charges low.

“In 2024 Scotland’s first wastewater hydro project was commissioned.”

Turning to hydro power, Scottish Water Horizons set up a hydro development team over four years ago. This was with the intention of scouring the Scottish Water asset base to identify and develop opportunities for hydro energy development. This programme is now starting to bear fruit, and in 2024 Scotland’s first wastewater hydro project was commissioned at Hamilton Wastewater Treatment Works, where it is helping to offset 14% of the site’s energy demands.

A further hydro project was commissioned later in the year at Whiteadder Reservoir. Here, Scottish Water Horizons used an innovative design and control philosophy to install a syphonbased hydro turbine. The energy produced from this project is offsetting 30% of the power demands of the nearby raw water pumping station.

Many more projects such as those described above are in development. One of the most significant challenges in delivering these behind-the-meter renewable power projects is securing grid connection agreements. The process for obtaining planning consent also needs to be quicker and more consistently applied across Scotland if we are to reach our full net zero potential.

The efforts by Scottish Water Horizons in deploying sustainable heat systems are not aimed at use on Scottish Water’s assets, which are typically power hungry but don’t really require much or any heat. Scottish Water Horizons actively collaborates with various stakeholders which do require large quantities of heat, including government agencies and local authorities. The success of this

Scottish Water’s daily business is both reliant upon, and impacted by, the weather. Scottish Water takes climate change very seriously and is playing its part to change and adapt the Scottish Water business to meet the challenges of the future. Scottish Water is also playing a proactive role in seeking public sector collaboration for the benefit of the country and the climate.

Photo by Adam Wilson on Unsplash

Harnessing natural philosophy: how science and the natural world

Dave Pearson, Group Sustainable Development Director, Star Refrigeration

Natural philosophy (from Latin philosophia naturalis) is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe, while ignoring any supernatural influence. It was dominant before the development of modern science. In 1852, William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) published The Second Law of Thermodynamics, a key work in natural philosophy that laid the foundation for the understanding of heat and its relationship to energy. This paper formalised the concept of the second law, which states that energy cannot be completely converted into work and that the dissipation of energy in a closed system is an irreversible process. An incredible piece of work; hardly surprising given he was a professor at the age of 22.

Thomson was also a keen sailor and will have certainly understood the influence of nature on the surrounding modern world as he knew it. He was instrumental in the laying of the first transatlantic telecoms cable; no mean feat with numerous failed attempts on the 2,200-mile route over a decade.

His work in heat engines developed into the modern theory of refrigeration, ending decades-long traditions of the importation of ice from far-flung places such as Boston and Norway. At its height the trade employed some 90,000 people and a whole host of spin-off industries fashioning specialist cutting implements and ploughs for horses.

In modern times, industrial refrigeration (which was far more immediately useful than heat pumps) has evolved to thinking about heat again. Modern projects in Clydebank, Bristol and Liverpool by Star Refrigeration of Glasgow all deliver between 3,000kW and 5,000kW of heat per hour from surface water sources. 2,500kW can be achieved from the 130l/s noted earlier.

So, what’s stopping our towns and cities shifting from fossil fuel heat to clean heat?

On the surface of it, economics appears to be the barrier. A good modern heat pump can deliver approximately 3kWh of heat per 1kWh of electricity used in the electric motors.

A recent increase in the understanding of ‘spark gap’ is welcome. It is the ratio of the electricity price to gas price and is notionally around 4.0 in the UK. So, switching from gas at say 5p/kWh to clean heat at 24p/kWh / 3.0 = 8p/kWh is likely to be a challenge.

“The challenge has never been whether the natural environment offered sufficient resources.”

Some cite this as an approximately $1bn dollar industry in 2025 terms. The ice blocks were even shipped as far as Calcutta by an extremely determined merchant, Frederic Tudor, who began exporting in 1806. Curiously, his first shipment to Martinique melted as the local customs officers didn’t have an import tariff for frozen water. Over the next 170 years, numerous attempts have been made to shift the delivery of heat from a fossil fuel-based system (first coal then oil and most recently gas) to a less polluting approach. Notable examples include the 1950s Festival Hall in London which saw 1,800 gallons per minute pumped to a heat pump. Circa 130l/s.

The challenge has never been whether the natural environment offered sufficient resources. A simple understanding of geography teaches us that evaporation and condensation results in precipitation over land, and gravity drains the valleys into the rivers and estuaries and out to sea. Planetary science teaches us that, as the Earth rotates, the pull of the Moon on the surface water causes the tide to rise and fall as the Earth spins underneath it. The National River Archive shows us that the River Thames has a mean flow rate of 65,000l/s. Some 500 times the original Thames heat extraction capacity.

However, as anyone who has bought an electric car should know, not all electricity is priced the same. This too has its roots in geography and the natural order of science. Sometimes it is sunny, sometimes it is windy, and as we transition our electrical infrastructure from a very stable and robust combustion-based system we would be well advised to redesign our consumption systems to be more flexible to flex up when supplies are greater and down when there is a shortfall.

There is then the utility and policy aspects of the cost of electricity. It will surprise most people to learn that the UK pricing mechanism (managed by OFGEM) is based on a clearing system which means in any given half-hourly period, the wholesale price of electricity is based on the supplier of last resort. Typically, gas. So, whilst the huge windfarms we see are being built on the promise of revenue at approximately 7.5p/kWh under the Contracts for Difference Scheme, the wholesale price could be double this.

world offer a chance to stop burning gas

Add on top the non-commodity costs designed to recoup the cost of running the entire grid and we see electricity at over three times its generation cost.

“It will be ordinary people enjoying cleaner air, higher value employment and a better funded state.”

You don’t have to have been a professor at the age of 22 to work out that this won’t be an attractive price of clean heat. So what should we do? There are two routes.

Firstly, resolve the policy around electricity pricing so that ultra-flexible users of power at the high voltage level pay only a proportionate cost of generation and delivery. Note there is already a mechanism for Energy Intensive Users such as glass factories whereby they receive a waiver on a large portion of the non-commodity costs. The rationale is that this makes them competitive in the face of foreign goods imports. What if we offered facilities using local resources an equivalent scheme so they don’t import foreign fuels? Over 55% of UK fossil fuel use is now imported. A dramatic change from even 20 years ago when the nation was a net exporter.

Alternatively, there is nothing stopping an investment house funding the deployment of strategically located wind farms with a new, parallel and private wire grid to key off-takers. It could even be a new power line from existing windfarms.

Increasing utilisation would be far more useful than continuing to pay £1.5bn in curtailment payments every year.

Whilst private wire might seem simpler, it deprives the increasingly under-utilised national grid of new revenue. This revenue would accrue from utilising the headroom that exists in the national grid by a new army of clean heat networks, prepared to trade lower average price against less surety of supply. If electricity is top of the tree in energy terms, heat is at the very bottom. However, this is the unique opportunity for clean heat. It is very easy to make heat and very easy to store it, so if Plan A is offline (big electric heat pumps), plan B (thermal storage) or Plan C (some other source, possibly a small volume of gas until synthetic fuels are readily available) can be utilised.

So the real barrier is policy, or lack of policy, suited to the demands of society. Will policy emerge? And who would see the upside?

If national grid policy is to be altered, this falls under Westminster’s watch. The Scottish Government, although responsible for heat and clean air, is not responsible for electricity policy. Whether they ever become sufficiently motivated to find a way around this inconvenience, for example by agreeing to underwrite the cost of these private wires, is quite opaque.

Regardless of who decides to fix this barrier, it will be ordinary people enjoying cleaner air, higher value employment and a better funded state. This last point seems lost. Every £1bn of private investment into the provision of clean heat immediately raises tax revenue. Circa 45% income tax, plus employers NI at 15%, plus personal NI, plus personal VAT. Any corporation profit ends up as tax too. Pretty easy to see a situation where the tax take from investment is well over 70%.

The barrier for sure isn’t natural philosophy or an understanding of the laws of physics or opportunities afforded by nature and geography. These I was fortunate enough to study at school.

Photo by Bhautik Andhariya on Unsplash

South Georgia

Stephen Venables, mountaineer and writer

I organised my first expedition to South Georgia with Julian Freeman-Attwood in 1989, and recorded the experience in my book Island at the Edge of the World. I returned in 2000 to take part in the IMAX film Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure. Since then, I have returned another nine times, aboard Skip Novak’s vessels Pelagic Australis and Vinson of Antarctica, leading skiing and mountaineering teams to make several first ascents on the island. Details of future expeditions can be found at www.pelagic. co.uk

1. Skip Novak’s vessel Pelagic Australis approaching South Georgia, heavily iced, in the late winter of 2014. | 2. Skip Novak’s vessel Pelagic Australis landing a team at Trollhul in 2016. | 3. Abandoned whale catchers beached at Grytviken. | 4. Skuas patrolling the king penguin colony at Salisbury Plain. | 5. Cumberland West Bay; 20 years ago, a glacier filled the bay on the right side of the picture. | 6. Camp before making the first ascent of Poseidon in 2014. | 7. Henry Chaplin arriving at the summit on the first ascent of Starbuck Peak in 2016. | 8. Stephen Venables with Brian Davison, Julian Freeman-Attwood and Lindsay Griffin on the summit of Vögerl Peak in 1990.

© All images Stephen Venables

The big heat

Professor Jon Gluyas, President, The Geological Society, and Ørsted/Ikon Chair in Geoenergy Carbon Capture & Storage, Durham University

Geothermal energy is a universal resource; regardless of where you are on Earth, heat lies beneath your feet. It is accessible, consistent, sustainable, low in carbon emissions, and more equitably distributed than coal, oil, gas, wind, waves, tides or sunlight.

The Earth is hot, very hot. It became hot as it formed around 4.5 billion years ago and will still be hot in around five billion years when the Sun expands and obliterates the Earth. Heat is arguably the Earth’s greatest resource which by any human measure is sustainable and inexhaustible. This huge heat engine drives plate tectonics and the movement of continents across the globe; it creates and maintains the magnetic field and thus protects our atmosphere. The plate tectonics coupled with the heat preserved past biological remains, turning them into coal, oil and natural gas, and yet this massive heat resource is largely untapped. Indeed, geothermal energy accounts for less than 1% of global energy supply.

had become a petro-economy. The Southampton well was the only one of these developed into a working scheme, by Southampton Council accountant Mike Smith.

“Times are a changin’” and the UK needs secure, sustainable, low carbon heat and power as part of a just energy transition. Geothermal energy can and is beginning to deliver. As we write in May 2025, the UK has 1GW heat on stream.

North-east England is leading the way in delivering lowgrade space heating, by extracting tepid mine water from the region’s abandoned and flooded mines. Gateshead Council is delivering around 6MW heat, and nearby Lanchester Wines uses about the same to keep its wine warehouses at a constant temperature. At the opposite end of the country, Cornish projects are drilling deep.

“The USA is the largest generator of geothermal derived electricity.”

Two wells, one each at United Downs near Redruth and Eden, were drilled to more than 5km. Eden is already producing heat into its biodomes, and United Downs is set for electricity generation in 2025.

Geothermal energy has been exploited by humans since prehistory, and humans are not alone in making the most of hot water expelled naturally at the Earth’s surface. Geothermal energy has been used to generate electricity at Lardarello in Italy since 1904. Geothermal energy development transformed Iceland’s energy landscape. Once shrouded in coal-induced smog, Reykjavik is now a model of clean energy. Today, the entire country is powered and heated almost entirely by geothermal, creating energy security and environmental sustainability whilst facilitating local food production through greenhouse farming, enhancing Iceland’s self-sufficiency.

Italy and Iceland are tectonically active regions, and it is tempting to think that volcanoes are needed for geothermal energy, but this is not so. The USA is the largest generator of geothermal derived electricity, with 3.8GW in 2022, accounting for almost 25% of the world total. Even more geothermal energy is used directly as heat, at around 23GW in 2023, with China leading the list of 88 countries with geothermal heat schemes.

Several countries in mainland Europe, including Germany, France, the Netherlands and Sweden, have similar geology to the UK and yet much better developed geothermal resources. Several reasons explain this disparity, including specific policies that limit the choice of energy options available, such as Germany’s move from nuclear energy, or policies that explicitly promote geothermal development. In addition, availability of and access to subsurface data, state-backed support measures including payments for every unit of geothermal heat or electricity produced, and drilling risk insurance schemes. These things are lacking in the UK, therefore providing a barrier to investment in and growth of UK geothermal.

Our calculations show a huge potential for geothermal energy in the UK. Until recently the UK had but one geothermal development, of about 1.7MW, supplying a heat network in central Southampton. The Southampton District Energy Scheme was something of an anachronism. Heat is extracted from a deep well drilled in 1981 in response to the 1973 oil crisis. It was one of seven in the UK: one more in Hampshire, together with Cornwall (three), Lincolnshire and Northern Ireland. All seven wells found heat, but by the time they were drilled, North Sea oil had been discovered, and the UK

The appetite of local councils and a portion of our industry to develop geothermal energy is growing fast. The Durham coast made famous by the Billy Elliot film will soon have a garden village heated from the mines it overlies. Deep drilling has already occurred and is being evaluated at Stormont in Northern Ireland. There are projects for deep and shallow geothermal energy developments in Scotland, north-west England, Yorkshire, Wales, the Midlands and south-west England in various stages of execution.

Policy and regulation are not keeping pace with the desires of communities to develop shared and equitable geothermal resources. To facilitate the uptake of geothermal energy in the UK, the National Geothermal Energy Centre was constituted in 2024. It covers policy and regulation; technology and innovation; infrastructure and research; and has targeted delivery of 10GW heat, 1.5GW electricity, 50,000 skilled jobs and displacement of ten million tonnes of CO2 by 2050. Help us make this happen.

FURTHER READING

Geothermal energy, powered by Earth (www.energy-observer. org/resources/geothermal-energy)

IGA Global Geothermal Data (worldgeothermal.org)

JG Gluyas et al (2018) Keeping warm; a review of deep geothermal potential of the UK (Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, journals.sagepub.com/ doi/abs/10.1177/0957650917749693)

Bath’s geothermally heated bathing pool, exploited by humans since pre-history.

Geothermal energy: offering climate resilience for islands

James Ellsmoor, Chief Executive Officer, Island Innovation

As the world shifts towards a sustainable economic model built on renewable energy and increased circularity, islands find themselves at a crossroads. These communities, while isolated from the mainland, find themselves dependent on them for economic growth through tourism, fisheries, and even energy. This balancing act creates a series of challenges for islands keen to ensure they are not entirely dependent on external resources to develop their economies.

For many islanders, this starts with energy sovereignty; whether on Sub-National Island Jurisdictions like Hawai’i’s Molokaʻi and the Canary Islands’ El Hierro, or region-wide shifts across the Pacific Islands, there is a growing call to leverage local renewables as a platform to build a resilient, sustainable future.

Creating a strong foundation

Developing renewable energy systems capable of producing enough power to sustain current and future demand can be a game-changer for islands which tend to rely on imported fossil fuels for their energy needs. Islands have opportunities to develop traditional clean energy sources like solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, biofuels, as well as a host of emerging marine technologies.

Nevis not only to service their own needs, which is expected to increase as you further develop, but to export to the region and potentially tap into these opportunities of green energy markets.”

Described as a potentially “transformative” project by Nevis Premier Mark Brantley, the geothermal plant that forms the basis of the St Kitts and Nevis Islands Climate Enhancement Project represents a step towards a larger regional project to turn excess geothermal energy into green hydrogen for export. To bring that vision to fruition, nations across the region need to first implement geothermal: they need a blueprint.

“Developing renewable energy systems can be a game-changer for islands.”

Here, St Kitts and Nevis is on the leading edge. The country has spent the past few years building bridges through international engagements at a government level both regionally and farther afield, to both identify potential financing opportunities and create a network of stakeholders interested in developing geothermal technology in the region.

Reducing reliance on fossil fuels would not only free up capital for reinvestment into the local community, but contribute to a wider global transition away from carbon intensive energy sources that are worsening the impacts of climate change. These impacts, which disproportionately affect islands, are also driving increased costs and investments towards adaptation and mitigation programmes within these communities.

Islands might seem like they are stuck in a vicious cycle, but many are actively working towards breaking it by finding innovative financing solutions and working with one another to share and consolidate knowledge and expertise. The Caribbean has been a leader in multilateral collaboration towards climate action, and energy is no different. In St Kitts and Nevis, geothermal energy is gaining momentum as a power source, not just for the twin islands, but as a blueprint for implementation across other island jurisdictions. Caribbean geothermal

“It is extraordinary to know that the potential here is one gigawatt of geothermal power where the need stands at 30 to 50 megawatts,” noted Green Climate Fund’s Executive Director Mafalda Duarte during a recent trip to St Kitts and Nevis. “So there’s the potential for a country like St Kitts and

This has culminated in the country hosting the Global Sustainable Islands Summit 2025 in May, where it showcased its sustainability solutions and opportunities across a wide range of sectors to hundreds of high-level international experts, entrepreneurs, and government officials. Capping off the Summit was a full day of technical conversations and workshops at the geothermal plant in Nevis – a knowledgesharing exercise expected to highlight the potential of geothermal energy in the region. More broadly, it highlighted how investments in renewable energy can be transformative for island communities, because, as Brantley highlighted, “This geothermal initiative [...] It’s not just a project for Nevis but a legacy for generations to come.”

The wider impacts of geothermal energy in St Kitts and Nevis, and renewable energy for islands globally, are more than environmental stewardship and bottom lines: it offers a path toward economic sovereignty. Island energy projects are capable of having an outsized impact on the short and long-term socio-economic trajectory of local communities; comparatively more than a project in a developed country where energy needs are already met, so bottom lines can be a larger driving factor.

Deep geothermal energy, with potential to decarbonise UK heat

Iain Hutchison FIMechE, Chief Executive, Merlin Energy Ltd

As the UK charts a path towards net zero, the need for clean, reliable, and sustainable heating solutions is ever more pressing. Heating alone accounts for nearly 40% of the UK’s energy consumption, with a majority still reliant on fossil fuels. Amidst growing concerns over energy security and climate change, deep geothermal energy represents a largely untapped opportunity to provide low-carbon, continuous heating for millions of UK homes.

What is deep geothermal energy?

Deep geothermal energy harnesses the Earth’s internal heat from depths exceeding 500 metres. Unlike shallow ground source heat pumps, deep geothermal systems access much hotter reservoirs; typically above 50°C by drilling deep boreholes into hot rock formations. This heat can be used directly to heat schools, hospitals, offices or for district heating networks. In some places it heats swimming pools.

Unlike solar or wind, geothermal energy offers a constant and predictable output, independent of weather. It also boasts an impressively small surface footprint and can deliver energy for decades once operational.

Continental success stories

While the UK is still in the early stages of exploring this resource, several European neighbours are already leveraging deep geothermal energy at scale.

In the Netherlands, deep geothermal has seen rapid growth, particularly in the greenhouse horticulture sector. Over two dozen geothermal projects are now in operation, with the Dutch government aiming to meet up to 25% of the country’s heat demand from geothermal by 2050. The establishment of a national geothermal risk insurance scheme helped de-risk early investments and attract private capital.

Germany, known for its robust renewable energy transition, has more than 30 deep geothermal plants in operation, with several more under development. The city of Munich, for example, has committed to using 100% renewable energy for its district heating by 2040, with geothermal as a cornerstone of that plan. Supportive policies, feed-in tariffs, and research funding have all played a part in building a thriving geothermal sector.

Why hasn’t the UK followed suit?

“Geothermal energy offers a constant and predictable output, independent of weather.”

France has been a pioneer in geothermal heating since the 1960s. The Paris Basin is home to the world’s largest concentration of geothermal district heating schemes, supplying heat to over 250,000 residents. The French government has consistently supported geothermal development through subsidies and long-term policy frameworks, making it commercially viable for utilities and municipalities.

Despite favourable geology in parts of the UK; particularly Cornwall, the North East, and the Midland Valley of Scotland (Tayside and Fife), deep geothermal energy remains largely untapped. The United Downs Deep and Eden Geothermal Projects in Cornwall take advantage of hot spots in the fractured granite to generate electricity. The Jubilee open air swimming pool in Penzance has been heated by geothermal energy since 2020, but one of the most impressive developments is in Southampton. In 1986 a well was drilled into the Wessex aquifer at 5,900ft to recover water at 76°C (169°F). This has been heating a shopping centre, a hospital, university and 1,000 homes. Annually the scheme produced heat (40GWh), electricity (22GWh) and cooling (8GWh). All from a well drilled 40 years ago due to a visionary local council leader, Alan Whitehead, and a supportive, ambitious, determined team. So why haven’t we seen this phenomenal success replicated, or better still emulated across the UK?

Several key barriers have hindered progress:

• Cheap North Sea gas: the UK has benefited from cheap, accessible energy since the widespread adoption of North Sea gas. Other countries without this natural resource had greater need to develop alternative energy sources, such as deep geothermal.

• Perceived high upfront costs and financial risk: deep geothermal wells have cost tens of millions of pounds (Eden project, >17,000ft and >£16m), with no guarantee of success. The financial risk, especially in early-stage projects without government-backed insurance or guarantees, has been a major deterrent for investors. Adoption of oil and gas technology will allow shallow (5,000ft) wells to be delivered for £1m, which is a game changer.

• Lack of policy support and leadership: the UK has historically prioritised wind and solar in its renewable energy policies, offering limited financial incentives or regulatory support for geothermal development. The Renewable Heat Incentive, for example, was not well suited to large-scale geothermal schemes.

• Limited public and political awareness: geothermal energy awareness is poor among the public and policymakers. The assumption is geothermal is only valid for countries with surface volcanic activity, such as Iceland or New Zealand, but of course everywhere is hot if you drill down far enough. This misunderstanding has meant that it has not garnered the political support or public investment needed to scale it up.

What needs to change?

For the UK to harness the potential of deep geothermal energy, several steps are essential:

• Visionary leadership: how can we emulate (or better) the European example, understanding that lower drilling costs are the key challenge and that the very best drilling engineering expertise is required to achieve this? When wells are cheaper, more will be drilled, delivering the data required for geologists and reservoir engineers to reduce subsurface project risks.

• Government-backed risk mitigation: creating a national geothermal development fund or insurance scheme, similar to those in the Netherlands, would de-risk exploration and attract private investment.

“Everywhere is hot if you drill down far enough.”

• Incentives and policy frameworks: introducing dedicated subsidies, streamlined planning permissions, and long-term policy commitments would send strong market signals and accelerate deployment.

• Raising awareness and skills: increasing awareness among policymakers and the public that low grade heat is the sweet spot for UK geothermal. Mobilising oil and gas skills to the geothermal industry as part of the just transition.

Looking forward

Our European neighbours have set the pace for deep geothermal for heat. With ambitious leadership, the UK can capitalise upon this and propel itself to be a technological leader through our rich oil and gas skills base. A 2023 report by the British Geological Survey estimates that deep geothermal could supply heat to over nine million homes, nearly a third of the UK total.

UK fossil fuel heating has an expiry date; deep geothermal offers a clean, constant, affordable and resilient energy source to accelerate this. It can and should be a key part of the renewable energy mosaic delivering our energy transition in the fight against climate change and energy price volatility. Working with the RSGS, we are hoping to get feasibility studies funded for a couple of pilot sites, with a view to then helping raise the investment to deliver the first pilot drill sites, ideally somewhere within the Scottish Midland Valley.

Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash

Driving economic growth with onshore wind

Simon Cleary, Energy Transition Director, BiGGAR Economics

When the world is powered by the wind, rain and sun, opportunity beckons for areas where you wear sun cream under your anorak. The energy transition is an excellent opportunity for the Highlands to sell its weather to the rest of the world.

The overarching principle of this is not new. Natural capital has been the backbone of the Highland economy since the Romans. Whether this serves aquaculture, whisky or tourism, the primary export from the Highlands has been based on nature. There is currently around 2.1GW of onshore wind within the Highland Council area, produced by 863 turbines, from Bettyhill to Fort Augustus.

There are plans for even more, and if Scotland achieves its onshore wind targets for 2030, it is expected that there will be around 4.7GW of onshore wind operating in Highland. These turbines will produce a lot of electricity. By 2030, the turbines in Highland will produce the equivalent of the electricity demand of all households in Great Britain north of the River Tyne. It is more complicated than that, but the scale is obviously significant.

contractors such as Dingwall-based RJ McLeod will be crucial in delivering these economic benefits.

Importantly, developers are increasingly recognising the importance of local impacts and opportunities and are striving to be good neighbours. Communities in Highland are projected to receive around £21 million a year in community benefit funding from onshore wind, which has the potential to have a catalytic and transformational impact on rural communities.

“Every megawatt under construction supports around one job for two years in Highland.”

These economic benefits are not assured and cannot be taken for granted. The economic benefits will only occur if the projects go ahead, and the number of onshore wind projects that are able to reach financial close is one of the key determinants of the scale of economic impact that will occur.

Geography represents the greatest opportunity and also the greatest challenge for onshore wind in the Highlands. Many of the onshore wind projects are built in upland areas of moorland, where the topography has resulted in low density agriculture. One of the key requirements for onshore wind is space, and the low density agriculture has created that space in abundance.

However, geography also represents a key challenge to the development of onshore wind in the Highlands. The Highlands are simply far away from the densely populated south east of England, and the electric grid is managed in such a way that projects are charged transmission costs depending on how far they are from London. For example, an onshore wind farm in the north of Scotland will have to pay around £5.50 in grid charges for every unit of electricity it puts on the grid. Meanwhile, a project in the south of Wales will be paid £2.80. This obviously represents a commercial challenge to onshore wind projects in the Highlands which need to compete with projects from across Great Britain.

Creating all of this energy requires work. While the wind is free, designing, building and operating onshore wind farms requires people. And lots of them.

This has created a significant economic opportunity for the Highlands. At BiGGAR Economics we have researched what has happened when wind farms have been built in the Highlands for SSE Renewables. This found that every megawatt under construction supports around one job for two years in Highland. Meeting the Scottish Government’s target of 20GW of electricity by 2030 could therefore support an average of 1,200 jobs across Highland over the next five years. Operating and maintaining these onshore wind projects would support an additional 700 jobs in Highland over the long term.

The majority of the short-term opportunities will be in the construction sector. This will include civil engineering, construction management and support services. Key

Once the project is in the position to start construction, it will look to get contracts in place with companies that have the capacity and skill set needed to complete the work. Building up both the skills in the local labour market and the capacity of the local supply chain will be crucial in maximising the economic benefits of the onshore wind sector. It will require a collaborative effort between the onshore wind industry, the public sector and education providers like the University of the Highlands and Islands. Much of this collaboration has already started, not least through the signing of the Onshore Wind Sector Deal in 2023, which committed all actors to collaboration and specific outcomes to maximise the economic benefits.

However, within Highland there are specific issues related to its geography. Onshore wind will be competing with other renewable technologies, such as the transmission grid, hydropower and offshore wind, for a constrained supply chain. It is therefore crucial to manage this energy transformation to ensure there is a positive industrial and social legacy from all these projects.

Addressing these challenges and developing the onshore wind sector will allow the Highlands to realise considerable socio-economic benefits from its natural capital.

Image from Unsplash+

Turning a freak of geography into tidal energy

William Mansfield, Head of Sustainable Energy from the Severn Estuary, Western Gateway

In March, the Severn Estuary Commission published its findings that tidal power in the Severn Estuary is feasible and should be prioritised by the UK and Welsh Governments. In its report, the Commission set out seven key recommendations that outline the practical steps needed for the UK to finally harness the natural power of this incredible resource.

The Severn Estuary Commission was launched in March 2024 by the Western Gateway Partnership, a collaboration of 28 local authorities representing south Wales and western England, to consider the feasibility of developing tidal range energy in the Severn Estuary. Chaired by Dr Andrew Garrad CBE, best known for pioneering the global wind energy industry, the Commission brought together experts in science, engineering, finance, sustainable development, and environmental disciplines to reconsider whether tidal energy from the Severn Estuary should now be harnessed as part of the UK’s net zero mission.

Following a year of engagement with over 500 stakeholders and more than 200 organisations, the recommendations have received widespread support, bringing tidal energy back into focus as a pressing energy opportunity for the UK.

The context

For decades, the Severn Estuary has been recognised as a potential source of major renewable energy, with one of the highest tidal ranges in the world (over 14m) making it capable of generating up to 7% of the UK’s electricity. There have been many proposals to harness the Estuary’s tidal energy. Despite repeated recommendations, no development has been built so far. Meanwhile, other countries have pushed ahead. The Rance Tidal Power Station in France opened in 1966, and the Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station in South Korea was completed in 2011. Both have proven that tidal energy can deliver predictable, low-cost energy over time, with the ability to forecast tides accurately years in advance.

Many factors have contributed to the lack of progress in the Severn. But with climate change and energy security now central to national political priorities, the context for a decision has changed. The UK’s National Energy System Operator already predicts that tidal energy will need to form part of the future energy system. Electricity demand is forecast to double by 2050. As home to one of the largest tidal resources in the UK, it is natural that the Severn Estuary is considered.

Addressing the challenges

The Severn Estuary Commission carefully considered the major challenges involved in tidal range energy development in the Estuary. Commissioners recognised the need to balance the benefits of low-carbon energy generation with the need to protect one of the UK’s most environmentally significant natural habitats. They also recognised the historical difficulties around financing large infrastructure projects of this scale and complexity. To inform their recommendations, the Commission engaged with environmental organisations, industry representatives, investors, and financial experts.

Recommendations

The Commission recommends bringing environmental experts and developers together to co-design a project that balances low-carbon energy generation with protection of the Estuary’s internationally important environment. A whole estuary plan is needed to guide this work, coordinating projects across the Estuary to maximise environmental protection and energy generation opportunities.

It proposes starting with a Commercial Demonstration Project, a tidal lagoon, that would generate a substantial amount of predictable, low-carbon electricity while minimising environmental impacts through careful planning, mitigation, and compensation measures. The lagoon would not only contribute to energy security but also act as a platform for full-scale environmental monitoring, addressing existing gaps in data and providing the evidence needed to assess the feasibility of further tidal range developments in the Estuary and beyond. The project would be developed through a public sector-led delivery vehicle, which would oversee early-stage development and de-risk the project to attract private investment during the construction phase. The Commission identified strong interest from investors in using the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model, a funding approach successfully applied to major infrastructure projects like the Thames Tideway Tunnel. Under this model, investors would receive regulated returns during construction, reducing financial risk and making tidal range projects more attractive to long-term capital. The Commission found that applying the RAB model to tidal range could offer a fair balance between investor confidence and consumer protection, providing a realistic and proven route to deliver the Commercial Demonstration Project.

It is clear that none of this will be possible without a clear signal from government that they support tidal range energy. Strong policy backing is needed to build investor confidence, drive public sector leadership, and move tidal range from concept to delivery.

What next?

“For decades, the Severn Estuary has been recognised as a potential source of major renewable energy.”

While the Welsh Government supports tidal energy, the UK Government has yet to release a positive statement on tidal range. This needs to change for any proposal to move forward. The public authorities that form the Western Gateway will now be responsible for taking forward the Commission’s recommendations to drive progress.

Investing in electricity transmission infrastructure

Morag Watson, Director of Onshore, Scottish Renewables

Over three-quarters of our climate change emissions come from our energy use, which is primarily generated using fossil fuels. The hike in gas prices since the pandemic has been the main driver of the increase in fuel poverty, from 24.6% to 34% of Scottish households between 2019 and 2024.

However, the UK, and especially Scotland, are uniquely blessed with enough renewable energy potential to meet our own energy needs and, if we choose, generate extra to export; something that is not true of many of our European neighbours.

According to the Climate Change Committee, the most costeffective energy system for the UK is a low-carbon electricity system primarily powered by renewable energy. This will allow us to electrify transport and heating using electric vehicles, heat pumps, and district heat networks to end our reliance on dirty, expensive fossil fuels.

Our winds, tides, rainfall, and longer daylight hours already provide enough electricity to meet Scotland’s current electricity needs. They also support tens of thousands of jobs and billions of pounds of economic activity; but an electricity grid designed almost a century ago for fossil fuels keeps us from doing more.

Due to insufficient grid capacity, the UK is losing £1.5 billion per year to system constraints. The amount of wind power curtailed equates to the annual consumption of one million households. This bottleneck could lead to a fivefold increase to £3.5 billion by 2030, wasting electricity equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of more than five million households.

Decarbonising our economy through electrification is expected to increase the UK’s electricity needs by 65% over the next decade. We will need additional capacity across the

contribute to developing 200 properties across the north of Scotland, which will support local housing requirements following the completion of grid projects.

SP Energy Networks’ plan to upgrade the grid in southern Scotland includes £5.4 billion worth of contract opportunities for supply chain partners, enabling local contracts and creating direct and indirect benefits for local businesses.

“An electricity grid designed almost a century ago for fossil fuels keeps us from doing more.”

Electricity transmission infrastructure is at the heart of facilitating our journey to net zero. New power lines, pylons and substations will connect our homes and businesses to cleaner, more affordable energy and help drive the decarbonisation of heating and transport.

Creating an electricity grid fit for a net zero future will also enable our biggest economic opportunity, unleashing Scotland’s full renewable energy potential and delivering a just transition with high-value jobs and opportunities for Scottish businesses.

However, lengthy and uncertain planning timelines, as well as unrepresentative objections to critical electricity grid projects, are preventing crucial investment at a time when we must turn our climate ambitions into action.

Saying no to nationally significant electricity infrastructure like power lines, pylons and substations slows our chance of tackling climate change for future generations and leaves us vulnerable to volatile fossil fuel prices.

If there is to be a world leader in the race to net zero, why not Scotland? As global competition ramps up, now is the

SSE Peterhead and its potential for CCS

Jonathan Baker-Brian, Head of Policy, SSE Thermal and Energy Markets

Driving north from Aberdeen through Ellon and up the coast, SSE’s Peterhead Power Station takes pride of place on the iconic coastline. Rising above Sandford Bay, the tall slender chimney (now out of service) and its shorter, squatter, newer sibling cast a noble figure on the neighbouring village of Boddam and nearby fishing hub of Peterhead. The plant’s history is intertwined with the geography of the local area, and its future is too.

Conceived during the North Sea oil heyday of the early seventies, the plant was originally designed to be oil-fired. It came online, however, amid the Iranian revolution, and oil quickly proved too valuable a commodity to burn to generate the plant’s 1,300MW of electricity – enough to boil almost half a million kettles at once. Given the proximity to the natural gas import terminals nine miles up the coast at St Fergus, the boilers were converted to burn methane and other hydrocarbons as alternative fuels. At the turn of the millennium, the site changed again: new ‘combined-cycle’ gas turbines were installed which vastly improved the plant’s efficiency and firmly cemented it as a cornerstone asset in the British electricity grid.

Having evolved and adapted over time, the Peterhead site will need to continue doing so as the British electricity system moves towards the UK Government’s Clean Power target, driven by the pressing need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. North East Scotland’s natural assets are not limited to oil and gas: the region is now home to a burgeoning offshore wind industry, expected to supply most of the electricity in a future clean power system.

Maintaining a balanced electricity grid is essential for keeping the lights on. When the wind doesn’t blow off the Scottish coast, the gas-fired plant at Peterhead can start up to keep the electrons flowing. As we transition towards electricity to power our cars and heat our homes, flexible capacity from Peterhead (along with other technologies such as pumped hydropower storage and batteries) will keep the grid stable, regardless of the weather.

But how to deal with the emissions from power stations like Peterhead where these are still required to meet the needs of society? It is no secret that, due to significant reductions in industrial activity across the country, the plant is now Scotland’s highest single emitter of carbon dioxide. Here we come back to the natural assets of North East Scotland. Now, industries are proposing to capture and safely store carbon dioxide back in former oil fields, utilising these natural

“Peterhead is one of the first sites in Scotland where carbon capture and storage could be introduced.”

assets where the gas can theoretically be safely stored for millennia, as the fossil fuels were themselves until extraction for use in the 20th century.

Peterhead is one of the first sites in Scotland where this technology, known as carbon capture and storage or CCS, could be introduced. A new plant at the site would contribute to a secure, clean electricity system, and support highly skilled jobs at the site, with a small fraction of the climate impact.

The CCS industry would draw on the geology and infrastructure of the region, utilising old oil and gas fields and pipelines. In the case of what is known as the Scottish Cluster, this would use the existing Goldeneye pipeline to transport carbon dioxide to the Acorn site, part of the Captain Sandstone in the Central North Sea about 50km offshore from Peterhead. The industry could employ local people, drawing on skills developed as part of the oil and gas industry, in turn making a valuable contribution to the Peterhead community. It could also secure a future for a variety of industrial sites, and the jobs that go with them.

The Scottish Cluster proposals reach all the way to Fife and Grangemouth, and include the potential to import carbon dioxide from all over the UK and Europe for storage off the Scottish coast.

As it stands, the sad truth is that putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is still cheaper than installing the technology to capture and store emissions. Government action to kickstart this industry will be crucial to realise North East Scotland’s potential, including subsidy support and through adapting incentives such as carbon pricing (putting a greater cost on emitting carbon) to make CCS more attractive. Scotland once supplied oil and gas to Britain and around the world. We now have an opportunity to turn this industry and the climate impact of it on its head, securing North East Scotland’s place as a leader in industry for decades to come.

Peterhead Power Station.

The case for geographers as energy planners

Craig Elliott-Frew, Principal Consultant, Ramboll

The way our energy system operates, and the profound impact it has on people’s lives and the natural environment, has long been a focus for geographers. As a geography student in the late 2000s, I was introduced to the need for a fundamental shift in how we heat our homes and buildings. It was then I first encountered terms like ‘district energy’, ‘fuel poverty’, and ‘energy efficiency’. These issues felt urgent and important, but the task of delivering the energy transition –deciding how, where, and when major infrastructure would be built – seemed to lie with professions like engineers, planners, and lawyers.

Fifteen years later, after roles in government policy where I engaged with these challenges from a distance, I now find myself working directly on the practical realities of energy infrastructure development. At Ramboll, a global architecture, engineering, and consultancy firm, I’m part of a growing community of energy planning specialists. Our role is to help clients navigate the energy transition, focusing on heat decarbonisation. We work alongside experts in engineering, economics, finance, and law; but the geographer’s perspective remains central.

As the energy planning profession grows, I want to make the case for more geographers to join me in this important role.

A geographer’s toolkit

For nearly a decade, the question of how to heat our homes and buildings in a low-carbon world has sparked intense debate. A range of competing heating solutions has emerged, from replacing natural gas with hydrogen, and electrifying heat through technologies like heat pumps, to building shared heat networks that distribute hot water across multiple buildings or even entire cities, often using industrial waste heat sources.

Each pathway brings its own challenges and requires distinct interventions to succeed. That’s why a planned, area-based approach is essential; not just to protect consumers but also to avoid investing in infrastructure that could become obsolete or ‘stranded’ in the future.

In my experience, energy planning depends on an understanding of three core concepts: place, scale, and time; and geographers bring the tools needed to navigate each of them effectively.

Place

The most appropriate solution to decarbonising heat will vary depending on the characteristics of place. The density of buildings, for example, has an influence on whether district heating is likely to be viable. Similarly, natural assets such as access to water sources, or proximity to industrial waste heat sources, shape the heat supply options available in an area. Geographers have the tools to assess and compare places. Through spatial analysis, and qualitative and quantitative assessment frameworks, geographers can measure and understand what makes each place unique and what that means for the future of energy in the area.

Scale

Installing an air source heat pump may be a sensible solution at the scale of an individual home. However, when many homes in a neighbourhood electrify their heating at once,

new challenges emerge, such as the need to reinforce local electricity networks. Similar challenges of scale crop up throughout the energy planning process.

Geographers are trained to think across and between scales. They know when the scale of analysis may distort outcomes, and they understand how decisions at one level can impact others. At Ramboll, we help clients define the most appropriate scale of analysis, often using the fundamental tools of geography to make our case.

Time

Energy infrastructure takes time to plan and deliver, and in the meantime, the world continues to evolve. Geographers possess tools like time-series analysis and historical geography to understand how places have changed, and can define scenarios for how they might change in the future. For instance, our energy plans often need to account for the potential influence of new property development or land designations.

So, place, scale, and time are all critical to effective energy planning. But equally important is the geographer’s mindset. Geographers are trained to build understanding incrementally, starting conceptually and refining that understanding through iteration and feedback loops in a way that adds depth and value to the planning process.

At Ramboll, experience tells us that rushing toward a detailed technical solution can overlook essential contextual knowledge, leading to plans that are technically sound but ultimately undeliverable. This is where the geographer excels; not only in analysing complexity, but in helping to navigate it.

The energy transition needs geographers now more than ever. If you’re a geographer with a passion for shaping a sustainable future, join me in this vital work. Our skills and mindset are crucial to making the energy transition a success.

“Energy planning depends on an understanding of three core concepts: place, scale, and time.”

Photo by Alessandro Bianchi on Unsplash

Data for a greener Scotland

Mark McLauchlan CGeog(GIS) FRGS, University of Edinburgh

Tackling climate change isn’t just about technology or policy; it’s about who gets the information to act. In Scotland, where land could be a powerhouse for nature-based carbon capture and storage, landowners and managers face tough choices about how to maximise its potential, often in competition with other land uses. In most cases, the data needed to assess opportunities for a carbon project is hard to reach. It can be scattered across multiple sources, wrapped in technical complexity, or locked behind services that, while affordable for some, may not seem worth the investment without a clear payoff. This isn’t just inconvenient; it’s a hurdle to net zero. If Scotland is serious about its climate goals, every land manager – farmers, community groups, smallholders, and even large wealthy estates – needs clear, actionable insights. Enter the Carbonificent project (www.carbonificent.org), a research project with the University of Edinburgh. The premise is simple: information vital to the climate fight should be free, open, and easy to use. We’re building a webbased app that turns complex geospatial and environmental data into practical answers for land managers: What trees could I plant? What’s my land’s carbon storage potential? How can I boost it? What’s worked for others like me?

The primary research will explore how to simplify woodland carbon project planning by leveraging Scotland’s wealth of open spatial data. While this data is readily available, it must be integrated effectively to tackle climate challenges. A key focus is using Woodland Carbon Code (WCC) data to model successful proposals.

The WCC is the UK standard for certifying voluntary woodland creation projects, maintaining a detailed registry of where projects are, what species of tree are proposed, and how much carbon the project will sequester. By analysing historical data, we aim to compare machine learning and deterministic models for woodland species selection; assess risks for planned projects; and enhance current manual processes through automation and data-driven insights. We also integrate with the Ecological Site Classification (ESC) tool from Forest Research, a web-based decision support system that helps forest managers and planners select tree species best suited to a given site. Since the ESC contains a vast amount of detail, we streamline the process by extracting only suitable native trees and presenting them in a simplified, user-friendly format. We’ve also integrated a chatbot powered by a Large Language Model (LLM) to provide instant guidance on tree species and the WCC. This allows users to navigate complex data, receive tailored recommendations and find answers quickly, linking back to the original specialist

knowledge.

Carbonificent is currently a prototype, designed to test ideas and gather feedback. Rather than waiting years to build a perfect system, we have made available a simple, functional tool that gives land managers free access to essential carbon insights now. By starting with a core set of features, we can learn from real users: what works, what’s missing, and what would make the biggest difference.

That said, Carbonificent isn’t here to replace the expertise of professional surveyors or foresters. The aim is to aid decision making through exploration of the opportunities before committing to a project. Detailed site assessments and tailored plans still need that human touch. And no platform, however advanced, can fully capture the feeling of standing on the land, picturing trees yet to be planted. Technology can guide us, but it will be a while (if ever) before it matches the understanding and appreciation that come from being there in person.

“We’re building a web-based app that turns complex geospatial and environmental data into practical answers for land managers.”

Initial feedback from foresters has been highly positive, particularly in recognising the value of simplifying complex data at the start of the decision-making process. However, it also highlighted some limitations in the available data. These include concerns about data timeliness: for example, detection of recently planted areas or whether public models reflect current climate conditions; as well as the accuracy of land cover classification from satellite imagery.

By making data open and free, Carbonificent ensures every land manager, regardless of budget, can explore carbon sequestration options. It can also allow members of the public and communities to appreciate the choices available, be involved in the decision-making process and understand the implications of these decisions. That inclusivity doesn’t just level the playing field, it accelerates Scotland’s push to net zero. But it raises a question: should some things, like basic climate insights, ever come with a price tag? Some argue fees drive innovation, others say they slow collective action. Maybe Scotland’s path to net zero hinges on shared effort, not elite access. Embracing open models like Carbonificent unlocks the potential for every land manager to be part of the climate solution. Climate action demands collaboration, not commerce: let’s keep the tools free and the mission clear.

Bluestone Energy’s public-powered future

Freddy White, Chief Executive Officer, Bluestone Energy

Where local authorities and public institutions are under increasing pressure to decarbonise, reduce costs, and improve energy resilience, partnerships with clean energy innovators have never been more important.

At the heart of Bluestone Energy’s vision is a commitment to building long-term partnerships with public bodies, ensuring that the energy transition benefits communities as well as the climate. Nowhere is this more evident than in Renfrewshire, where we are working closely with the Council in developing a solar energy project to supply renewable electricity directly to local schools, community centres and leisure centres via private wire. By bypassing the national grid and delivering power directly to the point of use, this model can dramatically reduce energy bills and ensure price stability over the long term.

As a family-owned business, we take a long-term investment view and care deeply about how our assets are received in the communities we serve; we are committed to delivering meaningful community benefits and possible community ownership. Most importantly, we want to ensure the clean power we generate supports critical public services, helping to strengthen local resilience and deliver real impact where it matters most. This innovative approach allows Renfrewshire Council to access clean, affordable power without the upfront capital investment typically associated with renewable infrastructure. For local authorities managing tight budgets, this model presents a compelling pathway to achieving both fiscal and environmental goals.

Further north, Bluestone is partnering with Scottish Canals to unlock the solar energy potential of underused land along

Scotland’s waterways. The vision is to transform canal-side land into clean energy hubs. The first wave of projects is now in feasibility and design stages. “Scotland’s 141 miles of canal network flows through urban and rural communities across the country, offering vibrant blue and green spaces for everyone to enjoy,” commented Richard Millar, Chief Operating Officer of Scottish Canals. “Built 200 years ago, the canals themselves are inherently low carbon and there is an exciting opportunity now to extend the benefits they can bring to local communities.

“This model can dramatically reduce energy bills.”

With one million people living within 3km of a canal there is a real opportunity to deliver green energy into the heart of towns and cities whilst ensuring that communityled regeneration remains at the forefront of the designs and projects taken forward.”

These solar projects are being designed not just to generate power, but also to enhance biodiversity, integrate with active travel networks, and support local economic development. Bluestone is rapidly expanding its pipeline of battery energy storage system projects. We have secured a number of land opportunities with Scottish Water, where we are now developing strategic storage assets that will play a critical role in balancing the grid. By 2028, Bluestone plans to build out over 800MW of generation and storage assets, the majority of which will be directly supplying the public sector through long-term agreements.

The power of engaging your local community

Abby Whitelock, Marketing and Communications Director, Vital Energi

To achieve a successful renewable energy project that a community is proud to have in its area requires a great engagement plan and community benefits programme. Change can take time to be accepted, especially when it comes to how our energy will be delivered to our homes. This is why we have developed robust frameworks to ensure that communities become advocates for their new sources of renewable energy.

“The key is for communication to be tailored to the local area.”

It’s not one-size-fits-all. The key is for communication to be tailored to the local area, as there are always local drivers and challenges that people experience.

1. Map your stakeholders. Know where the infrastructure will affect people, cause disruption to commuting or in people’s homes.

2. Messaging is key. Build the narrative that will connect with the community. Is fuel poverty an issue, or local crime, or traffic management?

3. Develop a tailored comms plan. How do stakeholders like to receive communications? Is it face-to-face, via a website, social media or letter drops?

Engagement should start at the earliest possible moment; you don’t want stakeholders to find out about the energy scheme from other sources. Engagement shouldn’t be oneway; we should invite feedback.

These models were successfully used on the Torry Heat Network in Aberdeen, which provides low carbon and low-cost heating and hot water to 800 homes and two schools. The heat is extracted from the NESS Energy from Waste plant and converted from steam to low temperature hot water. Compared to other areas, people in Torry have a shorter life expectancy, so air quality messages were important. Other key messages centred on a significant contribution to Aberdeen City Council’s net zero goal; lower cost heat for tenants; other community benefits; and using inclusive communications, such as materials in English, Polish and Russian, recognising the diversity in the area.

As we were connecting schools to the heat network and could not avoid digging up part of their playing field, it was essential we took the pupils on the journey of the project. Embedding ourselves into the community allowed us to deliver our Climate Education programme to 300 pupils; provide 120 hours of volunteering; create 25 weeks of work placements and six apprenticeships; contribute to the local food bank; and host community visits. By tuning in to the needs of the communities these projects are in, they can show the environmental value they bring and the enhancement of social impact they can make.

Funding flood prevention: from risk to resilience

Amy Norman, Associate Director, Public First

Next year presents a cliff-edge in funding for flood prevention; the government has yet to commit anything beyond April 2026. The upcoming Spending Review is a critical moment for the government to demonstrate leadership: to set out plans for decades of resilient growth and national security, and deliver where previous governments underachieved. A new report by Public First, From risk to resilience: The case for flood-resilient communities, economy and growth (www. publicfirst.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/From-risk-toresilience-report_PF_180325.pdf), sets out novel economic and immersive public opinion research on the impact of flooding with immediate recommendations for policy makers.

Entering 2025, the UK faced a stark reminder of its vulnerability to flooding. Storms and heavy rainfall led to significant disruptions: Edinburgh’s Hogmanay celebrations were cancelled, the River Mersey overflowed in Greater Manchester, and in Lincolnshire, 50 children had to be rescued from a school cut off by floodwaters.

With nearly two million people across the UK currently exposed to flooding annually, and a third of England’s critical infrastructure at risk, jeopardising national security, now is the time to act.

In writing this study, Public First researchers spent four days in recentlyflooded neighbourhoods across Greater Manchester and Loughborough in February 2025, engaging with residents and business owners to understand how flooding has impacted them and their communities.

On average, over the next ten days, access roads stay flooded, preventing people from getting to work or seeing loved ones. In some cases, this means people do not even leave the home. In Greater Manchester, an 18-year-old music college student recalled how recent floods meant his friend could not get out for a day: “He just stayed in his house.” Public First estimates that this disruption leads to £290 million lost in output a year as workers cannot reach their workplace. Lastly, and most importantly, each year of flooding causes a decade-long downward pressure on the economy worth at least £6.1bn. Further, flooding means employment is 46,000 lower than it would otherwise be. This is due to the ongoing loss of confidence caused by flooding events. This longerterm impact on business decisions is what should really concern the policymakers making plans for economic growth. A female shop assistant in her mid-50s in Loughborough put it bluntly: “You know flooding affects the economy… we’re trying to grow the economy!”

“Flooding causes £2.4bn a year in physical damages to properties and infrastructure.”

Locals spoke of the loss, both financial and emotional, the disruption, and the knock-on impacts to the local economy. Our economic analysis categorises this into three waves of effects that all start when the water hits, but last from ten days to ten years.

First come the physical property damages that impact households, businesses and wider infrastructure. In Greater Manchester, a woman in her 60s stood in her doorway as flood-damaged furniture lined her front garden. She was also flooded out of her home in 2015. She said, “Luckily we saved quite a bit last time because the water came up slower. This time, it was overnight and we couldn’t save anything.” Not too far from here, a shop owner in his 30s told us of the losses they incurred: “We were shut for four days because of it. We had to throw stock away. We probably chucked around £20–30k. No one was insured either.” Public First estimates that flooding causes £2.4 billion a year in physical damages to properties and infrastructure. By 2050, this figure is projected to rise to £3.6 billion, considering the anticipated increase in at-risk properties and public infrastructure due to more frequent and heavy rainfall.

Wider public sentiment across the UK reflects these concerns. One in three people (33%) think the UK won’t be able to grow the economy until we deal with the immediate impacts of flooding. Over half of respondents (55%) think that communities affected by flooding will not benefit from national economic growth, due to the costs of repairs and damages. A significant majority (66%) of the public in the UK don’t think the country or their local area is prepared for flooding. But, reassuringly, 60% also believe that the impact of flooding can be reduced with proper investment and funding.

In 2023, the National Infrastructure Commission recommended a rolling programme of around £1.5bn per year. Given that the condition of existing flood risk management assets has degraded further since this recommendation, it is likely that more than £1.5bn a year is required to sufficiently increase flood resilience in England. In times of fiscal constraints, such as now, opponents may argue that investing in flood risk management is not productive capital spend – that it is defensive, preventative spend that maintains the economic status quo. But recent schemes suggest otherwise. The Chancellor’s own constituency of Leeds West and Pudsey knows this. Following devastating 2015 floods in Leeds, a ten-year alleviation scheme has since enabled £774m in regenerative benefits, creating over 3,000 new jobs.

Investing in flood risk management is about better protecting people, property and critical national infrastructure, and laying resilient foundations for economic growth.

Photo by Wes Warren on Unsplash

Mapping flammability of buildings

Chris Fleet FRSGS, Map Curator, National Library of Scotland

This map of industrial works at the heart of Leith from 1892, colour-codes buildings to assess fire risk. Brick and stone buildings are shown in red, and timber buildings in yellow, while extensive written notes describe internal functions of rooms for fire insurance purposes. Adjacent to Leith Slaughterhouse on Salamander Street were huge chemical manure stores, along with a sulphuric acid factory, combining animal bones to make artificial fertilisers, and their rooms were packed with combustible dangers including burners, smoke houses, kilns, lubricating oils, and piled tar barrels.

Charles Goad (1848–1910) was born in Surrey, but moved to Canada in 1869, spotting a demand for street maps for fire insurance purposes, allowing spatial concentrations of risks to be immediately seen. In 1885, Goad moved back to Britain and his surveyors carried out extensive surveys of British towns and cities. In contrast to Ordnance Survey maps, Goad maps record extensive internal details of buildings, and where they survive, they provide a uniquely important record of industrial history. After his death in 1910, his three sons continued the business, which survived as an independent company until 1974 and still produces insurance-risk plans today, as part of the Experian Group.

“Goad maps provide a uniquely important record of industrial history.”

Detail from Charles Goad, Insurance Plan of Paisley (1934). Image courtesy of the National Library of Scotland.

Detail from Charles Goad, Insurance Plan of Leith (1892). Image courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. View this plan of Leith, along with others for Campbeltown, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Greenock and Paisley, online at maps.nls.uk/towns/goad.

Fees for Scotland? Best not to

Dr Richard Budd, Lecturer in Higher Education, University of Lancaster

The spectre of fees for domestic students in Scotland appears to be rearing its head again as UK universities crumble. It might appear to be a common-sense solution in desperate times, but the logic and practicalities of fees, as well as where this will almost certainly lead, suggest that they are the wrong solution to the problem.

Investing in our future

Macro data does show graduates are generally likely to earn more over their lifetimes, supporting an argument that they should pay some or all of the costs of their higher education. It is worth noting, though, that the so-called graduate premium is partly a reflection of depressed wages in other jobs. Also, this premium has been falling over time and is enormously uneven due to the inequities of gender and ethnic pay gaps, labour market snobbery, and ludicrous salary variations between sectors.

We also need to remember that those who earn more pay more tax, so the Exchequer benefits directly, as well as indirectly, through what are known as externalities. This includes teachers educating our children, engineers supporting infrastructure and safety, artists enriching our culture, and so on, alongside the broader social and economic cohesion that employment provides. Further gains include graduates tending to draw less from social support, the penal system, and healthcare. If we then add how an educated population enriches our wider social conversations, the value is immeasurable. Education is a genuine public good, even if there are some private gains. How much: the Pandora’s Box

letters with scary numbers still come in if you’re not paying, and payments hurt as you’re starting out in a career and struggling with the rising cost of living.

The future of fees

Looking south of the border is illustrative if we want to imagine where this all leads. It does depend on the overall package, but fees would probably be imposed as a way of reducing government contributions, not topping them up. There would no doubt be a supplementary governance quid pro quo, too: even more regulation and oversight. Also, even a slight imposition in Scotland tomorrow would inevitably rise, as it has in England and now Wales. Germany is one country which revoked fees, partly because it was only the wealthier (former West German) states which introduced them and only activism alongside their particular federal dynamics provided enough counterweight to enable their abolition.

“The logic and practicalities of fees suggest that they are the wrong solution to the problem.”

We can also see that fees have not saved English or Welsh universities because of how they have worked (or not worked). The difference there is that everyone is now losing: overexposed universities, overworked or unemployed staff, indebted students, and a government struggling with the loans system because of economic woes and overestimated repayment rates. It is also hard to see Scottish universities acting very differently if their incomes did

If we do agree to some level of fees, how do we set them?

Any variability runs the immediate risk of taking certain degrees away from less affluent groups, further entrenching under-representation in the professions, which has manifestly negative consequences. If fees were calculated on a cost of provision basis, Medicine and Engineering would cost more than English and Economics, for example. If it was on a likely salary basis, bearing in mind future income is not guaranteed, English would be cheaper than the other three, and Russell Group degrees would be dearer, and their student populations even less diverse. In order to be equitable, perhaps we should mediate fee levels by background factors, charging less for women and/or the less affluent and/or ethnic minorities and/or those with a disability, and then brace ourselves for right wing backlash against ‘social engineering’ that ignores how the system is already socially engineered.

The solution elsewhere in the UK has been to impose a flat rate for undergraduates, which avoids discriminating against individual subjects by discriminating against all of them equally. It has meant that Economics and English students (who earn vastly different salaries later on) crosssubsidised Engineering and Medicine, at least until inflation ate away marginal surpluses and international students finally began shying away en masse from racist immigration policies and fee regimes. It also meant that students who had to borrow to cover their living and study costs were over £50,000 in debt. The loans are income contingent, but the

increase, not least because policy conditions don’t allow it, but also because the dominant leadership model, and what appears to be a predetermined conveyor belt from Dean to VC, circulates UK-wide.

Student debt

Sai Shraddha S Viswanathan, NUS Scotland President

Student poverty is on the rise and it feels like no one has noticed. In December, the Scottish Government published research showing that between half and two-thirds of students were experiencing financial difficulty, and that the level of financial support students receive (whether loans, grants or bursaries) is inadequate to cover their cost of living.

This research, the Student Finance and Wellbeing Study 2023–2024, was conducted by the Scottish Centre for Social Research on behalf of the government and it should have had alarm bells ringing in our parliament, our press and civil society, but it passed by almost unnoticed. Despite revealing shocking statistics like the fact that 15% of college students have had to use foodbanks (five times the rate of the general population) there wasn’t an outcry or rush to action. The fact that students are struggling didn’t come as a surprise to us at the National Union of Students Scotland. As NUS Scotland President I speak to students every day and hear heart-breaking stories of extortionate rents and unaffordable transport causing real hardship. We have also been publishing research year after year with similar findings. Our housing survey published last year showed more than a third of students are struggling to pay rent, and as a result a fifth are covering expenses with credit cards. In 2023, our transport research showed that the cost of travel has affected 32% of students’ ability to afford meals. None of this is unique to domestic students in Scotland; our international student research, also in 2023, found that 42% have had to go without heating and that 29% have considered leaving their course because of financial difficulties.

In recent months, the news has been filled with worrying stories of financial crises in the tertiary education sector. College courses are being cut and universities are warning of mass redundancies. Now is the time for a national conversation about our education system, but the focus of that conversation has thus far been in the wrong direction. Radio and press have jumped at the opportunity to platform obscure thinktanks or repeat statements from exceedingly well-compensated university chancellors about how a return to tuition fees for home students may be inevitable and must be considered. The one-sided nature of this conversation has ignored the debt, the financial hardship, and the poverty students are already experiencing despite them shouting it from the rooftops. Perhaps if this reality was part of the conversation, people would be slower to advocate saddling students with yet more debt and putting up yet more barriers to education.

It is true that we need a change in education funding in Scotland. Like student support, education funding has seen real-term public funding cuts which are taking their toll. Overall college funding has dropped 17% in just the last three years, and universities received 22% less funding per student this year than they did a decade ago.

“I hear heart-breaking stories of extortionate rents and unaffordable transport.”

The university sector has tried to plug this gap by recruiting more and more international students, charging rates which are frankly exploitative. But as well as being a cruel way to structure a system, this has not proved to be sustainable, especially given the UK’s harsh and restrictive immigration policies. If these policies don’t succeed in directly blocking international students, the fact that they restrict them from working or accessing public funds ensures that life in the UK is unaffordable, and therefore they either must accept poverty or look elsewhere.

If every Scottish student tomorrow was expected to pay tuition fees equivalent to what the government pays, it wouldn’t close the funding gap in the education sector but it would deter so many from pursuing an education that will improve their lives and strengthen our economy.

Tuition fees aren’t a silver bullet; you only have to look south to see that. England has some of the highest tuition fees in Europe and sadly its education sector is experiencing a financial crisis similar to our own because public funding has fallen there too. In the UK we have stopped valuing education, and we are paying the price for it. If we care about students as human beings and want an education system that we can be proud of, then the only real answer is proper public funding.

The return of nature’s great disruptor

Ben Novak, Lead Scientist and Programme Manager, Biotechnology for Bird Conservation and Informed Biobanking, Revive & Restore; Steve Apfelbaum, Founder, Executive Director and Senior Ecologist, Applied Ecological Institute

When billions of passenger pigeons darkened American skies over 150 years ago, their impact was nothing short of cataclysmic. A single flock could number a billion birds, their combined weight snapping tree limbs and even toppling entire trees. As they settled in for weeks-long roosting periods, their droppings accumulated inches deep, smothering vegetation below. Yet this seeming devastation may have been exactly what America’s eastern forests needed to thrive.

“Understanding and potentially restoring the passenger pigeon’s role could prove crucial for maintaining healthy, resilient forests.”

Now, an ambitious team of researchers is piecing together the forgotten ecological role of these extinct birds, and planning their potential revival through genetic engineering. The project, led by conservation non-profit Revive & Restore (www.reviverestore.org) in partnership with Applied Ecological Institute and Stratifyx, could see new passenger pigeons take flight as early as the 2030s.

The passenger pigeon’s importance has been overlooked by forestry managers for decades. But recent discoveries show these birds weren’t just an abundant species; they were fundamental engineers of forest ecosystems.

passenger pigeons by introducing key genetic mutations from preserved specimens into their closest living relative, the band-tailed pigeon. The result would be a hybrid species with the same ecological behaviours as its extinct forebearer: Patagioenas neoectipistes, a moniker combining the names of band-tailed pigeons and passenger pigeons, reflecting the combination of their DNA.

But successful de-extinction is just the first step.

Building a population large enough to impact forest ecosystems could take decades. This presents both challenges and opportunities. The forests need disturbances now, but the time required to restore pigeon populations gives us a chance to prepare properly, both scientifically and socially.

The team is investigating critical questions. How many pigeons are needed to create beneficial disturbances? Can today’s changed forests support such numbers? How should humans manage woodland disturbances in the meantime to prevent further species loss?

Ancient DNA analysis has revealed that passenger pigeons achieved their massive numbers at least 50,000 years ago, long before humans reached the Americas. This means their intense disturbance of forest ecosystems wasn’t an ecological anomaly, but a force that shaped eastern woodlands for countless generations of trees and wildlife.

The birds’ feeding frenzies and nutrient-rich droppings may have been as vital to forest health as natural fires or storms. Modern forestry science recognises that such disturbances are essential for maintaining biodiversity and productivity. Yet current management practices have never accounted for the loss of what was once the forest’s primary disruptive force.

To understand this missing piece of the ecosystem puzzle, researchers are preparing a groundbreaking experiment in Wisconsin’s forests. Using the cutting-edge mapping technology Stratifyx, they’ve assembled the most comprehensive map ever created for historic pigeon nesting and roosting sites from the 1650s until the species’ extinction in 1914. Now they’re searching these locations for surviving trees that once hosted the massive flocks.

These trees, first-hand witnesses to historic passenger pigeon flocks, could reveal crucial information through their growth rings and chemical composition. How did trees respond to the intense nutrient pulses from pigeon guano? Are chemical traces of the birds still detectable in centuries-old wood? The answers could guide both forest management and the ambitious plan to recreate the species through de-extinction biotechnology.

The de-extinction project aims to recreate

The project faces criticism, but it aligns with a growing global movement to restore nature at meaningful scales and reshape human society to coexist with, rather than exploit, the natural world. Preserving and restoring nature as a public trust is deeply engrained in American culture. Better science will ensure the legacy of our public and private forests for future generations.

As climate change threatens ecosystems worldwide, understanding and potentially restoring the passenger pigeon’s role could prove crucial for maintaining healthy, resilient forests. The birds’ return would be more than just a scientific achievement: it would be a step toward rebuilding the complex ecological relationships that sustained North American forests for millennia before human intervention.

The researchers emphasise that their immediate goal is gathering ecological intelligence to inform better ecosystem management, whether or not passenger pigeons ultimately return to the skies. But if successful, the project could demonstrate humanity’s capacity not just to preserve nature, but to restore it to its former abundance.

Top image: artist’s impression of a passenger pigeon. Map of passenger pigeon observations in Wisconsin.

A History of the World in 47 Borders

Jonn Elledge, author

Some Accidental Invasions

Or: why do the Swiss keep bombing Liechtenstein?

In our tour of Europe’s microstates, I rather skipped over the Principality of Liechtenstein, which is a shame because it’s one of Europe’s most fascinatingly bizarre nations. A tax haven and winter sports destination, it’s home to just 40,000 people and occupies a landmass of around just over 160km2. (To put that in context, it’s slightly bigger than the New York City borough of Staten Island but slightly smaller than Brooklyn.) It was a part of the Holy Roman Empire, then of the German Confederation and was then tied to the Austrian Empire. By the midtwentieth century, though, it had somehow ended up attached to neither Germany nor Austria, but stubbornly independent.

“The defence of Liechtenstein’s sovereignty has been largely a matter of working closely with bigger countries.”

Like most microstates, what’s more, it’s among the few countries on the planet not to maintain its own military. It did have one, once – its last engagement was the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, to which the principality sent eighty men; eighty-one returned, which is a mark of the terror the Liechtenstein war machine could rain down on its enemies – but not long after that, its parliament decided it no longer wished to fund such things and disbanded the army. [The eighty-first man appears to have been an Austrian liaison officer, which in some ways is a shame because the version of this story in which they just made a friend is far funnier.] Since then, the defence of Liechtenstein’s sovereignty has been largely a matter of working closely with bigger countries. The country’s four railway stations are part of the Austrian Federal Rail Network; its buses, customs union, currency and patent system are all joined with Switzerland. A key goal of Liechtensteiner foreign policy down the decades, then, has been maintaining harmonious relations with its neighbours. This is from some perspectives a problem because one of them keeps invading or bombing it.

To be fair to Switzerland – for it is that terrifying military junta of which I am speaking – this seems to be an accident, albeit an accident happening with the sort of frequency that might well have Liechtenstein’s friends staging an intervention and asking if everything is definitely all right at home. The first such incident – or, at least, the first to have made the Englishlanguage media, which may not be the same thing – seems to have been in October 1968, when Swiss soldiers practising their firing techniques accidentally lobbed five mortar bombs across the border two miles away. They landed on the picturesque ski resort of Malbun: nobody was hurt but some chairs in a restaurant garden had had better weeks. For nearly eight years after that, all was quiet on the Alpine front, until one night in August 1976, shortly before midnight, the Swiss arrived in force, with seventy-five soldiers in steel helmets marching into the hamlet of Iradug with no fewer than fifty horses. The cause this time seems to have been a wrong turn at a junction, around a quarter of a mile back. The Liechtensteiners offered the invaders drinks but the troops, presumably fearing what their senior officers and the Swiss Defence Ministry might say, executed a rapid retreat. And so it’s continued. In December 1985, the Swiss army

decided to go ahead with another missile-based training exercise despite a howling winter storm. Nobody was hurt then either, but, following a short bombardment, a patch of Liechtenstein forest caught light, resulting in significant damage to the local wildlife, a lengthy diplomatic dispute and, after some grumbling about the possibility it was the fault of dodgy missiles rather than Swiss incompetence, a compensation payment. Then, in October 1992, officers ordered some cadets to set up an observation post in an area called Triesenberg. They’d apparently forgotten that Triesenberg was on sovereign foreign soil and therefore not the sort of place you’re meant to build observation posts on.

The biggest invasion though, by troop numbers if not by diplomatic fallout, was the most recent. In March 2007, a commander conducting a (yes, another) training exercise in bad weather led 171 troops more than 2km into Liechtenstein before realising his mistake and leading them out again. The Liechtensteiners, who only found out when their invader apologised, seemed remarkably unperturbed. “It’s not like they invaded with attack helicopters,” said one. That is, by my count, two aerial bombardments and three land invasions. Why does this keep happening? One reason is surely hinted at by the number of these incidents involving training exercises. The Swiss army operates conscription, which means a regular flow of teenagers blundering about the Alps without really knowing what they’re doing. They’re thus liable to accidentally stumble straight over the second reason: the entirely open border which runs for over 40km between the two countries. For most of that length, to be fair, the fact you’d left Switzerland would be pretty obvious from the fact you’d ceased to be on a mountain or had fallen in the Rhine. But between the existence of bridges and the fact that several kilometres of border are free of all such obvious features, there is still ample opportunity for the go-getting Swiss army cadet to do some accidental invading.

This article is extracted with permission from A History of the World in 47 Borders by Jonn Elledge, published by Wildfire. See back page for details.

GeoFIDS 2025: RSGS South Georgia Lecture, Edinburgh

Dr Bruce F Mair, RSGS member

The Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS) published its 2024–25 Inspiring People Illustrated Public Talks programme in late summer last year, and immediately the title of one lecture in Edinburgh caught my eye: South Georgia: An Antarctic Island Paradise by Matthew Phillips. The flyer described “living on one of the most beautiful places on the planet.” Clearly one not to be missed, and what an opportunity to arrange another GeoFIDS mini reunion to coincide with it.

Of course, the RSGS is inextricably linked to South Georgia, given that Ernest Shackleton served as Secretary and Treasurer from January 1904 to July 1905, after his return from the Discovery expedition, and prior to his foray into politics in Dundee.

RSGS talk. Here we were joined by Aberdeen University geomorphologists John Gordon, Jim Hansom, David Sugden and Gordon Thom, who had worked on South Georgia and with field support from BAS. Another BAS geologist, Rick Burn who worked around the Antarctic Peninsula, was also in the audience. This was an impressive turnout of twelve GeoFIDS!

“As a very supportive audience, we enjoyed [Matthew’s] personal accounts of life on base.”

The informal GeoFIDS group was created in 2014 to include geologists, geophysicists, geographers and their general assistants (GA) whose common bond was primarily the Earth sciences, and secondly the Antarctic. Our ad hoc reunions may coincide with other Polar club events or be arranged independently as described here. The forerunner to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) was the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (1943–62), abbreviated to FIDS, and the nickname FID was adopted for BAS personnel going south (anyone on their first trip south was a FIDLET).

There were ten GeoFIDS who met up for dinner at a local restaurant on the Tuesday evening, of whom eight had worked on South Georgia. Geomorphologist Gordon Thom (1975–76, 1976–77) slipped in quietly among the geologists who included Roger Clayton (1972–73, 1973–74); Bruce Mair (1974–75, 1976–77); Rory Mortimore (1973–74); Tim Pettigrew (1972–73) and Phil Stone (1970–71, 1971–72, 1973–74). Phil and Tim were ably supported by GA Dog Holden and Eric Lawther at different times. We were joined by two more geologists, John Smellie and Rob Davies, who had worked on the South Shetland Islands, also during the 1970s. On Wednesday morning the group subdivided, with Phil Stone leading a cultural tour of Colinton, one of Edinburgh’s suburbs, the Colinton tunnel and the Water of Leith walkway. Meanwhile, I guided the remainder around the architectural and geological delights of the city, including the 19th-century Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the 18th-century Dundas House (now a bank) of the ‘new town’. From there, we ascended the many steps of Advocate’s Close to reach the Royal Mile and Saint Giles Cathedral of the ‘old town’. The groups reunited at the National Library of Scotland, and we then made our way to the lecture theatre for the

When the speaker introduced himself, we quickly realised he was a FID, having worked for BAS as Boating Officer at KEP (2013–17), the South Georgia Heritage Trust as a Field Guide during Phase 4 of Team Rat (2017), and again for BAS when he overwintered at Rothera (2019 and 2021). Matthew now works in polar tourism as a guide. As a very supportive audience, we enjoyed the presentday views of King Edward Point and Cumberland Bay, and his personal accounts of life on base. His images were outstanding and strongly reinforced his, and our, feeling that South Georgia is one of the most beautiful places on the planet! Our unique meeting of the modern and the past eras with Matthew flanked by seven GeoFIDS was duly recorded, albeit with interesting facial illumination caused by the projector! It proved impossible to include all twelve in the photograph.

After the lecture, nine GeoFIDS transferred to my home for more banter, reminiscences and supper, with an emphasis on highlighting the significance of getting five South Georgia geologists and two of their field companions together in one place, and at the same time! For details of where they worked, see Further Reading.

FURTHER READING

ML Curtis (2011) Geological Map of South Georgia (1:250,000 scale) (BAS GEOMAP 2 Series, Sheet 4, BAS, Cambridge, UK)

P Stone (2015) The geological exploration of the subAntarctic Island of South Georgia: a review and bibliography, 1871–2015 (British Geological Survey Internal Report, OR/15/058, nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/512249)

(L-R: Stone, Lawther, Pettigrew, Clayton, Mortimore, Phillips, Mair, Holden)

Glorious Greenland

Derek Sime, RSGS member

A 1973 geography graduate from Aberdeen University, I went on to pursue a 41-year career in the railway industry which culminated in a project management role in the reopening of the Borders Railway, before retiring in late 2015. With a lifelong enthusiasm for hillwalking and cycling, and a keen interest in travelling, mainly to higher places such as the Alps, or more recently to more northerly destinations such as Norway and Iceland, the next destination just had to be Greenland, taking a ship from Reykjavík across the Denmark Strait and up the south-west coast as far as Disko Bay, at 70° North.

Ilulissat church, from the cotton grass.

Sisimiut church, behind the whalebone arch.

Ilulissat Icefjord.

Midnight sun in Vaigat Sound, Disko Bay.

‘Golden hour’, Nanortalik Banke.

Greenland flag flying above Qaqortoq.

Ivittuut village, deserted following closure of the cryolite mine.

Teach the Future

Nico King, Teach the Future

Today’s students are expected to ‘save the planet’ in regards to climate change. To do that, they need a proper understanding of how and why climate change is happening and what we can do to stop it. The current UK education system doesn’t provide students with this knowledge or understanding, but that isn’t stopping young people from fighting for it.

Teach the Future is a youth-led political campaign for broad, integrated climate and nature education in the UK. We were formed out of the climate youth strikes in 2019 by a group of students who were worried about the state of nature, concerned for their future amidst insufficient concerted action on climate change, and disappointed in the lack of climate and nature content in secondary education, and we have gone from strength to strength since then. Over the last five years, we’ve hosted four parliamentary receptions across England, Wales and Scotland; held a parliamentary debate in Westminster Hall; introduced the first ever student-written Bill to the UK parliament; influenced the Department for Education to publish its first ever climate change and sustainability strategy; and met with countless local councillors, parliamentary cabinet ministers and MPs (especially in the run-up to the general election).

them, and how to ask adults to join us in taking climate action. Both of these projects have now become fully fledged campaigns of their own.

“Our vision is to see integrated climate and nature education in all aspects of teaching and learning.”

Now, Teach the Future (through our parent organisation SOS-UK) is an official partner of the Youth Shadow Panel Curriculum and Assessment Review, alongside other key youth organisations such as Scouts UK, Save the Children and Young Citizens. This is an exciting new project to amplify a diverse range of youth voices in the Government’s review of the current curriculum and assessment system. They have already met with the official panel, and aim to continue this constructive dialogue between the Youth Shadow and Government Review Panels going forward.

As a campaign, our vision is to see integrated climate and nature education in all aspects of teaching and learning in mandatory education. This includes ‘green skills’ for vocational careers and daily life, and the government providing comprehensive teacher training for climate education, as well as the principles and practices needed for a truly ‘just transition’, how the effects of and solutions to climate change intersect with every sector of work and area of life, and dealing with eco-anxiety. Our vision also includes learning environments that are inspiring, healthy and ready for net zero for all students. In 2024, with our Fund the Future Campaign, we have been advocating for increased funding for school retrofit and repair so this vision can be realised.

Through our Curriculum for a Changing Climate project in England we are facilitating expert reviews of subject national curricula, to reshape subjects from Early Years to A Level and Advanced Highers around climate and nature education, and showcase what is possible for a new curriculum. As of January 2025, reviews have been completed for all subjects at Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2, Key Stage 3 and GCSE, and are available for use to all teachers and schools on our website (www.teachthefuture.uk).

Though most of our work focuses on integrating climate and nature education through formal legislated procedures, we recognise that this isn’t happening quickly enough and we set up two projects to tackle this. Teach the Teacher is a programme which trains young people, not just in the UK but across the world, to teach their own teachers and school staff about climate change and how they can infuse climate education into their lessons. Teach the Parent is a social media campaign encouraging and guiding young people on how they can talk to their parents and other adults in their lives about climate change, what climate action means to

Share your stories and help build a legacy

Mike Robinson, Chief Executive, RSGS

Over the last 140 years, RSGS has endeavoured to inspire and inform people from all walks of life of the value and vitality of geography. From pushing the boundaries of polar exploration in the early 20th century to championing Scotland’s national parks in the 1920s, we have helped shape Geography as a modern and core discipline, introducing it into schools and running the first exams, alongside helping found the first lectureships and academic departments, and funding the first Chairs of Geography in the Scottish universities. We have celebrated and supported leading endeavours across land, sea and sky – from mountaineers and archaeologists to scientists, writers and explorers – all in pursuit of understanding, empathy and opportunity.

The amount that our small charity is able to get done, and our wider impact in Scotland and further afield, always seems to surprise people. We often receive comments and correspondence expressing admiration and amazement at the amount we manage to deliver year on year. Most comments focus on the same core attributes: a small charity with a big heart, a massive reach and an impressive impact.

What we have also come to realise more strongly than ever is that the first-hand science, storytelling and expert insights we’ve provided for over a century, not only provide a front-row seat on many topics and issues of historical significance, but the inspiration they ignite can last a lifetime. We regularly hear from members who fondly recall meeting RSGS speakers and medallists thirty or forty years ago, whose inspiration still motivates them to this day.

But to continue this work and expand our endeavours, we need your help. In particular, by leaving a gift in your Will you have the potential to make a massive difference to a small charity like RSGS, as these gifts have been a major reason we have lasted for so long. But as a charity rooted in empathy and inspiration, we value more than just the financial aspect of legacies. We also want to honour the legacy of you, our members and supporters.

Traveller and RSGS Medallist Freya Stark once said, “Curiosity is the one thing invincible in nature”. It is the first quote you will see if you visit our office, as we believe our members share this curiosity in the world around them, and passion for the knowledge that helps understand it better. We are keen to capture this, and build our archive with more of your experiences and stories.

“To continue this work and expand our endeavours, we need your help.”

So alongside this financial legacy ask, we would like to encourage all of you to write to us with your experiences, however brief, so that we can capture more of a sense of our community, to better reflect the impact of geography on the wider world. Please let us know more about the jobs that you’ve done, the lives that you’ve lived, the places that you’ve visited, because it is part of our story and the story of geography too.

As such a busy wee team, our day-to-day focus is on delivering across so many areas – the talks programme, magazine, policy and education work, and running topicspecific or high-profile events – and we work hard to ensure that we do the very best we can as champions of geography. But to truly reflect the breadth of impact that geography can have, we want to hear more of your stories.

Looking ahead, we are particularly excited about the prospect of being able to expand our work with young people by developing our Future Generations Fund. We will continue to do everything in our power to support, inspire, mentor and encourage younger people to have an interest in all that we do, and to give them a platform in spaces where they can help shape their own future. And, to do this, we also want to celebrate the wisdom and experience of our members in so many spheres of life and work.

So we ask that, if you are able, please help us sustain our work into the future.

Right now, the only way we can do this financially is through long-term support such as legacies or gifts in Wills. While we have not received large numbers of legacies over our 140 years, those we have received have been incredibly important and deeply valued, and even small gifts can make a real difference. They have provided many of our collection items and most of our office space, and have allowed us to keep operating, continuing to inspire future generations, run our talks programme, produce our magazine, influence policy, and give a platform to scientists, geographers, explorers and adventurers.

Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to hearing from you.

From, Mike, Clare, Susan, Holly, Katrina, Jo and Lindsey

Photo by Hugh Shi on Unsplash

Night Train to Odesa

Jen Stout (Birlinn, May 2024)

When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, millions of lives changed in an instant. Millions of people were suddenly on the move. In this great flow of people was a reporter from the north of Scotland, who began to cover the human cost of Russian aggression. Jen Stout reported from front lines and cities across Ukraine: stories from the night trains, birthday parties, military hospitals and bunkers, from a writer with a deep sense of empathy, always seeking to understand the bigger picture. only £16.19 (RRP £17.99)

Lone Wolf

Adam Weymouth (Hutchinson Heinemann, May 2025)

In 2011, a young wolf named Slavc travelled from Slovenia, 1,000 miles through the Alps, to the Lessinian plateau, north of Verona. There had been no wolves in northern Italy for a century, but here he crossed paths with a female wolf on a walkabout of her own. A decade later, there are more than 100 wolves back in the area. Adam Weymouth walked Slavc’s path, examining the changes facing these wild corners of Europe, where the call to rewild meets the urge to preserve culture; nationalism and globalisation pull apart; climate change is radically changing lives; and migrants, too, are on the move.

Life: The wild wonders of biodiversity

Jennifer N R Smith (Thames and Hudson, April 2025)

This immersive, intricately illustrated book introduces the concept of biodiversity to children and explains why it’s so important. Explore the fascinating relationships between different species, from the crab that uses sea anemones as boxing gloves to shrimp that ride around on sea slugs. Learn how unlikely animal friends rely on each other for survival, and discover why without pesky midges there would be no chocolate! A feast for the eyes and the mind, it will inspire young ecologists to see the wonder in the natural world around them.

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Patrick Grant (William Collins, May 2024)

Readers of The Geographer can buy Night Train to Odesa in hardback for only £16.19 (RRP £17.99) or in paperback for only £11.69 (RRP £12.99) with FREE UK p&p. To order, please visit www.birlinn.co.uk and quote discount code ‘GEOMAGODESA2025’ at the checkout.

A History of the World in 47 Borders

Jonn Elledge (Wildfire, March 2025)

People have been drawing lines on maps for as long as there have been maps to draw on. Sometimes rooted in physical geography, sometimes entirely arbitrary, these lines might often have looked very different if a war or treaty or the decisions of a handful of tired Europeans had gone a different way. From the Roman attempts to define the boundaries of civilisation, to the secret British-French agreement to carve up the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, to the reason why landlocked Bolivia still maintains a navy, this is a fascinating, witty and surprising look at the history of the world told through its borders.

Climate Change and the Nation State

Anatol Lieven (Penguin, March 2020)

Climate change is a vast challenge, but we have often in the past had to deal with such challenges: the industrial revolution, major wars and mass migration have seen mobilisations of human energy on the greatest scale. Anatol Lieven shows how in this emergency our crucial building block is the nation state. The drastic action required both to change our habits and protect ourselves can be carried out not through some vague globalism but through maintaining social cohesion and through our current governmental, fiscal and military structures.

Considering the crisis of consumption and quality in fashion, and how we might make ourselves happier by rediscovering the joy of living with fewer, better-quality things, Patrick Grant celebrates craftsmanship, making things with care, buying things with thought and valuing everything we own.

Phone 01738 455050 or visit www.rsgs.org to join the RSGS. Lord John Murray House, 15-19 North Port, Perth, PH1 5LU Charity SC015599

He explains how rethinking our relationship with clothing could kickstart a thriving new local economy bringing prosperity and hope back to places in our country that have lost out to globalisation, offshore manufacturing and to the madness of price and quantity being the only things that matter.