CEP 2026 Conference – Call for Papers

Submissions must be received by, Friday, 31st October 2025.

The CEP Annual Conference is New Zealand’s pre-eminent gathering for practitioners in the
fields of energy efficiency, decarbonisation and sustainability. The 2026 CEP Conference will
take place on 26th and 27th May at Claudelands, Hamilton. As previously, the 2026 event will
be run in association with the Bioenergy Association.

We welcome abstracts and proposals that will educate and inform delegates on any areas of
energy efficiency, decarbonisation and sustainability.

We are inviting  the submission of Conference papers and Proposals for workshops that focus on the practical aspects of commercial and industrial energy efficiency, carbon management, emissions reduction and climate adaptation.

At this stage, we are inviting abstracts for consideration by our conference committee.

Abstracts should be no more than 300 words plus a further 200 words on why the author believes the topic will be of interest and value to delegates and a short bio of the presenter(s)/facilitators. Real world examples and case studies are often well received by delegates and, therefore, the committee.

Presentations at Conference are strictly educational and must not be used for product or service promotion. Promotional opportunities are available through sponsorship and an associated exhibition, more details here.

Submissions must be received by 31st October 2025, please submit your abstract by email to [email protected]. 

Presentation or workshop?

We are inviting submissions for two types of session:

Presentations

These are presentations to delegates that run for 20-30 minutes, depending on final programme. Ordinarily, these are delivered by single presenters who receive their day’s registration gratis in recognition of their contribution. Joint presentations are welcome, although additional presenters are required to pay a registration fee (at significant discount).

If a joint presentation is being suggested, the contribution of every party and why they are an important part of the session should be explicitly addressed as part of the abstract submission.
All relevant submissions will be considered. The review committee has expressed particular
interested in seeing submissions around the following topics, however, this list is not
exhaustive, we are keen to see all interesting submissions.

• Carbon markets – prices and trends
• Accelerating renewables
• (Non-forestry) Nature-based offsetting solutions
• Network connectivity now and the future
• Energy hubs Geothermal – next steps Innovations in energy efficiency
• Marine energy Do we need a national energy company
• Energy security and reliability – national, regional or local Low emissions transport
• Forestry

We reserve the right to request alterations to proposed papers.

Workshops

These are interactive, facilitated workshops for 20-25 attendees that run for around 90 minutes, depending on final programme. They can be based on a particular topic or designed to appeal to a particular subset of delegates. As examples, previous years have seen sessions on heat pumps, financing decarbonisation initiatives, local government issues, Scope 3 emissions deep-dive, product emissions, managing climate risk and data management and IoT. Ordinarily, these will be facilitated by a team of experts (max 4), and  we encourage collaborative submissions from more than one organisation. Facilitators will need to coordinate activities and agenda in advance to ensure deep engagement with delegates. Facilitators receive their day’s registration gratis in recognition of their contribution.

All relevant submissions will be considered. The review committee has expressed particular interested in seeing submissions around the following topics, however, this list is not exhaustive, we are keen to see all interesting proposals.

• Hybrid solutions for commercial buildings and industry
• Energy efficiency and monitoring
• Making decarbonisation solutions look attractive in unfriendly economic circumstances

We reserve the option to combine or reconfigure proposed presentations or workshops to deliver maximum value to delegates.

Round up

CEP’s conference is notable for the depth of its sessions and satisfaction ratings of delegates. We pride ourselves on accepting papers that will educate and inform our delegates. This reflects well on our Conference and presenters. In recent years, we have invariably been oversubscribed with abstracts allowing our conference committee to select only the strongest sessions. We usually have to decline around half the submissions,
please prepare carefully and outline why you think your paper will be of interest to delegates.

Submissions will be reviewed by CEP’s conference committee before the end of 2025, please submit your abstract to: [email protected] by 5.00pm on Friday, 31st October 2025.

Engagement with delegates is a high priority and so we strongly prefer our New Zealand domiciled presenters to present in-person. Accepted, international presenters are welcome to present by video link.

Please note, CEP is a not for profit and strives to keep the conference accessible by applying low registration fees. Accordingly, we are not in a position to contribute to speaker travel or accommodation costs. Nevertheless, our speakers invariably find huge value in being part of the programme and engaging with our delegates.

Updated 16 September 2025