EDI principles for lost carbon rescue and use
A structured framework launched for embedding equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) principles into the circular carbon economy (CCE).
The IDEALL roadmap – EDI principles for turning lost carbon into a valuable resource – aims to raising awareness of the need for a just and inclusive transition to net-zero within the chemical and wider manufacturing sectors.
Led jointly by the University of Nottingham with collaborators from the University of Surrey, and funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the roadmap offers a preliminary exploration of how to ensure a fair and exclusive CCE transition.
Within the UK, the chemical industry is one of the largest UK industries. The roadmap focuses on four strategic priorities that emerged to guide decision-makers:
- Removing financial barriers – addressing cost inequities in access to clean products and technologies and ensuring vulnerable communities are not left to bear the financial burden of transition.
- Dismantling elitism – challenging exclusionary systems of decision-making and amplifying the knowledge and agency of under-represented communities.
- Empowering communities – embedding place-based decision-making that respects local values, cultures, and needs, fostering ownership and resilience.
- Diversifying voices – ensuring diversity of voices across all levels, from governance and research to implementation, to reflect the lived realities of all who are impacted by the transition.
The team behind the work notes that, without deliberate action, existing inequalities, whether global, regional, or institutional, will persist or worsen.
The IDEALL roadmap is seen as a first step, laying a foundation for future research, policy design and industrial innovation that places equality at the heart of the CCE transition.
