Guidance and FAQs
Learn more about the Zero Carbon Accelerator and find guidance on how to get support. If you have additional questions, please email [email protected]
Organisation eligibility
The programme supports organisations including:
- local authorities
- public sector organisations such as health and education providers
- social housing providers
- the GLA Group*
- community groups**, cultural and heritage institutions
The organisation must be London-based and/or be requesting support for their London-based estate or buildings. Only the buildings located within Greater London are eligible for Zero Carbon Accelerator support. No other organisations are currently eligible for support.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator is focused on supporting the public sector to decarbonise its buildings in London, at scale. Commercial organisations and those whose buildings are privately owned are not eligible for direct support, but they can benefit from the skills and capacity-building opportunities and resources such as our Knowledge Hub and events.
Those with large estates, or consortiums with collectively large estates, are more likely to receive direct support. We define ‘large’ as more than 20,000m² with more than 75% owned by the supported organisation(s).
Smaller organisations in the education, cultural, heritage and social housing sectors are more likely to receive direct support if they are applying in collaboration with large, eligible organisations or as a consortium. Examples include joining up with a local authority or multiple smaller social housing or cultural organisations working together.
*The GLA group includes Greater London Authority (GLA), London Fire Commissioner (LFC), Transport for London (TfL), Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) and Old Oak Common and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC).
** Community groups and community energy groups (CEGs) are eligible for Zero Carbon Accelerator support if they or their support request meets the following criteria:
- The supported project focuses on a specific, identified building or asset owned by a public sector organisation based in London.
- The application is in partnership with the asset owner (e.g. a local authority).
Yes, collaboration is a core principle of the Zero Carbon Accelerator. We encourage consortium bids and are keen to see similar organisations, organisations in the same geographic area, or those at similar stages in their decarbonisation journey working together.
For smaller organisations and/or organisations without decision-making authority over their estate, collaboration is required to be suitable for direct support.
We welcome organisations in established consortiums to come forward for support. We are also intending to bring organisations working on similar projects or themes together to share knowledge, to drive innovation through this and to group support. Through the programme, we will create spaces to encourage and facilitate connections between organisations. Collaboration can be initiated at any stage in your journey to get support. If you are interested in collaborating with other organisations or have already started conversations, please make this clear in your Expression of Interest form.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator builds upon the success and lessons learned from the previous Low Carbon Accelerators. Whilst the Zero Carbon Accelerator is a separate programme to the previous Accelerators and offers a broader, cross sectorial and discipline support offer, we are interested in continuing to engage with organisations and support projects identified or supported under the previous programmes.
Please provide detail of your previous or continuing engagement and support in your Expression of Interest form.
Yes, organisations can still apply if they are in receipt of other funding or support. Please share details of the support you’re receiving with us. We want to avoid duplicating support you’re receiving elsewhere.
Yes, but it’s a different programme, as outlined in the support offer. Please note that if you would like critical friend support on the active grant-funded project, this should be submitted as a support request through the Expression of Interest.
Drawing on diverse expertise from the Alliance members, the Zero Carbon Accelerator can offer an independent review of ongoing projects, including constructive feedback and collaborative problem solving.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator will provide a range of support to help organisations develop the strategy and projects needed to support their decarbonisation objectives. The Zero Carbon Accelerator is focused on scaling up decarbonisation activity in London. Those with large estates in London, or consortiums with collectively large estates, are more likely to receive direct support. We define ‘large’ as more than 20,000m² with more than 75% owned by the supported organisation(s). Estates or buildings must be located within Greater London to be eligible for Zero Carbon Accelerator support.
Smaller organisations are encouraged to work collaboratively and partner with other organisations to increase their eligibility for support. If an organisation is not eligible for direct support, they can still benefit from the skills and capacity-building opportunities and resources such as our Knowledge Hub and events.
Yes. We do, however, recommend that these separate applications are submitted at similar times wherever possible to provide us with a fuller understanding of the support your organisation needs, both alone and as part of a consortium.
To be eligible for direct support, organisations must have decision-making authority for their buildings or estate. Organisations who do not own or control their buildings are required to apply in collaboration with the estate owner (see FAQ about collaboration for more details).
Organisations who own more than 75% of their estate are more likely to receive direct support. If an organisation is not eligible for direct support, they can benefit from the skills and capacity-building opportunities and resources such as our Knowledge Hub and events.
Project eligibility
The Mayor of London’s Zero Carbon Accelerator welcomes Expressions of Interest at all stages, but we are prioritising projects that:
- can contribute to meeting the Mayor of London’s net zero target by 2030
- are further developed, such as projects that are at the procurement stage or are investment-ready
- have secured or identified capital funding
- are expected to generate significant carbon savings (see FAQ on ‘Which organisations / types of organisations will the Zero Carbon Accelerator be supporting?’ for details on the scale of supported organisations or consortiums).
We strongly encourage requests for support for projects from organisations with large estates or consortiums and collaborations with collectively large estates.
Yes, the Zero Carbon Accelerator encourages requests for support from organisations with projects that are at the procurement stage or investment-ready.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator takes a holistic approach to support, looking at ways to group support. If your project is in progress, we could support with tenders, contract or operational activity. The Zero Carbon Accelerator would offer support with unblocking barriers rather than taking over the current organisation’s delivery activity.
The initial Expression of Interest form is a quick and easy way for us to assess whether or not your organisation is able to get direct support from the Zero Carbon Accelerator.
In the meantime, you can review the Zero Carbon Accelerator’s principles to better understand if your project aligns with the goals of the programme.
The GLA has a separate programme and grant process through which they support boroughs across London to complete the Local Area Energy Plans (LAEPs) process for their area.
As such, LAEPs or studies that resemble LAEPs are currently not within the scope of the Zero Carbon Accelerator programme. Please do not submit applications for LAEPs through the Zero Carbon Accelerator website. Instead, please reach out to [email protected] for information on the support available.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator is focused on the energy transition and operational carbon reduction. We’re working to achieve the Mayor of London’s ambition for the capital to use clean, flexible and locally-generated energy and to make more effective use of energy in our buildings.
As such, projects focused on the following would not currently be in scope of the Zero Carbon Accelerator:
- Scope 3 emissions. These are the indirect emissions that come from an organisation’s value chain, such as from its suppliers, customers or users, but are not directly under its control.
- Embodied carbon. The GLA has guidance on Whole Life-Cycle Carbon (WLCC) Assessments. Whilst embodied carbon is important in the review of the WLCC of buildings and construction projects, the Zero Carbon Accelerator does not currently support projects focused on embodied carbon.
- Climate resilience and adaptation. Read about the work the Mayor of London is doing now to minimise the impacts of unpredictable and changing weather.
- Circular economy. Read about the London Plan Guidance Circular Economy Statements.
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list. You can reach out to the Zero Carbon Accelerator team via email, or submit a quick Expression of Interest, and we can confirm to you whether your project or support request is within the scope of the Zero Carbon Accelerator.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator is focused on the decarbonisation of existing buildings. Projects that focus on solely new developments are therefore out of the scope of the programme and are not eligible for support. We are keen to explore how we can support you with the energy transition of your existing buildings. You can explore resources on retrofit in our Knowledge Hub.
Programme
- Read the FAQs and guidance on our website
- Complete the simple Expression of Interest (EOI) form on our website
- If you’re eligible, you’ll be invited to complete a more detailed Self-assessment form
- If your activity aligns with the programme priorities, the Zero Carbon Accelerator team may offer a support package. The Zero Carbon Accelerator takes a holistic approach to support, looking at ways to group support to address the shared needs of organisations.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator has a Triage Board which includes representatives from the GLA, Mott MacDonald and alliance members which will ultimately approve support offers to organisations.
If an organisation is an at early stage in their journey (known as the Prepare stage) and depending on the complexity and nature of their situation, their Expression of Interest may not pass to the Triage Board as support might take the form of attending Zero Carbon Accelerator webinars and benefitting from the Knowledge Hub.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator is looking to support the development of projects of scale and ambition in order to meet the Mayor of London’s net zero target by 2030. The panel will assess and prioritise Expression of Interest and Self-assessment forms based on the following criteria.
- Scale of ambition
- Potential for replicability/scalability
- Extent of collaboration
- Extent of innovation
- Contribution to building capacity
- Potential for securing finance
- Commitment to community and inclusion
- Commitment to integrate with other London challenges (climate resilience, biodiversity, health etc)
- Potential to build market confidence
Expressions of Interest and Self-assessment forms will be assessed based on their feasibility and alignment with the programme’s assessment and eligibility criteria.
We are prioritising support for eligible London-based organisations.
The current Zero Carbon Accelerator runs from September 2024 until June 2026.
Whilst organisations at an early stage are less likely to receive technical support, some early-stage projects may get support if there is a clear path to delivery by 2030 and they will contribute towards London’s 2030 net zero target.
The Mayor of London is interested in better understanding the pipeline of net zero projects across London and potential needs to inform future support and guidance. We encourage you to submit an Expression of Interest to help us gauge this and engage with our Knowledge Hub to support your decarbonisation work in the meantime.
Collaboration is at the heart of the Zero Carbon Accelerator because we think this is how we can best support London and its organisations to make change at scale and take a joined-up approach to reach net zero more quickly. One of the criteria we’ll be looking at is whether projects are scalable, replicable and/or operating at a large scale.
Whilst some support will be bespoke to individual organisations, we are intending to bring organisations working on similar projects or themes together to share knowledge, to drive innovation through this and to group offers of support. We know that this is already happening in lots of different ways, so the Zero Carbon Accelerator will be complementing this.
When submitting an Expression of Interest and the more detailed Self-assessment form, organisations can state the support they think they would most benefit from.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator will work with organisations to understand their needs and priorities in the round and collaboratively develop a support offer that can have the biggest impact. It will prioritise support based on our assessment criteria and programme priorities. This might mean the final support offer differs from an organisation’s initial request but would be developed collaboratively to get to that point.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator builds on the successes of the Mayor’s Low Carbon Accelerators, which ran from 2016-2024 and supported public sector organisations across London to reduce emissions. Designed in response to feedback from previous support programmes, the Zero Carbon Accelerator offers a more flexible and varied range of support to increase the ability of organisations to take action.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator encourages a more collaborative approach to decarbonisation, aiming to connect organisations working on similar projects so they can share knowledge and resource.
Through the programme, we intend to identify skills gaps of London-based organisations and create skills development opportunities and resources to address these areas.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator is committed to helping London-based organisations build and deliver the pipeline of activity needed to meet decarbonisation targets. As such, the Zero Carbon Accelerator recognises that many decarbonisation activities are long-term.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator will work with organisations to prioritise and develop a support offer that might include support for short-term delivery as well as identifying tasks that complement longer‑term activity.
Social value and inclusion are at the heart of the Zero Carbon Accelerator, in order to ensure it has a lasting impact on individuals, communities and the environment. The programme supports the Mayor of London’s commitment to a deliver a ‘just transition’, meaning that London’s plans to tackle the climate emergency must be fair (LSDC, 2023).
For example, the Zero Carbon Accelerator prioritises:
- outreach to and support for organisations that benefit communities in London most impacted by structural inequalities, to include those with increased vulnerability to climate risks.
- advice for organisations on how to integrate social value into projects, reduce inequalities through their net zero plans, procurement and practical actions, and engage with communities.
By supporting organisations to consider the needs of their communities, the Zero Carbon Accelerator will actively deliver greater social benefits for all Londoners.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator can provide assistance to help organisations develop and deliver their customer or tenant engagement plans. Support available through the Zero Carbon Accelerator is intended to help build capacity within organisations to deliver, rather than directly delivering projects or managing customer or tenant engagement on behalf of organisations.
The Self-assessment process will help us better understand what capacity and capability organisations have. We will ask what your capacity of support service is, including if there are issues getting buy-in from support services such as Legal and Planning. This will help us better identify specific blockers and provide the appropriate support. If, over time, we see that there are common barriers that multiple organisations are facing, we will look at how we can address these more widely and engage with relevant decision makers.
We are aware of many partnerships in the London ecosystem and the connections happening within these. We want to include, support and add capacity to them. They are strategically placed and are connections we want to have, especially as we want to support partnerships and knowledge sharing. Through the Expression of Interest and Self-Assessment process you can identify those partnerships and projects.
Building on this, we are keen to help in a one-to-many approach. We will be seeing how we can intentionally bring organisations together to help you learn and deliver together. We want to take your learnings and share these through events, forums, resources and other mechanisms.
We have procurement experts who come from companies of varied sizes, including SMEs. We know that smaller organisations are often the ones delivering the most innovative solutions, so we want to engage with these to help bring them to the market.
We have shown this through our alliance members. The size of these partner organisations ranges from 2 to 20,000, allowing us to engage in a unique way with those who may not have the capacity or awareness to be involved.
Through the development of business cases, we want to help organisations build delivery and procurement processes which consider a wide range of approaches, including routes which include SMEs or community-led models.
The Greater London Authority (GLA) has set up the Zero Carbon Accelerator Framework to enable organisations across the country to benefit from an accessible route to procure expert consultancy support. Mott MacDonald were appointed following an open tender process.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator Framework allows public sector bodies and various public sector adjacent bodies (listed here) across the UK to directly appoint Mott MacDonald and the Alliance to provide the technical expertise they need to decarbonise the built environment.
In procurement terms, this simplifies things. Public sector bodies can directly award the selected provider, Mott MacDonald, using the single supplier framework, without having to run a longer procurement process. In this way, organisations can more easily and quickly benefit from the wide range of technical expertise and combined services it delivers to help progress to net zero.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator Framework runs until June 2028 but call-offs from the Framework can run beyond that date.
For more information about accessing the Framework, please contact: [email protected] or [email protected].
How to get support
The Expression of Interest form is a quick way for us to understand your eligibility and takes less than five minutes to complete.
The Self-assessment form requires more in-depth information, a guide to which can be found on this page. The time it takes to complete this depends on the structure of your organisation and how easily accessible this information is, so allow for extra time. Note that we will provide guidance and support to help your organisation complete this if needed.
The Triage Board meets regularly and will assess EOIs and self-assessment forms in the order they receive them. As the programme is tailored in response to the interest we receive, the timeframe for receiving support will depend on the stage you’re at in your decarbonisation journey and the type of support requested.
Including as much detail as you can in your communication with us means that we have a better understanding of support we can offer.
A high-quality Expression of Interest:
- aligns with the programme principles and assessment criteria
- meets the eligibility criteria
- includes as much detail as possible within the word count and fields of the forms so we get the fullest view of your organisation(s) and situation.
We are here to help if you have any questions about submitting your Expression of Interest or Self-assessment form. Please get in touch: [email protected]
We have several resources to help you complete your Self-assessment form:
- Guidance on eligibility
- Details around the types of support available
- Self-assessment guide detailing the form questions
- Regular drop-in sessions for organisations that are invited to complete a Self-assessment form, to ask questions and get further guidance. Email [email protected] to enquire.
Once you have submitted your Self-assessment form online, we will be in touch to discuss your support request in more detail. See the process of getting support for more detail.
Please contact [email protected] to request information in another format.
Funding
The GLA has initially made £9 million of funding available for support through the Zero Carbon Accelerator. The programme is solely funded through the GLA.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator support offer is focused on technical expertise to London-based organisations, wherever they are on their journey to net zero, from advice and training to knowledge sharing and finance information. The support offer is developed in response to the organisations taking part. It might be identified that organisations need more in-depth support than can be provided through the programme. The Zero Carbon Accelerator will consider whether grant funding might be a helpful part of the support offer.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator offers a flexible and varied range of support:
- expert consultancy, including technical expertise (eg solar, low carbon heating, building systems) and support with project management, procurement, guidance finance and funding opportunities.
- training and skills development for organisations’ employees around decarbonisation.
- peer-to-peer networks and knowledge sharing between organisations, encouraging collaboration and innovation.
You are not required to have match funding to be part of the Zero Carbon Accelerator.
Support is offered with finance and funding through the Zero Carbon Accelerator’s Knowledge Hub and other platforms.
There is also support available through the Zero Carbon Accelerator Framework.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator will actively engage with supplier organisations, sharing information on upcoming procurement needs and connecting supply with demand.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator will actively engage with supplier organisations, sharing information on upcoming procurement needs and connecting supply with demand.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator offers a range of support. As part of that process, it might offer grant funding in some situations. Designed in response to feedback from previous support programmes, the Zero Carbon Accelerator offers a more flexible and varied range of support to increase the ability of organisations to take action.
Research commissioned by the Mayor of London shows that many organisations across London need expert support to understand how to most effectively achieve net zero. Over 40 public sector organisations across London contributed to the research. The main barriers that prevent decarbonisation from happening at the rate and scale necessary to meet the Mayor’s net zero target by 2030 are:
- a lack of capacity and capability within London boroughs and other organisations wishing to develop these projects to the point of applying for capital funding.
- protracted and complex procurement processes.
- a lack of capital funding and risks associated with investing money with long-term paybacks and no savings guarantee.
The Zero Carbon Accelerator supports organisations to develop projects to be ready for investment from the GLA’s Green Finance Fund or other funding sources. The Green Finance Fund is a £500m fund set up by the GLA to provide low-cost loans to public sector organisations delivering renewable energy, energy efficiency and clean transportation projects.
Support provided under the Zero Carbon Accelerator does not constitute a subsidy.
Management of the programme and Alliance
Mott MacDonald was appointed through an open tender process.
The Mayor of London is delivering the Zero Carbon Accelerator in collaboration with Mott MacDonald, Energy Saving Trust and an alliance of experts in energy solutions, zero carbon strategy, retrofit, modelling, architecture, finance and more: ACA Studios, Altair, Ambue, Arthian, ClimateView, COWI, EEVS, Energiesprong UK, ERM, IES, Pascall+Watson Architects, Pollard Thomas Edwards, Retrofit Academy, S&J Consulting and Zerogram.
Mott MacDonald is the lead service provider with Energy Saving Trust managing the marketing and communications.
The Alliance contribute support in various forms, from offering advice and knowledge sharing to hosting masterclasses.
The Alliance were selected to ensure breadth of expertise across energy solutions, zero carbon strategy, retrofit, modelling, architecture, finance and more.
The GLA demonstrates its commitment to growing the supply chain through the selection of Alliance partners, which include organisations from micro-SMEs up to large companies.