A ground-breaking BEIS partnership delivered by Energy Systems Catapult has received the top honours for Collaboration at this year’s awards, in a Westminster ceremony held last week

The Modern Energy Partners (MEP) programme has been recognised for best Collaboration at the Government Property Awards 2022.

The MEP team, which brings together actors across government and the NHS, scooped the award in recognition of its real-world impact, helping to reduce emissions and make energy savings across the public sector estate.

Established by the Cabinet Office and the Government Property Function, the awards honour the best programmes and projects from across the public property sector, recognising achievement, showcasing innovation, and inspiring better future outcomes.

Celebrating MEP’s innovative credentials at the Westminster event on Tuesday 11 October,  the award also honoured the financial benefits that the programme has already realised, paving the way for new models to improve future delivery of Net Zero across the public estate and services.

Award judges said: “MEP was an ambitious collaborative programme. Without the input of the wide rage of stakeholders involved, the programme could not have delivered the impressive range of outputs and impacts.”

ESC’s Platform Lead for Sites and Head of MEP, Christine St John Cox, drives the Catapult’s work to reduce emissions across public and commercial sectors, and has led the MEP initiative since its launch in 2019.

Collecting the award with her MEP colleagues on Tuesday, Christine said: “Throughout the programme we have been inspired by the will of the Government departments to collaborate and work together to understand how to decarbonise.

“We also have immense gratitude for the large number of organisations who showed the same willing to solutionise collectively together to support the delivery of the programme.”

By sharing outputs, it is hoped that the MEP programme will help further future decarbonisation of hospitals, campuses and other complex sites across the UK.

Said Christine:  “All of the learning and insights generated – as well as tools, templates and guidance – are available for all to access so that our work can support others.”

Systematically decarbonising the public sector estate

Modern Energy Partners (MEP) was a ground-breaking innovation programme tasked with exploring how to decarbonise the public sector estate, delivered in collaboration with selected government departments and the NHS.

Completed in September 2021, MEP was funded by the Energy Innovation Programme from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). MEP focused on learning through doing, testing out the practicalities of decarbonisation on complex campus-style public sector sites.

Through the MEP programme, a wide range of insights and tools were developed to guide public sector organisations through the decarbonisation process. Energy Systems Catapult, supported by BEIS, has made these available to public sector organisations and the wider supply chain.