Enda presents ClairCity at IAPSC

Enda was invited to present at the Investigation of Air Pollution Standing Conference (IAPSC) on the ClairCity Project (4^th December 2017). Presenting to a room full of local authority officers, academics and air quality/environmental consultants, the ClairCity project was well received with a number of questions raised regarding public engagement and how to involve ‘hard-to-reach’ communities. A number of local authorities expressed an interest in becoming associated partners and learning more from the Bristol case study and wider ClairCity experience.

Enda speaking at Horizon 2020 Information Day

Enda was invited by EASME at the European Commission to Brussels to speak at a Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge 5 Information Day on Wednesday 8th and Thursday 9th November 2017. Enda will be speaking about the experience of putting together the consortium and proposal for the ClairCity Project (www.claircity.eu).

MOT project Outreach and Impact

Today, Tim will be attending the “Data, driven” event at the RAC Foundation to present work from UWE’s Motor vehicle Ownership and Trends in the UK (MOT) project www.MOTproject.net, alongside project colleagues Prof. Jillian Anable, Dr Sally Cairns and Prof. Eddie Wilson.

 

The event is launching a new report from the project that has been commissioned by the RAC Foundation.  The report, MOToring along: The lives of cars seen through licensing and test data, presents a vibrant and colourful look at some of the huge range of information and knowledge that the project has extracted from the MOT vehicle test data recent.y released by the Department for Transport (who were also project partners).   This event marks a soft launch of the report, prior to its full public launch next week.

 

In addition to today’s event at the RAC Foundation, Tim, Sally and Eddie also attended a workshop yesterday at the Department of Transport to provide support on the government’s work to use the MOT dataset to produce offical vehicle mileage statistics.

 

 

Tim invited to DfT Foresight Roundtable

On 28th September, Tim will be an invited participant at the DfT foresight Roundtable event in London on the Future of Mobility.

The Foresight Future of Mobility project aims to answer the question: 'What opportunities could the transport system of the future provide, and what are the implications for government and society?' The project has strong engagement with policymakers across government, with the aim of informing policy to make best use of new technologies with the potential to transform the UK transport landscape. The project has identified sustainability as an important driver of change in this area. The purpose of the roundtable is to explore the opportunities for innovation to deliver improved outcomes from the transport system, the barriers to implementation of these opportunities, and possible actions that can be taken to overcome these barriers. It forms part of a series of roundtables addressing other key areas of interest to the project.     

The AQMRC's initial response to the 'UK Plan for Tackling Roadside Nitrogen Dioxide Concentrations'

The AQMRC have set out their initial response with regards to the UK government's latest air quality plan.

The response can be found in full, here: http://www.claircity.eu/2017/08/03/uk-plan-for-tackling-roadside-nitrogen-dioxide-concentrations/

 


 
 

Jim delivers air quality keynote at the first CIEH air quality conference

Last week Jim had the pleasure of delivering a keynote at the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health’s first air quality conference.   The morning session of the conference discussed and critiqued the Government’s long-awaited plans to improve air quality in the UK through the draft revised UK Air Quality Plan for “Tackling   nitrogen dioxide in our towns and cities”.

 

You can view Jim’s presentation in UWE’s Research Repository at http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/32405/  or  read the short article he published on LinkedIn here    

 

A busy few months for Jim and the AQMRC

AQMRC’s Professor Jim Longhurst has had a busy few months sharing the research outcomes of AQMRC with various international audiences.  

In April, along with Dr Jo Barnes and Professor Carlos Brebbia he co- chaired the 25th International Conference on Modelling, Monitoring and Management of Air Pollution, organised by Wessex Institute of Technology, UWE Bristol and the University of Cadiz.  Read the conference report at http://www.wessex.ac.uk/conferences/2017/air-pollution-2017.  He delivered the conference opening keynote paper entitled “The Continuing Challenge of Managing Local Air Quality: a UK Perspective”.  Jo and Dr Ben Williams made presentations on their current work which were very well received.  The 26^th Modelling, Monitoring and Management of Air Pollution conference, organised by the Wessex Institute of Technology, UWE Bristol and the Parthenope University of Naples will be held at the Villa Doria d’Angri, Naples between 19 - 21 June 2018. Conference details are at  http://www.wessex.ac.uk/conferences/2018/air-pollution-2018,

In May, Jim attended the Clair City annual conference in Szentendrei, Hungary where he chaired the special session for the External Advisory board. He provided a concluding reflection on the conference themes and a horizon scan of the issues and challenges arising from interactions between air pollution, climate change and public health in the period to 2050. 

In June, he was invited to speak at a workshop in Essen organised by the World Bank’s  Pollution Management and Environmental Health team for the delegation from the  environmental protection administrative agencies in the Jingjinji Region of China. This region centred on Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei is home to some 100 million people.

Jim provided two contributions at the workshop, in the first he reviewed British air pollution control policies up to and including the 1956 Clean Air Act. In the second he considered contemporary UK air quality management issues and policies.

Read about the work of   the World Bank’s   Pollution Management and Environmental Health team here.  The site contains a useful set of resources.

Read about the Jingjinji Region  here

 

 

 

 

 

 

AQMRC Air Quality Consultation Response

The AQMRC have responded to Defra's latest consultation on 'Improving air quality: national plan for tackling nitrogen dioxide in our towns and cities'. Our response can be found here: http://www.claircity.eu/2017/06/16/partner-response-to-uk-government-consultation-on-clean-air/

  

 

 

Enda interviewed by Statistics Netherlands

Enda was interview by CBS - Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek [NL] or Statistics Netherlands on the ClairCity project. https://corporate.cbs.nl/#articleId=a597f74b-38b0-401f-8339-e046064ec99e-nl-nl

 

New paper by Tim on Practice Theory and Social Marketing

Tim has just had a paper published in the Journal of Social Business looking at interdisciplinary opportunities between social practice theory and social marketing.

 

The paper is written with colleagues Fiona Spotswood, Yvetter Morey and Sara Spear in the Faculty of Business and Law at UWE.

 

Spotswood, F., Chatterton, T., Morey, Y., & Spear, S. (2017). Practice-theoretical possibilities for social marketing: two fields learning from each other. Journal of Social Marketing, 7(2), 156-171.

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/JSOCM-10-2016-0057

 

Purpose

This paper aims to introduce key concepts from practice theory (PT) to the social change agenda and draw on the unique contributions of the social marketing field. PT has underpinned a growing stream of research in pro-environmental studies seeking to reduce impacts of particular behaviours, but it remains theoretical. By drawing on social marketing’s applied roots, this paper introduces a practice-theoretical intervention planning process (P-TIPP) which frames the unique contribution of social marketing in behaviour change and foregrounds practice- not individual-level change.

Design/methodology/approach

The P-TIPP draws on the total process planning model, introducing the concept of “practice as entity” and “practice as performance” to frame intervention planning tasks. The process locates the contribution of social marketing within a transdisciplinary framework which emphasises transforming collective conventions.

Findings

This is a conceptual paper, but the possibility for PT to make a significant contribution to the world of social marketing is outlined.

Research limitations/implications

P-TIPP is untested. Also, practices can be difficult to identify and somewhat abstract. Finally, it can be challenging to introduce the approach to policy, funding and practitioner procedures.

Practical implications

The implications of P-TIPP are that social change interventions are devised, underpinned and planned using insights from PT, such as the way behavioural patterns fit into broader understandings of practice. The subsequent social change agenda will be inherently transdisciplinary, sustainable and reduce focus on individual power to change.

Originality/value

This paper is a first attempt at exploring what PT, and social marketing can learn from each other for the future effectiveness of social change activity.

 

Tim speaking at ICE Big Debate tonight

Tonight Tim will be one of four speakers at the Institution of Civil Engineers annual 'Big Debate'.

This year's title is "A growing city is a polluting city: Will London always have an air quality problem?" 

5 June, 2017 | 18:30 - 20:00

About the Event

Air pollution is one of London's greatest environmental challenges. Nitrogen oxides and particulate matter emissions from road transport, domestic and commercial gas use, aviation and construction have led to a significant health risk to those living, visiting and working in the city. Up to 9,400 Londoners died prematurely due to toxic air in 2010 and the Capital continues to breach EU legal limits.

Some say that as a growing city, predicted to have 11 million residents by 2050, London will always face air quality issues. More people travelling around the city, increasing congestion on the road, a reliance on gas boilers in old building stock and high levels of construction activity have all contributed to poor air quality and are unlikely to change. Perhaps we have to accept that a growing city will always be a polluting city and instead focus our efforts on changing lifestyles to reduce exposure to pollutants. We can do this through monitoring pollution and keeping people away from the most polluted streets on days of particularly poor air quality.

On the other hand, some say that we can solve the problem. Through a mixture of incentives, such as vehicle scrappage schemes and disincentives, such as road user charges, we can have a city where growth does not come at the expense of the environment. We can change our construction methods, replace the most polluting vehicles and gas boilers and make new developments greener. It may take time, but with the correct policies, greater public awareness and buy-in from different sectors, London could finally solve its air quality problem.

The ICE London G&S Big Debate will present both sides of the argument, before asking you, the audience, who was most persuasive.

Speakers

Professor Peter Hansford, Chair of Construction and Infrastructure Policy, UCL

Chair.

For

Kathryn Woolley, Senior Air Quality Consultant, Hilson Moran

Tim Chatterton, Senior Research Fellow, University of West England

Against

Simon Birkett, Founder and Director, Clean Air in London

Rob Rule, Group Business Development Director, Hexadex

Tim speaking at running workshop at eceee summer study

From 29th May to 3rd June, Tim attended the eceee (European Council for and Energy Efficient Economy) summer study in Hyeres, France. He presented a paper (to a packed out room) on "Making your energy behaviour research relevant to policy" based on the experiences of having carried out two evidence reviews for DECC/BEIS.

REpresenting the ClairCity (Citizen Led Air Pollution Reduction in Cities www.ClairCity.eu), he also ran a workshop on transferring learning on behaviour from the energy sector to air quality management with Dr Sea Rotmann from International Energy Agency Demand Side Management programme Task XXIV and Theresa from Graz Energy Agency 

Ben discusses air pollution on Voice of Islam Breakfast Show

Ben discussed the global causes and consequences of air pollution with other contributors on the Voice of Islam Breakfast Show this morning. Also discussed briefly were the ways of improving air quality globally. The breakfast show podcast can be found here: http://voiceofislam.co.uk/podcasts/breakfast-show-podcast-23-05-2017/ in due course.
 
 

UWE ClairCity Team heading to Hungary

The UWE ClairCity team is heading to Hungary en masse to attend ClairCity project meetings and our first Annual Conference in Szentendre just north of Budapest. Jo, Laura and Corra are running training events for the project partners on social media and how to run the Delphi process. Jim is chairing a special session with the External Advisory Board. While, Enda, Tim and Andy are all presenting at the Conference and running dedicated work packages sessions. More details of the conference can be found here http://www.claircity.eu/2017/02/28/claircity-conference-agenda-released/. It should be an exciting three days!!

Enda interviewed by DESMOG UK

Enda was interview by DESMOG UK who were investigating funding cuts on the local authorities and the impact it has had on their ability to fulfil their LAQM responsibilities. Article can be found here - https://www.desmog.uk/2017/05/19/local-authority-air-pollution-reporting-failures

Tim to speak at Institution of Civil Engineers 'Big Debate'

Tim has been invited to participate in the Institution of Civil Engineers Big Debate where panellists are invited to argue for and against a topic. This year it will take place on Monday 5^th June 2017 from 18:30 to 20:00 in the Thomas Telford Theatre of One Great George Street. (see the link here: https://www.ice.org.uk/events/the-big-debate-a-growing-city-is-a-polluting-city)

The topic is 'A growing city is a polluting city: Will London always have an air quality problem?'.

AQMRC contributes to NERC/ASDC Workshop

Enda was invited by the Association of Science and Discovery Centres and NERC to an 'ideas charette' for a new initiative called Our Planet Earth. Funded by NERC, ASDC in association with Eden Project, Natural History Museum and Dynamic Earth are developing an inspirational and exciting national hands-on environmental science programme celebrating the science of the natural environment, the latest research and the scientists who make it happen, through activities and experiments for families and the wider public delivered through the UK's science and discovery centres and science museums. The ideas charette brought together people from a variety of backgrounds to come up with new ideas and to address specific questions including NERC scientists, university researchers as well as public engagement professionals from ASDC, Dynamic Earth, Eden Project, Natural History Museum and others. 

Enda gave a presentation on AQMRC research such as the NERC funded CADTIME, EndotoxII and Biomold projects and utilising props like the Bristol AQMA Floor Map, Enda demonstrated the approaches that AQMRC have utilised to communicate and engage the public. Enda and AQMRC hope to continue supporting the initiative as it develops in the coming months to ensure that air pollution is part of this exciting initiative. 

Tim giving presentation to Ricardo-AEA

On Wednesday 26^th April, Tim will be giving an ‘Airspot’ seminar at Ricardo-AEA, Harwell on the RCUK funded Motoring and vehicle Ownership and Trends (MOT) project (www.MOTproject.net)

 

 

Jo on ITV Westcountry News tonight

ITV Westcountry News will be reporting this evening in their 6 pm bulletin on air pollution and proximity to nursery schools. Jo was asked to contribute as an air quality expert to talk about the health effects and management options, in which she highlighted the ClairCity research AQMRC are currently involved in (www.claircity.eu).

Tim has invited piece in Nature-Energy

Nature-Energy has just published an invited “News and Views” piece by Tim.

 

The article “Public engagement: Building energy futures” discusses issues around the need for both greater public engagement and greater consideration of the social realm within the development of future climate and energy scenarios.  The piece is linked to a research article by Christina Demski and colleagues at Cardiff University which examines the influence of different framings in the use of the UK government’s 2050 calculator.

Tim’s article: http://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201730

Demski et al.’s article http://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201727

 

Everyday Futures essay in ACM Interactions journal

Tim has just had an essaypublished in the ACM journal Interactions.

The essay , co-written with Georgia Newmarch at Lancaster University, is titled “The Future is Already Here…It’s Just not Very Evenly Distributed”  is a quote from  sci-fi author William Gibson.  The essay twists the original intended sentence to examine how the rectification of current social inequalities needs to play a greater role in the development of future climate change and energy scenarios.

http://interactions.acm.org/archive/toc/march-april-2017

 

 

 

Ben speaks about air pollution in Welsh on S4C

Ben spoke about air pollution visibility on 'Newyddion 9', the Welsh language TV station S4C's 9 o'clock news programme on Tuesday. Huw Brunt, a PhD student within the AQMRC was also interviewed in his capacity as a Public Health Wales representative.

Jo on Radio Bristol re CAZ feasibility study

Jo was up early this morning for a live studio interview with Claire Cavanagh on BBC Radio Bristol talking about the £500k Defra Air Quality Grant that Bristol City Council have just been awarded to undertake a Clean Air Zone feasibility study. The programme will be available to listen again shortly for up to a month: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04s1bjb

Enda nominated as UK representative to LivAGE Cost Action

Enda has been nominated to be the UK representative on an EU COST Action on Ammonia and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Animal Production Facilities. http://www.cost.eu/COST_Actions/ca/CA16106. The main objective of LivAGE Action is to enhance international discipline cooperation for exchanging ideas and knowledge, sharing good practices, assess technologies that could result in reducing the emissions of GHGs and ammonia from livestock buildings and thus to lead to a more environmental friendly and sustainable livestock production. Some secondary objectives are the estimation of emission factors, the impact of the applied diets, prevailing microclimate and ventilation schemes on emissions, the assessment of integrated monitoring systems, the improvement of CFD applications, the assessment of mitigation techniques and the environmental analysis of the proposed techniques and solution. This action links with the recent work that Enda has been undertaking with University College Dublin for the Irish Environmental Protection Agency on the emissions of ammonia and its impact on Natura 2000 sites.

Media storm over EU 'final warning' on NO2 exceedences

Following the European Commission's announcement that they are progressing their legal proceedings against the UK government (and Spain, Italy, France and Germany), Jo was called upon to speak to the BBC on three occasions last week. First up was a live interview at the BBC Bristol studios for the Radio 4 Today programme, where Jo was interviewed alongside Matthew Pencharz (former Deputy Mayor of Environment) by Nick Robinson. The interview can still be caught on iPlayer (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08g96yn#play) at around 2:38 for the next 25 days. That evening, Jo was back to the BBC studios to record a TV interview for the regional evening news programme, Look North, as Hull was one of the areas listed in the 16 zones and agglomerations for which the government are in breach for not preparing action plans. The next day it was a pre-recorded interview via Skype for BBC Click on the use of personal monitors and the government inaction on air quality, which will be going out at Breakfast on 4th March (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08gml61).

New paper on Financial Implications of Car Ownership

 

Tim has just had a new paper published in Transport Policy in a special issue on Transport Poverty.

 

The paper is called “Financial Implications of Car Ownership and Use: a distributional analysis based on observed spatial variance considering income and domestic energy costs

 

Chatterton, T., Anable, J., Cairns, S. and Wilson, R. (2017) Financial implications of car ownership and use: A distributional analysis based on observed spatial variance considering income and domestic energy costs . Transport Policy. ISSN 0967-070X [In Press] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2016.12.007

 

The paper is an output from the Motoring and vehicle Ownership Trends (MOT) project led by Jillian Anable at ITS, Leeds www.MOTproject.net

 

·         If the paper is of interest, there is also a ‘follow-on’ conference paper with some additional analyses considering travel to work costs, and a segmented analysis based on  ONS Output Area Classifications. Chatterton, T., Anable, J., Cairns, S. and Wilson, R. (2016) Financial implications of car use and the drive to work: A social and spatial distributional analysis using income data and area classifications . In: DEMAND Conference 2016, Lancaster, UK, 13-15 April 2016. Available from: http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/28729

 

Abstract

This paper presents a new perspective on assessing the financial impacts of private car usage in England and Wales using novel datasets to explore implications of motoring costs (principally Vehicle Excise Duty and road fuel costs) for households as part of the overall costs of their energy budget. Using data from an enhanced version of the Department for Transport ‘MOT’ vehicle test record database, combined with data on domestic gas and electricity consumption from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (formerly the Department of Energy and Climate Change), patterns of car usage and consequent energy consumption are investigated, and the costs of Vehicle Excise Duty and road fuel examined as a proportion of total expenditure on household direct energy consumption. Through the use of these new datasets it is possible to analyse how these vary spatially and in relation to levels of median income. The findings indicate that motoring costs are strongly regressive, with lower income areas, especially in rural locations, spending around twice as much of their income on motoring costs as the highest income areas.

 

Jo on BBC Radio 4 World at One

Jo was interviewed by Martha Kearney on BBC Radio 4's World at One this lunchtime, discussing the recent air pollution episode in the UK. You can hear the clip on iPlayer (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0890kf8) from around 36:12 - 39:20.

Three papers at 49th UTSG Conference

Tim was involved in three papers presented at the 49^th Universities Transport Study Group conference held in Dublin in January.

 

The papers al related to aspects of work done within the EPSRC Motoring and vehicle Ownership Trends (MOT) project www.MOTproject.net

 

 

·         Phillips, I., Anable, J., Cairns, S., Emmerson, P. and Chatterton, T. (2017) A spatial typology of car usage and its local determinants in England . In: 49th University Transport Studies Group Conference, Dublin, Eire, 04-06 January 2017. Available from: http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/30781

·         Mattioli, G., Philips, I., Anable, J. and Chatterton, T. (2017) Developing an index of vulnerability to motor fuel price increases in England . In: 49th University Transport Studies Group Conference, Dublin, Eire, 04-06 January 2017. Available from: http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/30778

·         Morton, C., Anable, J., Wadud, Z. and Chatterton, T. (2017) Greening the fleet: A spatial analysis of the local and global emission factors of the car fleet of the United Kingdom . In: 49th University Transport Studies Group Conference, Dublin, Eire, 04-06 January 2017.

 

Tim presenting st LSx event on NICE guidance

On Monday 17th January, Tim will be giving a presentation and sitting on an expert panel on Air Quality and Behaviour' at a London Sustainability Exchange event discussing the recent NICE guidance on air quality.

http://www.lsx.org.uk/news/events.aspx?id=3747

Enda and ClairCity in the Horizon Magazine

Enda was interviewed before Christmas for the EU Horizon Magazine on the ClairCity project (www.claircity.eu). The article was just published and can be found here https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/reducing-air-pollution-begins-home-say-scientists_en.html

Tim participant at closed ESRC Behaviour Change workshop

On Wednesday 11^th January, Tim was an invited participant at the final event of the ESRC Behaviour Change seminar series http://www1.uwe.ac.uk/bl/research/csbci/esrcseminarseries.aspx

The central purpose of the seminar was to discuss, in a closed forum of people working at the interface of academia and policy, the nature of the evidence-policy problem in the field of ‘behaviour change’ and possible ways of moving towards a solution that met the needs of policy whilst also representing the wide range of academic approaches that are now engaged in the field.

 

It is hoped that the workshop will result in a number of publications aimed at a variety of audiences.