Members of the Sustainability Taskforce at the Competition and Markets Authority - including their Director, David Middlemiss - met with the Cambridge Zero Policy Forum to discuss current and future issues in UK markets relevant to the taskforce’s work in facilitating the UK’s net zero transition.

In September 2023 the Cambridge Zero Policy forum met with Zoe Guijarro, Principal Policy Manager, Net Zero Homes, at Citizens Advice to discuss the transition to net zero homes, with a focus on the role of Citizens Advice.

In July 2023, Pippa Heylings, Liberal Democrat Candidate for South Cambridgeshire, and Sheryl French, Assistant Director, Climate Change and Energy Services, Cambridgeshire County Council, addressed the Cambridge Zero Policy Forum to discuss the role that Locally Determined Contributions can play in tackling climate change.

CSaP partnered with the Natural History Museum (NHM) in July to hold a unique event bringing together Policy Fellows working in climate and sustainability to discuss the challenges of tackling the biodiversity crisis.

In April 2023, the Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP), in conjunction with the the Cambridge Zero Policy Forum and the Centre for Landscape Regeneration (CLR), ran a policy stakeholder visit to CLR, addressing the challenges and trade-offs associated with land use in the Cambridgeshire Fens. This event brought together key academic, policy, third sector and business stakeholders to discuss the CLR’s engagement and collaboration with strategic partners, and to learn about the issues and questions facing policy decision making in the Fens.

At this fourth and final session of the reading group, participants were delighted to be joined by the author, Simon Sharpe, who was introduced by his mentor and friend, Sir David King (Founder & Former Chair, Centre for Climate Repair), who also provided some opening remarks on the book. The goal of this session was to move beyond the individual sections and recommendations of the book and assess the larger question of what pragmatic steps could we at the University of Cambridge take to implement the changes we know we need to make?

In July 2023, the Cambridge Zero Policy Forum met for the third of four reading group sessions on Five Times Faster: Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change, by Simon Sharpe, Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute. The session focused on economics and included opening remarks by Dimitri Zenghelis, Special Advisor, Bennett Institute for Public Policy, University of Cambridge.

In June 2023, Craig Bennett (CEO at The Wildlife Trusts and former CSaP Policy Fellow) met with the Cambridge Zero Policy Forum to discuss the Global Biodiversity Framework agreed at the 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) and what this means for the UK.

In a second CSaP reading group session, an open conversation was held by academics and students from across the university, and Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger (Leverhulme Trust Visiting Chair in Sustainable Development Law and Policy, University of Cambridge) provided opening remarks on the diplomacy chapters of Simon Sharpe’s book, Five Times Faster, Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change.

On 17 May 2023, the Cambridge Zero Postgraduate Academy launched their first ever Student Dialogue event with Chris Stark, Chief Executive, UK Climate Change Committee (CCC). The Student Dialogue is an exciting new initiative aiming to bring postgraduate students into conversation with senior policymakers and experts in the climate space; this first event was a great showcase for the engaging and thought-provoking dialogue that these sessions can enable.