Climate strikes: the challenge to research
An estimated 2,000 school pupils and their supporters joined in a growing world-wide movement by holding a ‘climate strike’ in the centre of Oxford on Friday 15 February, and there were similar events in other cities across the UK.
Thinking about stakeholder engagement: how to make it different and how to make it work
Jacopo Torriti and Sue Flanders talk about why engaging with stakeholders in a meaningful way matters and why careful planning and thinking through the needs of our stakeholders was essential to the success of our event.
Reducing energy demand from non-domestic buildings (part 1)
It’s rather unfashionable to say this, but UK climate policy is a success story. Emissions have fallen 43% below 1990 levels thanks, in part, to energy efficiency in the household and industrial sectors. However this success has a downside because cost-effective “low lying fruit” measures such as condensing boilers and double glazing that contributed to these reductions are reaching market saturation.
Impact, what impact?
CREDS Knowledge Exchange Manager, Kay Jenkinson, talks about how researchers can demonstrate impact. However, drawing the lines between research outputs and a policy decision or social innovation that is distant in time and sometimes (intellectual) space is, frankly, far from straightforward.
Interview with Professor John Barrett
CREDS researcher Jenny Crawley interviews Professor John Barrett (who leads our materials and products work) on the focus of his research and his work with policy makers to ensure research findings are disseminated.
Response to Committee on Climate Change report, UK housing: Fit for the future?
The Centre for Research into Energy Demand Solutions (CREDS) is undertaking research that directly tackles the priorities identified by the recent CCC report, UK housing: Fit for the future?
How energy transitions revolutionised lives and now make it so hard to deal with climate change
Even in the face of catastrophic climate and health damage, as highlighted recently by the IPCC 1.5℃ report, why is it so hard for us to break our energy consumption ‘habits’?
Home Futures & Living with Buildings
Two home living exhibitions were recently visited by CREDS researchers. Energy was not featured explicitly in either exhibition – a challenge to CREDS and the wider research community to ensure that future exhibitions about buildings and people take energy and materials use more seriously.
Getting home insulation right
Done well, home insulation offers many benefits. It helps people achieve comfort at lower cost, lowers energy use and carbon emissions. However, done badly, it can have very negative effects.
Energy efficiency in buildings: interview with Cliff Elwell
Cliff Elwell, CREDS buildings theme co-investigator and project lead, talks about his work at UCL on energy efficiency in buildings (interview by Mike Fell).
Love thy neighbour? Maybe you should be able to sell them thine energy
In this post CREDS/UCL researcher Michael Fell outlines his work on blockchain-enabled energy retail markets and what they might mean for people and society.
IPCC report: Energy demand can help meet 1.5°C challenge while also delivering wellbeing & ecosystem benefits
On Monday 8th October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its report on the impacts of global warming 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The CREDS mission of transforming energy demand is more relevant than ever.
Banner photo credit: Jack Cain on Unsplash