ZE District | Greenandgas

The ZE District approach

Practically every country has joined the Paris Agreement on climate change, which calls for keeping the global temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial era levels. If we continue to pump out the emissions that cause climate change, however, temperatures will continue to rise well beyond 1.5, to levels that threaten the lives and livelihoods of people everywhere.

This is why a growing number of countries are making commitments to achieve carbon neutrality, or "net zero" emissions within the next few decades. It’s a big task, requiring ambitious actions starting right now. Zero emissions or Net Zero by 2050 is the goal. But countries, cities and the most polluting sectors, such as heavy industry, trasnport or agriculture also need to demonstrate how they will get there.

We encourage all these efforts and promote Zero-Emissions districts by involving all the key players, including the Public sector at different levels (supra-national, national, regional and local), Private industries, Non-profit organisations and Local communities of citizens along a specific "District".

What do we consider as a "District" and what "Zero-Emissions" really means for us?

District: an area of a city, R&D campus or industrial zone that has been given a emissions reduction purpose that makes it different from surrounding areas.
Zero-Emissions: from now and on, we consider as Zero Emissions (ZE) each District that assumes as a priority goal to target the Carbon neutrality (CN) or Nearly Zero Emissions (NZE) and continuous improvement policies and actions to fully discarbonizing the specific area by finally achieving Zero Emissions (ZE) as soon as possible and by 2050.

Why and How do we promote a new ZE District?

Among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals defined by the United Nations (UN) to promote prosperity while protecting the planet and also the related NATO initiatives, we follow and promote the following global and cross-national initiatives (see the videos below), as we believe our initiative contributes to sustainability to achieve the common goal of discarbonizing the World but with a practical approach:

The key role of the District Energy in descarbonizing

Around the world, investments in district energy infrastructure are accelerating the shift to lower carbon solutions for cities, communities and campuses.

Help inform the communities you serve - and the world - how district energy systems achieve economies of scale by aggregating the energy needs of multiple customer buildings and industries.

The 7 Global challenges

WRI is a global research organization that works with governments, businesses, multilateral institutions and civil society groups to develop practical solutions that improve people’s lives and ensure nature can thrive. WRI organizes its work around seven global challenges: Food, Forests, Water, Energy, Climate, the Ocean and Cities. We analyze these issues through the lenses of our four Centers of Excellence: Business, Economics, Finance and Equity.

The active response to Climate change

Cities are leading on climate action but still face significant structural barriers, with the need to identify and overcome the root causes that hinder climate action at scale for creating better lives for citizens, their children and the planet.

NetZeroCities assist cities to overcome the current structural, institutional and cultural barriers they face in order to achieve climate neutrality by 2030.