Posts Tagged ‘report’
Community Renewable Energy Projects: UK
Posted in Models, Movements by Kate Archdeacon on January 13th, 2012
Source: guardian.co.uk
River Bain Hydro photo © wonky knee
From “The communities taking renewable energy into their own hands” by Ed Mayo:
“Late last year we – Co-operatives UK and The Co-operative Group – published a new report which reveals the growing number of people who are choosing to start renewable energy co-operatives in their communities, against all the odds. What is exciting about the report is that it is the first and most comprehensive guide to what amounts to a new movement of communities who are taking action for greener energy into their own hands.
In a time of doom – when all talk is of cuts, unemployment and rising prices – this report highlights a different story. Despite, or maybe even because, of the wider economic woes, people across the UK are creating a co-operative movement for green energy. There are now 43 communities who are in the process of or already producing renewable energy through co-operative structures. They are set up and run by everyday people – local residents mostly – who are investing their time and money and together installing solar panels, large wind turbines or hydro-electric power for their local communities.
The report highlights a series of examples. Like Ouse Valley Energy Service Company, which is owned by 250 people who have installed solar panels on a local brewery. Or River Bain Hydro, which installed a hydro electric power generator in its local river with investment of £200,000 from around 200 people.”
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Read the full article by Ed Mayo on the Guardian.
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ReFit West: Retrofitting Existing Homes Update
Posted in Movements, Research by Kate Archdeacon on April 21st, 2011
Source: Forum for the Future
Image from the Refit West Update
Forum for the Future has published a new guide on retrofitting owner-occupied homes, intended to inform the development of a nationally viable scheme. Refit West: Update from the front line – real homeowner retrofit journeys and barriers the Green Deal must overcome gives policy makers, key energy sector players, and domestic carbon reduction professionals, valuable results from a live pilot retrofitting scheme.
The report provides a number of key insights into the homeowner experience and outlines the information required at each stage of the retrofitting journey. Based on the lessons learnt from a Bristol-based pilot project, we have been working with actual homeowners as they carried out energy efficiency works to their homes. It presents a number of recommendations that will need to be in place to ensure successful take up of the Green Deal.
We believe that the key to developing a nationally viable retrofitting scheme lies in empowering and supporting individuals as they make decisions and commission works to their homes. A flexible and people-centred approach, delivering a positive experience for early adopters and recognising and valuing the work carried out, is essential for any larger retrofitting programme to succeed.
Scaling up any retrofitting scheme will need to take account of three key elements: providing appropriate financial incentives to refit houses; creating demand from homeowners; and ensuring there is a workforce with the skills to carry it out.
Download the report ‘Update from the front line: real homeowner retrofit journeys and barrier to Green Deal must overcome’ or visit the Refit West Project site.
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Victorian Food Supply Scenarios: Impacts on Availability of a Nutritious Diet
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on April 6th, 2011
The report of the Victorian Food Supply Scenarios: Impacts on Availability of a Nutritious Diet project has been released. This VEIL-led research project was funded by VicHealth and undertaken in partnership with the CSIRO, Deakin University and the Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development.
The purpose of this project was to develop and demonstrate a new methodology to link land and resource use with availability of a nutritionally adequate food supply for Victoria’s population.
To do so, it has built the capability of the CSIRO stocks and flows model as a platform for on-going ‘what-if’ investigation of Victorian and Australian food supply security.
The full report and a summary version are available for download on the VEIL website. www.ecoinnovationlab.com
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Peter Harper: ‘Zero Carbon Britain 2030? in Sydney
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on March 30th, 2011
Zero Carbon by 2030 – Britain’s dream or reality?
Technology says we can. Science says we must. Is it time to say we will?
SPEAKER: Peter Harper, Centre for Alternative Technology (UK), Coordinator Zero Carbon Britain
Two public lectures by UK scientist Peter Harper, from the Centre of Alternative Technology (CAT), in Wales on ZeroCarbonBritain 2030 – a plan offering a positive realistic, policy framework to eliminate emissions from fossil fuels within 20 years. Zero Carbon Britain(ZCB) brought together leading UK’s thinkers, including policy makers, scientists, academics, industry and NGOs to provide political, economic and technological solutions to the urgent challenges raised by climate science.
Governments and businesses seem paralysed and unable to plan for a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy. ZCB shows what can be done by harnessing the voluntary contribution from experts working outside their institutions. The ZCB report,released in June 2010, provides a fully integrated vision of how Britain can respond to the challenges of climate change, resource depletion and global inequity, with the potential for a low-carbon future to enrich society as a whole.
During lectures in Melbourne and Sydney, Peter will explore how we can ‘Power Down’ demand in the built environment, transport, land use and institute behavioural change, then ‘Power Up’ the energy system with renewables. He’ll outline the key thinking behind the report, including why a low carbon economy is an investment in the future, and look at the ways sustainable community based and multi-lateral initiatives will concurrently inform a global energy infrastructure.
Sydney, Tuesday 19 April, 6.30-8pm, Vestibule, Sydney Town Hall
Please register your attendance by Friday 15 April to amrit.gill@britishcouncil.org.au
Presented by the British Council, VEIL (Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab), Banksia Environmental Foundation, Key Message and the City of Sydney.
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Peter Harper: ‘Zero Carbon Britain 2030′ in Melbourne & Sydney
Posted in Events, Research by Kate Archdeacon on March 18th, 2011
Peter Harper is the Research Director of the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales UK and one of the three coordinators of the Zero Carbon Britain (ZCB) 2030 project.
ZCB 2030 is a positive, realistic vision for an energy progressive society free from fossil fuels. At a time when governments appear to be paralysed and unable to act, ZCB 2030 has demonstrated that alternative plans for the future can be developed through the cooperation and good will of volunteer researchers and experts. ZCB 2030 completed its three years of work in mid 2010, presenting the plan to the UK parliament. It provides political, economic and technological solutions to the urgent challenges raised by climate science.
“The great transition to a zero-carbon Britain is not only the most pressing challenge of our time, it is also entirely possible. The solutions needed to create a low-carbon and high-wellbeing future for all exist, what has been missing to date, is the political will to implement them.” Dr Victoria Johnson, New Economics Foundation
Peter will deliver lectures about the project in Melbourne on April 13 and in Sydney on April 19. These lectures will be surrounded by other smaller events to examine the ZCB plan and to compare its approach and conclusions to that for Australia being developed by Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) in the Zero Carbon Australia project.
In Melbourne: BMW Edge 13th April
In Sydney: Sydney Town Hall 19th April
More details will be announced here as they become available.
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Tracking the Impact of Films: “The End of the Line”
Posted in Movements, Research by Kate Archdeacon on February 28th, 2011
Source: The Ecologist
From “The End of the Line: how a film changed the way we eat fish” by Tom Levitt and Ali Thomas:
A new report highlights the lasting impact of The End of the Line in raising awareness of unsustainable fishing practices – and illustrates how radical new film funding models can work.
More than one million people have now watched The End of the Line, a groundbreaking expose of the consequences of overfishing, according to an evaluation of the film’s impact. The film was the first major documentary to look at the impact of overfishing on the world’s oceans with a quarter of the world’s fish stocks being exploited to extinction and a further half at, or close to, their maximum capacity. It highlighted how many of well-known species, including bluefin tuna and cod, are likely to be extinct by 2048.
Although initially watched by less than 10,000 people in the cinema, the film managed to reach a much wider audience of 4.7 million in the UK through a combination of media coverage, strong campaigning – and later – TV screenings. It also inspired a wave of coverage of unsustainable fishing practices, including the recent TV series ‘Hugh’s Fish Fight’.
A new report by the Britdoc Foundation said post-film campaign work around the documentary meant that for each film watcher, a further 510 people had heard about it. A quarter of a million people alone watched the film’s trailer on YouTube.
The team behind the film set up consumer focused websites ‘Seafood Watch Widget’ and ‘Fish to Fork’ to allow people to check on the sustainability of popular supermarket fish species. It also advised on restaurants selling fish species listed as endangered by the Marine Stewardship council (MSC).
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Read the full article (there’s lots more great detail) by Tom Levitt and Ali Thomas
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Building Low Carbon Britain: Report
Posted in Movements, Research by Kate Archdeacon on February 25th, 2011
Source: Forum for the Future
Building A Low-Carbon Britain:
Local authorities will have a key role to play in the low carbon economy of the future. This project aimed to help local authorities understand what a low-carbon economy means for them and to find opportunities for low-carbon innovation in a time of public sector cuts.
Building a low-carbon Britain, jointly produced with The Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT), makes five recommendations or building blocks for how local authorities can prepare their areas and communities for a low carbon future. It presents four scenarios which explore plausible, alternative visions of a low carbon UK. You can download the full report here.
We hope that local authorities across the UK will use the scenarios to develop new strategies and policies, and challenge current practice, perhaps using them as starting points for their own low-carbon future visions. To continue the momentum generated by the study, ADEPT and Forum for the Future are planning a series of local events during 2011 to facilitate an exchange of ideas and information between interested parties. If you would like to attend the events or would like to know more about the project, please contact Zoe Le Grand.
Although the four scenarios are very different, we have identified positive strategic responses to each so organisations can either develop the best elements or avoid the worst. Where these responses work across multiple scenarios, they represent strong strategic options which are robust for a range of futures – in effect, the building blocks for creating a low-carbon economy.
The four scenarios are:
- Community Action – where a “well-being” economy values meaningful work and low-carbon impact lifestyles, with a smaller, more localised state.
- Technology and Choice – where low-carbon industries compete for business, with councils which invested early in reducing carbon emissions reaping rewards.
- Emergency State Control – where the state replaces the market as the driver of change with economies forcibly reorientated in favour of carbon reduction.
- Business Revolution – where the public sector is a “low-carbon facilitator” and ‘carbon efficiency’ has replaced cost efficiency.
Read about the strategic responses to the scenarios over on the Forum for the Future Page.
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Livewell Report: Reducing GHG Emissions, Improving Nutrition
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on February 18th, 2011
Source: Food Climate Research Network (FCRN)
Macdiarmid J, Kyle J, Horgan G, Loe L, Fyfe C, Johnston A and McNeill G (2011). Livewell – a balance of healthy and sustainable food choices, WWF-UK, Godalming, UK
This review of the report is by Tara Garnett, Food Climate Research Network:
WWF has released its Livewell report, that looks at whether it is possible to eat a diet that is both lower in GHG emissions and more nutritionally balanced than current dietary norms in the UK. WWF-UK’s One Planet Food Programme (2009-12) has set goals to reduce UK food-consumption related emissions by at least 25% by 2020 and by 70% by 2050, based on 1990 emission levels. The report does three key things:
- it assesses the current ‘normal’ UK diet against government recommendations with respect to fat, protein, fruit and vegetable intakes, and so forth (the Eatwell plate)
- it looks at whether it is possible to develop a nutritionally balanced diet which is 25% lower in embedded GHG emissions than the norm today (ie. the 2020 target), and illustrates what this might look like by developing a one-week sample menu
- it looks at whether it is possible to develop a nutritionally balanced diet which is 70% lower in embedded GHG emissions than the norm today (the 2050 target).
The research was undertaken by the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health at the University of Aberdeen. The report’s GHG data is based, with adjustments, on the FCRN-WWF-UK commissioned How low can we go? Report http://www.fcrn.org.uk/fcrnPublications/index.php?id=6#181 but all the nutrition analysis is completely new.
Hotspots and Hopespots: Points of Intervention
Posted in Models, Research by Kate Archdeacon on January 3rd, 2011
Source: Nourishing the Planet: Worldwatch Institute
From ““Hotspots” and “Hopespots” for Africa’s Water Challenges Outlined in New Water Atlas” by Matt Styslinger:
Africa faces growing challenges to its water resources. Many of these challenges have been laid out in the new Africa Water Atlas from United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The Atlas uses over 224 maps and 104 satellite images from 53 countries to detail threats to Africa’s water supplies—such as the drying of Lake Chad in the Sahel and the erosion of the Nile Delta in Egypt—as well as increasing water scarcity as a result of climate change. According to the Atlas, the amount of available water per person in Africa is well below the global average and declining. A majority of Africans are dependent on rainfed agriculture, and scientists are predicting that by 2020 between 75 and 250 million people in Africa will live in conditions of increased water stress from climate change.
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“The dramatic changes sweeping Africa linked with both positive and negative management of this continent’s vital water resources is graphically brought home in this Atlas,” says United Nation’s Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner. Steiner also notes that the Atlas brings “into sharp relief” the way in which infrastructure development and environmental degradation are impacting African livelihoods. “But so too are the many attempts towards sustainable management of freshwaters,” he says.
Agriculture is the biggest user of water in Africa and only 4 percent of cultivated land in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated. The Atlas maps out new solutions and water management success stories from across the continent in what the UNEP calls “hopespots.”
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Read the full article by Matt Styslinger
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Zero Carbon Britain 2030: Report
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on June 22nd, 2010
zerocarbonbritain2030 provides political and economic solutions to the urgent challenges raised by the climate science, outlining how we can transform the UK into an efficient, clean, prosperous zero-carbon society. Covering energy, transport, land use, the built environment and industry, each chapter of the report has been written by bringing together the UK’s leading thinkers in their field including policy makers, scientists, academics, industry and NGOs.
zerocarbonbritain2030 is a fully integrated solution to climate change. It examines how we can meet our electricity and heating requirements through efficient service provision, while still decreasing carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other emissions.
The report starts by examining the current “Context” in the Climate Science and Energy Security chapters. It then moves on to how we can “PowerDown” heat and electricity demand largely through new technology, efficient design and behaviour change. The “Land Use & Agriculture” section considers the tremendous potential of the land not only to decrease emissions but also to sequester residual emissions. We then move on to how we can “PowerUp” through the use of renewable technology. Finally we examine the policy that can help bring this about and the job creation that will come with it, in the “Framework, policy and economics” section.
A full copy of the new report is available as a free pdf , or buy a printed copy from the Centre for Alternative Technology.
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