Reconfiguring industry in the United Kingdom. Global lessons for ambition versus policy on the path towards net-zero
23 September 2025
New paper finds that UK industrial decarbonisation policy is dominated by modular substitution strategies and there is a gap between the net-zero targets and near-term policy action.
We observe a dominant reliance on fuel switching and CCS, characterising the innovation style as ‘modular substitution’; incremental changes that replace individual components without fundamentally transforming the overall system. This pattern suggests a gap between ambitious climate commitments and the depth of systemic change being pursued.
Based on the evidence from this paper, the risk of continuing along a pathway that is dominated by modular substitution to 2030 and beyond is that it can diminish the capacity to choose alternative policies in the future that would enact deeper forms of reconfiguration, less dependent on engineered carbon capture solutions given the urgency of a dwindling timeframe and persistent residual emissions.
The paper is available to download from the link below: