Future Bristol entered into 'Best Climate Practices' competition

The 'Future Bristol' project has been entered into an international competition by the 'Best Climate Practices Observatory' of The International Center for Climate Governance (ICCG). 

Future Bristol competition entry page

The theme of this year's competition is "Climate Change and Urban Resilience. How to prepare our cities to respond to climate changes related challenges". The competition aims to gather innovative responses, projects and 'best practices' on urban climate change, by institutions, scientists, think tanks, researchers and the general public, and are assessed on:

• Feasibility of the actions proposed by the practice
• Replicability potential of the practice described
• Originality of the practice’s ideas
• Likely impact on climate change adaptation and mitigation actions

The award will be judged by an expert panel, in addition to a 'Users Choice' award. Users can vote for their favourite submission using the 'rate' tab on the green box at the bottom. Please give Future Bristol a vote! 

Future Bristol competition entry page

Future Bristol website is award-winning!

The 'Future Bristol' website has only been live a month but has already won several accolades! These include: 

• CSS Design Award: winner 24th February 2013 ("a living archive of the world's greatest websites and an inspirational showcase celebrating emerging talent.")
• 'Smashing Award' ("for design, creativity and innovation on the Internet, which recognize and promote the best web, flash, print, logo designers in the world.")
• Nominee for best website by Awwward ("recognition & prestige for web designers")
• Special mention in the online magazine Abduzeedo's 'sites of the week'. 

'Future Bristol' has also been featured online by The Ecologist Magazine, the Institution of Environmental Sciences, and used as a case study for online public engagement by Delib. 

Rose has also lectured on her use of creative, digital and social media for public engagement to UWE students, presented the project at a recent seminar at UWE on 'Achieving Energy Efficiency' with guest speaker Pat Murray from the New Zealand government, and visited a local primary school to explore their visions and concerns for Future Bristol.

Congratulations to Rose on successful SPUR5 application

Rose has been successful in winning a SPUR5 grant from UWE for her project entitled "‘Future Bristol’: exploring public views on low carbon futures through art and digital media". This project builds on current public engagement work via the recently launched website www.futurebristol.co.uk

The interactive website was created with the support of the Institution of Environmental Sciences, Bristol City Council and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership. The two scenarios depicted on the site are based on the results of Rose's PhD, which explored possible low carbon futures for the Bristol region in 2050.

This research project, starting in August, seeks to understand how the public perceives, comprehends and engages with the notion of Bristol as a low carbon city in 2050, by exploring responses to the scenarios and website, and aims to answer the following research questions:

• How do different groups engage with and respond to alternative visions for a low carbon future?
• Which options and features of low carbon futures are popular/unpopular? What additional ideas are elicited by the public engagement process
•  Are creative media and web tools effective for engaging and communicating low carbon futures?

Rose will be using the results of this research to support a bid to the ESRC Knowledge Exchange Opportunities Scheme later in the year to further develop research and engagement activity in Bristol around low carbon futures.

'Future Bristol' website launched!

The 'Future Bristol' website has launched!

'Future Bristol' is an interactive website aimed at engaging the public with the concept of Bristol as a low carbon city in 2050. It presents two alternative possible scenarios for the city in 2050, developed through a large Delphi consultation with key stakeholders in the Bristol region as part of Rose's PhD research. Visitors to the site are encouraged to explore the two scenarios, cast their votes on different features of each, and have their say by joining the discussion on the Dialogue page.

Thanks to the 2012 John Rose Award grant from the Institution of Environmental Sciences, and with additional support from Bristol City Council and Green Capital Partnership, Rose was able to commission illustrations of the two scenarios and an interactive website to allow the results of her research to be communicated in an accessible, engaging and user-friendly way. 

The 'Future Bristol' website also forms a key part of the public engagement and communications strategy for Bristol's 2015 European Green Capital bid, and will be developed into a larger research project over the next year.

Go online, explore and have your say!

Funding success for 2050 Low Carbon Bristol public engagement project

Rose's 2050 Low Carbon Bristol public engagement project is gaining momentum as more funding is secured to support communication activities and a further research bid.

Rose was the 2012 winner of the IES 'John Rose Award', to communicate the result of postgraduate research to the general public. Rose commissioned local street artist Andy Council to produce two visual representations of the future low carbon scenarios for Bristol from her PhD research. 

Scenario X (left) and Scenario Y (right)
©Andy Council 2012

Rose will be using these images as the basis of a public consultation and 'Dialogue' with the public, using an app from local digital democracy company Delib, and has now secured additional support and £2000 funding from the Green Capital Partnership's Community Challenge Fund to design and build some new interactive webpages as part of their redesigned website. 

Rose also yesterday secured a further £3500 of HEAT@UWE bidding funding, to support the development of a bid for external funding for an interdisciplinary research project. This will allow Rose to extend this initial phase of communication and engagement work into a larger and research project.

Visualising Bristol's low carbon futures: John Rose Award public engagement project underway

Thanks to the 2012 John Rose Award grant from the Institution of Environmental Sciences and support from Bristol City Council, Rose's low carbon Bristol public engagement art project is under way.
Rose's PhD research consulted a large group of key local stakeholders about how Bristol might meet it's 80% carbon reduction target in 2050, producing 2 different scenarios for the city. To communicate the results in an engaging way to the Bristol public, Rose is working with local street artist Andy Council to produce visual interpretations of these two difference scenarios. The public will then be able to submit their thoughts and ideas on Bristol's low carbon future through local digital democracy company Delib's 'Dialogue app'.
The first sketches of the two scenarios have been finished, with the final images coming soon. Watch this space for the opportunity to have your say!

"Scenario X": a globalised, high-tech big-tech, 'low carbon business as usual' future

"Scenario Y": a re-localised, high-tech small-tech, 'resilient restructured community' future

Rose wins the 2012 John Rose Award from the Institution of Environmental Sciences

Rose has been announced as the 2012 winner of the John Rose Award from the Institution of Environmental Sciences, for her research exploring the low carbon futures for the Bristol region. The award aims to help exceptional research fulfil its potential by communicating it beyond the scientific community. A £1,000 grant is awarded to a project that demonstrates innovative, quality research in environmental sciences. The grant will be used for media training and the dissemination of the winner’s project, aiding in promoting the work as widely as possible and so maximise its value.

Rose intends to use the grant, with support from project partners Bristol City Council and in collaboration with the Create Centre, to produce an exhibition of her work, and hopes to collaborate with UWE's award winning animation department to produce an animation of life in 2050 low carbon Bristol!

More information on the award can be found here: http://www.ies-uk.org.uk/awards/awards.php

More information on Rose and her research can be found here: http://www.uwe.ac.uk/aqm/rose.html

Academy of Science of South Africa workshop “Pathways towards a low carbon city” papers published

Papers presented at the Academy of Science of South Africa workshop “Pathways towards a low carbon city”, held at the UNFCC Conference of the Parties, Durban South Africa on 5 December 2011, are now available at  http://www.assaf.org.za/environment-energy-and-water/

• International initiatives on low carbon cities - Prof Jim Longhurst, University of the West of England
• Cities GHG emissions, inventorying and comparisons - Dr Shobhakar Dhakal, Global Carbon  Project                 
• Sustainable urban infrastructure to achieve a low carbon city – Prof Anu Ramaswami, University of Colorado Denver
• Climate change initiatives in the city of Durban – Dr Sean O’Donoghue, eThekwini Municipality
• Towards a Low Carbon City: focus on Durban – Prof Roseanne Diab,  ASSAf
• Opportunities for greening the buildings and industries – Dr Francis Yamba, University of Zambia
• Low carbon planning in cities – Prof Dave Dewar, University of Cape Town

Cop 17 ASSAf workshop

Professor Jim Longhust will be attending the ASSAf workshop Durban, December 5th 2011, Pathways towards a low carbon city next week.  He will be presenting on 'International initiatives on low carbon cities' and facilitating a workshop to discuss 'Should developing cities strive to be low carbon?'.

The agenda is now available at http://www.uwe.ac.uk/aqm/files/ASSAf%20programme_Pathways%20towards%20LCCs_CCR%20Expo_5%20Dec.pdf.

UNFCCC CoP 17

Jim Longhurst will be attending the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties 17 meeting in Durban, South Africa.

Jim will be a member of the Academy of Science  of South Africa Delegation and will speak at the CoP side event workshop “Pathways Towards Low Carbon Cities”

Carbon Aware Cities: CATCH Final Conference, 13 December 2011, Bristol, UK

The CATCH project is holding its final conference on 13 December 2011 in the University of West of England in Bristol, UK. This EU FP7 project conducted ground-breaking research into how information about climate change and transport should be communicated, and has developed an online knowledge platform designed to facilitate an holistic view of transport in order to better communicate the need for low carbon transport systems, and plan for the low carbon transport future.

The final conference will present research from the project, and present the CATCH knowledge platform in the context of a variety of co-benefits that a low carbon transport will bring to health, safety, the economy and to planning. It will be demonstrated how the CATCH knowledge platform links to these different areas by providing information and improving communication between the general public and transport professionals. Presentations from experts from different fields will also detail the wider benefits of a low carbon transport future.

Who will attend?
- Transport professionals interested in low carbon transport systems: city representatives, public transport operators, consultants, and others.
- Climate change experts with an interest in transport.
- Professionals from other disciplines which can benefit from low carbon transport systems: for example from health or civil society.

Registration
It is free to attend the conference, but places are limited and registration is required.
To cover our costs, if you register and do not attend and do not inform us by 9th December 2011, then you will be charged 100 EURO (see terms and conditions).

Conference web page, including registration: http://www.carbonaware.eu/events/catch-final-conference.html

Draft programme: http://www.carbonaware.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/IG_meeting/Final_event/Programme_and_travel_CATCH_conference.pdf

Contact
For more information, contact Anna Clark (aclark@polisnetwork.eu)

Forthcoming publication in the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management

Bailey, R., Longhurst, J.W.S., Hayes, E.T., Hudson, L., Ragnarsdottir, K.V., and Thumim, J. (Forthcoming) 'Exploring a city’s potential low carbon futures using Delphi methods: some preliminary findings'. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management


The paper discusses the results from the first round of Delphi questionnaire survey that Rose undertook with a large expert group, to create scenarios for a low carbon 2050 Bristol region.
More information about Rose's research can be found on her webpage here.

Academy of Science of South Africa Low Carbon Consensus Panel report published

The Academy of Science of South Africa Low Carbon Consensus Panel has now published their report Towards a Low Carbon City. AQMRC Director Jim Longhurst served on the panel and the full report can accessed at http://www.assaf.org.za/2011/08/durban-on-a-pathway-towards-a-low-carbon-city/

Full reference details are as follows:

Academy of Science of South Africa (2011) Towards a Low Carbon City. Focus on Durban. Report of the ASSAf Consensus Study on Low Carbon Cities. ASSAf, Pretoria, South Africa. pp263 ISBN 97809869835-4-2

Environmental Trade Show UK - UWE Exhibition & Conference Centre - 13th October 2011

The best place to network and learn about Low Carbon business in the UK

Sponsored by the Environmental Technology iNets, bookings are now being taken for Environmental Trade Show UK (ETS UK), a major international environmental trade show and conference taking place at the UWE Exhibition & Conference Centre on 13th October. The largest event of its kind in the South West, it will bring together the best in environmental and low carbon goods and services. With over 200 exhibitors and over 1,000 visitors expected, it is the perfect opportunity to showcase the best and brightest businesses and technologies. Click here to find out about opportunities for your business.

Save the Date – 13th October 2011

http://www.environmentaltradeshow.co.uk/

Dube Aerotropolis site visit

Dr Enda Hayes and Rose Bailey, from the AQMRC, and their colleague in the Department for Geography and Environmental Management, Dr Chad Staddon, are visiting the site of the Dube Aerotropolis near Durban this week. AQMRC has been appointed to assist Dube Tradeport and Tongaat Hulett Developments to prepare a Framework for Sustainability to input into the preparation of the Dube Aerotropolis Regional Development Strategy. This initial site visit will enable the team to see for themselves the scope of the project and allow them to initiate baseline calculations to assist in creating this major new low-carbon development.

Low Carbon Cities Consensus Panel. Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)

Jim has recently returned from a visit to South Africa (3-9th October) where he attended the second meeting of the Academy of Science of South Africa’s Low Carbon Cities Consensus Panel. As part of his contribution to the work of the Panel, Jim and AQMRC colleagues prepared a review of carbon management plans and strategies that are being implemented in European capital cities. The overall goal of the ASSAf study is to identify key areas of intervention that would position the city of Durban on a pathway towards a low carbon future. The study has been commissioned by the Environmental Management Unit of the eThekwini Municipality (City of Durban) and the panel is led by the Executive Officer of ASSAf, Prof Roseanne Diab. The study is financially supported by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) See http://www.assaf.co.za/?page_id=998 for further details.

Low Carbon Cities

Professor Jim Longhurst is contributing to South Africa's moves towards a low carbon future. He has been invited by the Academy of Science of South Africa to serve on its high-profile Consensus Panel for Low Carbon Cities. The Panel held its first meeting in Pretoria, South Africa in February. The panel consists of international experts, including Professor Longhurst, together with experts from South Africa. During the next 18 months the panel will address mitigation and adaptation measures appropriate to South Africa, and to make recommendations based on evidence to support the national government's commitment to transition to a low-carbon economy. Professor Robin Crewe, President of the Academy of Science of South Africa said "Professor Longhurst has been invited to serve on this panel because of his expertise in the field." At the first meeting of the panel Jim presented a paper entitled 'Low Carbon Initiatives in British Cities'.