Research
The West of England is at the cutting edge of research and innovation into sustainable living with the University of the West of England, Bristol University, Bath University and Bath Spa University.
Industry in the face of future resource scarcity
by Paul Rainger
18 May 2011
The Bristol based Schumacher Institute is spearheading European research into the impacts on industry and business of future resource scarcity. The CONVERGE research project includes a series of Rethinking Globalisation seminars.
The first seminar launching this series will be on May 25th in Bristol (13:00 – 16:00) with a keynote session from Harald Sverdrup - professor of Chemical engineering at Lund University in Sweden - on the latest research into resource burn-off rates, and how they may affect industry in Europe.
The seminar will look at how some resources may be substituted and look at some examples of companies who have dealt with changes to their access to resources. The seminar will end with a discussion session on the impacts this could have on industry here in Bristol in the future and on opportunities for partnership and further research.
Schumacher hope this seminar will start a Bristol-wide conversation on the impacts of resource scarcity on our city through the lens of convergence (equity within planetary limits) with a focus on using systems science to explore potential for future proofing the vitality of industry in this city-region.
The CONVERGE project is an interdisciplinary research project funded by the European Union, that recognises that resources are not equally distributed, and that the annual draw-down of many resources exceeds the capacity of the planet to supply them. The project is exploring the concept of equity in the light of biological planetary limits – with regards to the various sustainability challenges and positive sustainability initiatives the world is witnessing.
Space at the launch Bristol seminar is limited so please email julia@schumacherinstitute.org.uk to reserve a free place.
Who Feeds Bristol?
by Paul Rainger
15 March 2011
This week sees the launch of the “Who Feeds Bristol?” report, the first comprehensive city food system study like it in the UK, looking at the city’s whole urban food system both in a global and local context.
The report is being launched on Wednesday at the City Council’s second Bristol Food Conference. As well as discussing this report, the conference will set up the city authorities’ new high powered Food Policy Council for Bristol. The Food Policy Council will be chaired by Professor Kevin Morgan from Cardiff University, and includes the City Council leader, Barbara Janke. The Who Feeds Bristol research will inform the Food Policy Council’s work towards a resilient food plan for the city.
This report builds on the earlier Bristol Peak Oil report - another UK first – and the work of the Bristol Food Network and Forum for the Future who drew up the Sustainable Food Plan for the city. The research was commissioned and funded by NHS Bristol and undertaken by Joy Carey, an independent food researcher.
Who Feeds Bristol is primarily a descriptive analysis of the food system serving Bristol together with an analysis of its resilience. It looks at the ‘positive planning powers’ cities may have on their food system and it makes suggestions for action. It is specifically aimed at city decision-makers and food system stakeholders but should be of interest to anyone who is interested in how food makes it onto their plates.
You can download a copy of the Who Feeds Bristol from the City Council’s website here.
There is a short summary, a full report, appendices with much of the background research detail and full versions of case studies.
Bristol’s ‘Seeing Futures’ climate change conference
by Paul Rainger
25 October 2010
Sara Parkin, one of Forum for the Future’s Founder Directors, and author of her new book, The Positive Deviant, is chairing this timely conference in Bristol next month on climate change knowledge and what we do with it.
The event will look at an integrated approach to the human problem of assimilating the knowledge about our possible futures which science makes available. The underlying view is that this both clarifies choices and helps to empower action, at all levels.
The one day Seeing Futures conference at Bristol’s University of the West of England (UWE), on Saturday, 13 November is being organised by the University’s Centre for Psycho-Social Studies, in association with their Institute for Sustainability, Health and the Environment.
Humans are responsible for the sixth great species extinction in our planet’s history, now taking place. But we tend to act as if we are unable to grasp that we are part of an interdependent, sensitive eco-system. Climate change both epitomises and dominates this picture.
Climate science is a complicated interdisciplinary scientific discipline. All good scientists are sceptics, but the proof of what is happening is now clear enough, and the broad picture and our choices clear. The block to ecologically informed living is a complex of ideological, political, economic and psychological factors, blending lethally into our very survival as a species.
Bristol’s Seeing Futures conference aims to contribute to this multi-layered task, combining the best scientific knowledge available, with the fullest possible understanding of the factors inhibiting necessary change, to find new visions and pathways to sustainability.
Dreaming of Environmental Sustainability in Bristol City-Region
by Paul Rainger
02 June 2010
Matthew Taylor, PhD researcher into the Environmental Sustainability of the Bristol City-Region, dreams of the future from his Totterdown window.
2010: The orange streetlit glow of the City of Bristol, viewed from the suburb of Totterdown on a cold and wintry January evening. Lighting, courtesy of electricity mass-generated from the combustion of coal, nuclear fission of uranium and the combustion of natural gas (methane). Inhabitants kept warm predominantly from on-site combustion of natural gas. Their food, water, medicine, cosmetics, clothes, furnishings and consumer goods have been produced, processed and/or transported through the use of various products of crude oil.
Now jump forward to 2050: This scene could look fairly similar or vastly different – the reality depends on a range of physical and political factors, the most compelling of which are likely to centre around the availability of crude oil fuel products.
The best cases being that either technological innovation has provided sufficiently abundant alternatives to oil and other fossil fuels to enable a continued global socio-economic existence, or that no convenient oil equivalent has been found but society has had enough time to adapt to a more localised, energy efficient way of life before oil is completely depleted. The worst case scenario on the other hand is that the oil decline is swift, climate change is increasingly destructive, planning has been inadequate, the market economy has effectively collapsed and no usable infrastructure exists to meet basic human needs.
It is within this context that the concept of environmental sustainability is being approached in my research. Food and warmth along with clean water and sanitation are essential for basic human needs. If technological innovation is unable to provide a suitable clean, abundant, mobile energy source capable of replacing liquid fossil fuels, then it is highly likely that food, fuel and products formerly imported using such energy will need to be produced locally. Therefore the local land surrounding Bristol City – that constituting the city-region county formerly known as Avon - would need to be relied upon to sustain the population with food, fuel, timber and minerals indefinitely. Environmental sustainability would be as crucial as it was before the industrial revolution.
This extreme re-localisation scenario could be viewed as one side of a future socio-economic scenario polemic relating to human scale. At the other end of this polemic is the technological innovation scenario, whereby a combination of efficiency measures and new technologies (such as nuclear fusion) has enabled the global economic system to continue. For this latter scenario still to be sustainable ‘indefinitely’, limits on consumption and high standards of environmental management would be required to ensure ecosystems globally are able to cope with resource demand and waste assimilation (pollution) and that non-renewable resources are not wasted, are recycled and are used sparingly.
Between these two poles lies a continuum of potential socio-economic sustainable lifestyles. As these two poles represent two very spatially different economic modes of activity, a study of the environmental sustainability of the Bristol city-region requires examination of both spatial scales in its methodology – the local and the global.
The design for my research has therefore been modelled to assess the quality and quantity of local natural resources to capture the local spatial scale of environmental sustainability from a ‘bioregional’ carrying capacity perspective, as well as to examine the flows of materials and energy into and out of the city-region to assess whether its ‘industrial metabolism’ is environmentally sustainable in a global context. The extent to which the city-region could be self-sustainable at defined levels of resource consumption and population can then be calculated, pressures causing negative impacts locally and globally examined, and future trends based on a ‘business as usual’ scenario predicted.
The second half of the research will be to examine several future scenarios in more detail. Much future scenarios visioning has been undertaken already for the Bristol City-Region, which will be drawn upon with reference to the human scale scenario model. An examination of how these visions can be achieved and at what pace would then be examined using backcasting from the year 2050, whilst at the same time factoring in natural resource depletion rates, rate of climate change and socio-political factors.
The research will be of help to those who are making valuable steps towards planning for a very different energy future than we have known over the last century.
You can read the full version of Matt’s journal article “Measuring the Environmental Sustainability of the Bristol City-Region: Current and Potential Scenarios” here.
How will city suburbs adapt to climate change?
by Paul Rainger
17 April 2010
The SNACC research project (Suburban Neighbourhood Adaption for a Changing Climate) seeks to answer the question: How can existing suburban neighbourhoods be best adapted to reduce further impacts of climate change and withstand ongoing changes?
Suburbs are the most common type of urban area in the UK, housing 84% of the population. The research focuses on adaptations to the built environment, through changes to individual homes and larger neighbourhood scale adaptations (urban re-design).
The project is seeking to identify successful adaptation and mitigation measures. These are classed as those that perform well technically (i.e. they protect people and property from climate change impacts and mitigate against further climate change) but are also those that are the most practical and acceptable for those who have to make them happen.
The project is using six neighbourhoods from three cities as case studies (Bristol, Oxford and Stockport). In these areas, key agents of change (e.g. home owners, elected members and planners) will help to determine successful adaptations.
The research team will use modelling tools (of climate change, house prices and adaptation outcomes, etc), that allow the participants to visualise what ‘adapted’ neighbourhoods will look like, and deliberative methods from social sciences, to generate a portfolio of adaptation strategies that are feasible, and fully endorsed by stakeholders. The research design, methods and range of collaborators reflect both the technical and socio-economic aspects of adaptation.
“This important research project’s outcomes will contribute, practically, to securing a sustainable future for the UK’s city suburbs in the face of climate change,”
says Dr Paul Rainger, Head of Forum For The Future’s Sustainable Bristol City-Region Programme, and member of the SNACC Project Advisory Board.
Cabot
Bristol University's Cabot Institute brings together world-class expertise, developing truly multidisciplinary research programmes to tackle the challenges of uncertain environmental change.
ISHE
The University of the West of England (UWE) Institute for Sustainability, Health and Environment aims to influence and increase integration in relation to policy creation and delivery at national and international levels.
Low Carbon South West
Low Carbon South West is the trade association and sector partnership promoting the growth of the environmental technologies and services sector in the South West of England.