Rose and Jo present ECO Stars toolkit

Dr Rose Bailey and Jo Barnes presented their work on the Quantitative and Qualitative Assessment of the South Yorks ECO Stars scheme at the South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive, Sheffield last Wednesday.  The presentation and toolkit demonstration were very well received by an audience including the ECO Stars steering group, fleet operators, and David Pryke (DfT) and Robert Vaughan (Defra). This Q&QA work builds on one of the key recommendations from an Evaluation study that UWE undertook on the South Yorks ECO Stars scheme in 2011. For more details about the ECO Stars scheme visit their website http://www.care4air.org/archive/ecostars/index.html.

"Watch A City Decide Its Low-Carbon Future On This Awesome Website" - US magazine article on 'Future Bristol'

US Magazine 'Fast Company' interviewed Rose last Friday about her Future Bristol website and have published a great article on the project.
Have a read here: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682580/watch-a-city-decide-its-low-carbon-future-on-this-awesome-website

Future Bristol article by European Environment Agency

The European Environment Agency have published an article on their 'European Green Capital' webpages about Rose's 'Future Bristol: Low Carbon 2050' project. The article showcases the project as one of Bristol's citizen engagement activities, in support of the city's bid to be European Green Capital in 2015.

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/europeangreencapital/low-carbon-bristol/index.html

Future Bristol also features in Bristol's Green Capital bid film series, including this one on "Communications"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN3j6dRTTZQ

Don't forget to visit the site at http://www.futurebristol.co.uk
and have your say at engage.futurebristol.co.uk

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

AQMRC interviewed for BBC One's 'Bang Goes The Theory'

Last week Rose was interviewed by researchers for BBC One's 'Bang Goes The Theory' for a forthcoming episode on air pollution. The researchers behind the show were keen to understand more about how sources of air pollution have changed over time, from coal smoke and industrial pollution to the majority of problems today being traffic related.

 

'Bang Goes The Theory', "investigating the science behind the headlines and making sense of the everyday issues that matter to us all", is a popular science programme, shown on Monday nights on BBC One at 7.30pm http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lwxj1

 

The episode will be shown tonight http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s7twg.

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

AQMRC rolls out carbon support package for green SMEs

AQMRC have been working with South West SMEs on a range of carbon related business support activities through the Environmental Technologies iNet. Rose has been working one-on-one with selected companies to estimate the carbon emissions embedded in their products through lifecycle analysis and embedded carbon footprinting methods. This will help those companies with environmentally friendly products to capitalise on their green credentials, by being able to show commitment to environmental reporting and sustainability in their manufacturing and operations, as well as identify opportunities to further reduce their environmental impact and develop a carbon management strategy. It will also help emerging companies in meeting ever more stringent obligations placed on suppliers by major purchasers, themselves under increasing pressure to report environmental impacts.

For example, the results from one carbon assessment of an innovative new version of a product found that it:

• is responsible for 82% less carbon than the traditional product

• lasts four times as long as the traditional product, escalating the carbon saving to 95%

• has a transportation carbon impact of 97% less than the traditional product

• avoids 9.8 kg/CO₂e through the use of recycled materials

In addition to one-on-one support Rose, Enda and the Environmental iNet team also ran a two-day workshop on the carbon assessment of products, including lifecycle analysis, business incentives for reporting emissions, and ensuring legitimate 'green claims'. Businesses that attended varied from construction, biocrops, high-tech engineering to a zoo, but all went away with a bespoke lifecycle analysis carbon assessment inventory and toolkit and a framework for calculating the emissions from their products. 

The workshop was very popular and fully subscribed so will be running again soon – watch this space.

PhD Graduation ceremony

Mofolosu Fagbeja, Simon Baldwin and Rose Bailey were yesterday (26th July 2012) awarded their Doctor of Philosophy degrees at the UWE Graduation Ceremony held at Bristol Cathedral. Their supervisors and AQMRC colleagues were delighted to help them celebrate their well-earned successes and wish them all the best in their future endeavours.

Drs Mofoluso Fagbeja, Rose Bailey and Simon Baldwin

FET Doctoral Exchange

On 2nd July the Faculty of Environment and Technology held its annual Doctoral Exchange conference. Three AQMRC PhD students presented their work at the conference.

Rose Bailey's  presentation summarised her completed doctoral research, Jo Barnes presentation reported on her progress approximately half way through  her PhD whilst David Williams' poster presentation set out the context and preliminary results from his  work.

Many congratulations to David, Jo and Rose on their excellent contributions to the Doctoral Exchange Conference.

PhD Successes

AQMRC is delighted to announce that Rose Bailey, Simon Baldwin and Mofoluso Fagbeja will be awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the UWE Graduation Ceremony to be held in Bristol Cathedral on the 26th of July.

Very many congratulations to Rose, Simon and Mo on this deserved success.

Look out for the photographs from the graduation ceremony which  we will post at the end of the month.

Rose's paper included in European Commission 'Science for Environmental Policy' news bulletin

Rose's recent paper published in the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, entitled 'Exploring a city's potential low carbon futures using Delphi methods: some preliminary findings', was selected for inclusion in this week's 'Science for Environmental Policy' news alert.
Science for Environmental Policy is a free news and information service published by Directorate-General Environment, European Commission. It is designed to help the busy policymaker keep up-to-date with the latest environmental research findings needed to design, implement and regulate effective policies. 
More information on Rose's research can be found on her webpage.

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

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. (2012) Exploring a city’s potential low carbon futures using Delphi methods: some preliminary findings. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management (In Press.)

Rose’s paper is now available online, at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09640568.2011.635192

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.

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.

Workshop held to discuss the low carbon futures for the Bristol region

A workshop discussing the outputs of a year-long Delphi consultation process on the Low Carbon Futures for the Bristol Region was held on Friday 22nd July at UWE. A number of key stakeholders from the Bristol region attended, from Local Authorities, Businesses, and other public, private and third sector organisations. Participants carried out a 'backcasting' exercise for two possible scenarios for a low carbon Bristol region in 2050, discussing the emission and policy trajectories necessary to bring about the scenarios.

This workshop was the final part of Rose's PhD research project, investigating the low carbon futures for the Bristol Region. More about the Rose's research can be found here: http://www.uwe.ac.uk/aqm/rose.html

The outputs from the workshop will be available shortly on the research page, at: http://www.uwe.ac.uk/aqm/rosesresearch.html

Rose and Jo present at IUAPPA 2010

Rose Bailey and Jo Barnes presented their research at the 15th IUAPPA World Clean Air Congress on 12th - 16th September 2010.

Rose presented City-scale Carbon Management: An Innovative Methodology for Imagining a Low Carbon Future in the Urban Sustainability Issues session, which she also chaired. Jo presented Reframing the United Kingdom's Air Quality Management Challenge: From Diagnosis to Solutions in the Approaches to Environmental Management session. Jo was also asked to present on What Scope is there for Demand Management to Deliver Better Urban Air Quality Environments in the Special Session: Greener Transport in a Post-Recession World.

The presentations were well received and generated a lot of interesting debate.

Visit the IUAPPA website and download the book of abstracts and the conference presentations.

For further information on Rose's and Jo's research, please email rosemary.bailey@uwe.ac.uk and jo.barnes@uwe.ac.uk respectively or visit their webpages: http://www.uwe.ac.uk/aqm/rose.html and http://www.uwe.ac.uk/aqm/jo.html.