The summit will take place at the Kingsmills Hotel, Inverness, on 18 and 19 November 2026.

Renewable energy and infrastructure projects are transforming the region. Additionally, the Highlands continue to face major pressures around housing, fuel poverty, skills, infrastructure, fragile communities and the restoration of its natural environment.

Highland CIC argues the opportunity now goes beyond individual projects or sectors. 

Following five years of bringing together businesses and communities and mapping investment, opportunity and need across the region, the organisation is calling for a Highland Sustainable Development Plan to connect energy, tourism, communities, nature, housing, infrastructure, skills and economic development. 

Its objective is to make the Highlands a strong example of how major investment can translate into sustainable economic, social and environmental prosperity.

Leaders from renewable energy, tourism, government, academia, business, communities and the third sector will be brought together in the summit, over two days. 

On 18 November, the focus will be on the renewable energy opportunity through the Highland Renewables Network Exhibition and Supply Chain Sessions. 

Developers, major contractors, local businesses, public bodies and community organisations will assess the investment pipeline, procurement opportunities, infrastructure, skills and workforce requirements as well as how additional economic value from the energy transition can be retained within the Highlands. 

On 19 November, the Highland Sustainable Development Summit conference will assess how the investment and transformation occurring across the Highlands can strengthen its people, communities, economy as well as its natural environment.

International impact investment expert Dr Pavan Sukhdev, founder and chief executive officer, GIST Impact, Study Leader TEEB (UNEP); ex-president at WWF International and ex-managing director, Deutsche Bank Global Markets, will deliver a keynote on 19 November, looking into what sustainable prosperity means. 

Sukhdev will consider how success can be measured not merely by the amount of investment coming into a region, but by what that investment provides for people, communities, nature and the economy. 

Sukhdev said: “Turning a wave of investment into enduring prosperity is one of the defining questions of our time, and the Highlands are a place where it can be answered well.”

The programme will look into community development, climate resilience, destination development, natural capital, impact investment, collaboration across the renewable energy sector and the skills and opportunities needed by the next generation.

Tourism and renewable energy will also be brought into the same conversation, in which the connections between infrastructure, place, the visitor economy, community wealth, skills, investment and the Highland brand will be explored. 

The Summit builds on Highland CIC’s manifesto, ‘Power, Place and Prosperity: A Highland Plan for the Energy Transition ‘, launched in March this year. 

Yvonne Crook, chair of Highland CIC, said: “For five years, we have been bringing people together, listening to communities and businesses and increasingly mapping what is happening across the region.”

“When you begin overlaying those maps - energy, tourism, communities, housing, nature, skills and infrastructure - the scale of both the opportunity and the challenge becomes impossible to ignore.”

Crook added: “The Summit is about putting that whole Highland opportunity in one room.

“This cannot be another conference where everyone has an interesting conversation and goes home. 

“We want new partnerships, new investment, commitments around young people and impact investment, more Highland Ambassadors and real momentum behind a Highland Sustainable Development Plan.”

Michael Matheson, former Scottish government minister and board director at Highland CIC, said: “Businesses are not waiting to be told there needs to be change. 

“Through the Highland Renewables Network, developers, contractors and local businesses are investing because they recognise both the scale of the opportunity and the need to work differently.

“Huge wealth is flowing into and being generated in the Highlands.”

Matheson added: “The challenge is to ensure more of that wealth translates into lasting economic, social and environmental benefit for our people, communities and natural environment. 

“That is why tourism, renewables, communities and nature should not sit in separate conversations.”