Decarbonising heavy industry in the UK – the devil in the details of implementation
First detailed examination of UK industrial decarbonisation policy reveals challenges and opportunities for aligning ‘bottom up’ and ‘top down’ policy mixes to accelerate decarbonization in hard to abate industries.
The UK has adopted a bold strategy for cutting carbon emissions from heavy industries like chemical manufacturing, iron and steel, cement and refineries. Decarbonisation is the only long-term solution to ensuring the future of facilities like the ethylene plant in Mossmorran, currently facing closure. New technologies and fuels including electrification, low-carbon hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS) feature prominently in the UK’s strategy. Yet implementation is already facing barriers—from environmental regulation, planning systems, technical standards, electricity network regulation and skills policy—that could undermine the pursuit of industrial decarbonisation.
Beyond strategy
New research combining extensive expert interviews and site visits across England, Scotland and Wales draws attention to the importance of the “bottom up” policy mix for industrial decarbonisation alongside the more strategic elements such as subsidies for hydrogen and CCS. The findings highlight how missing information—for example, about new processes in environmental assessment, such as the chemicals used in carbon capture—can render parts of that policy mix incomplete, leading to costly delays while regulation scrambles to catch up.
Led by Professor Matthew Lockwood, this global research team* calls for more attention to policy fragmentation: how can diffuse and diverse policies across the entire UK be better tied together for decarbonization activities? It also highlights the need for central government to develop regulations and policies in areas relevant for the implementation phase of industrial decarbonization projects, and for better coordination between government and the multiple
*This cross-country, internationally-renowned research team is led by Matthew Lockwood and includes Kyle Herman, Anna Pultar, and John Ferrier alongside the Bennett Institute’s Benjamin Sovacool and Marfuga Iskandarova.
Read the full paper
This article is a summary of a research paper:
Lockwood, M., Herman, K., Iskandarova, M., Pultar, A., Ferrier, J., & Sovacool, B. Beyond industrial decarbonisation strategy: Lessons from the bottom-up policy mix in the United Kingdom, 2021–2023.
Energy Research & Social Science, 130 (December 2025), 104431.
