On 27th and 29th September, Tim has been invited to attend an event in Rotterdam hosted by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment on
‘Behaviour in Sustainable Mobility and Logistics’. The conference, held aboard the SS Rotterdam cruiseship, is co-organised by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research and supported by the European Commission.
On Monday 26th September, Tim will be giving a presentation at Public Health England’s annual air pollution review meeting. His presentation on will be on “Putting people at the heart of Air Quality Management – developing a more social approach to emissions analysis and reduction” and will introduce work from the UWE projects Motoring and vehicle Ownership Trends in the UK (MOT www.MOTproject.net) funded by EPSRC and Citizen Led Air Pollution Reduction in Cities (ClairCity www.ClairCity.eu) funded by EU H2020.
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Dr Tim Chatterton
Senior Research Fellow
Air Quality Management Resource Centre
Faculty of Environment and Technology
University of the West of England
Frenchay Campus
Bristol
BS16 1QY
Tel: 0117 328 2929
Fax: 0117 328 3360
Email: Tim.Chatterton@uwe.ac.uk
Whilst in Portugal, Tim visited colleagues at Aveiro University to discuss the ClairCity project (www.ClairCity.eu) and whilst there gave a lecture to staff and students on “Energy, Air Quality, Climate and Citizen Behaviour”
Tim has been at the university in Coimbra, Portugal on energy behaviour business.
On Wednesday 7th September, he was an invited participant at the International Energy Agency Demand Side Management Task XXIV (Behaviour Change) workshop http://www.ieadsm.org/task/task-24-phase-2/
On Thursday and Friday he attended ‘Behave 2016’, the 4th European Conference on Behaviour and Energy Efficiency (http://www.uc.pt/en/org/inescc/org_scientific_events/behave2016) where he gave a presentation on work from the MOT project (www.MOTproject.net) on “Linking Household Energy Consumption from Domestic Gas and Electricity with Energy Consumed by Private Motor Vehicles”
On 14th/15th July, Tim participated in a workshop at Lancaster University on ‘Everyday Futures’ http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/everydayfutures/
The workshop established a pan-European network of 21 researchers from a wide range disciplines who are all looking at aspects of how day-to-day life may change as time progresses.
The theme of the network ties in very closely with Tim’s work at UWE on the Horizon 2020 CLAir-City project (www.claircity.eu).
A series of essays on Everyday Futures arising from the workshop will be published online in September.
Tim is involved in two presentations and a workshop for the MOT project (www.MOTproject.net) at the PTRC annual Transport Practitioners Meeting in Nottingham on Thursday 30th June.
The presentations will cover both a basic overview of the data, and how it can be used to link transport with both air pollution and energy agendas. The workshop explore how the data and project findings can be made most accessible to end users.
https://www.ptrc-training.co.uk/Events/TPM2016.aspx
Jo and Tim have just had a paper on mapping household energy consumption published in Energy Research and Social Science. The paper is another output from the MOT (Motoring and vehicle Ownership Trends in the UK) project www.MOTproject.net.
The paper takes new datasets from the Department for Transport and Department of Energy and Climate Change and uses it to map and analyse patterns of energy use from domestic gas and electricity and from private vehicle use.
Then, based on identified inequalities in energy consumption and spatial structural determinants, it poses the question “Can we identify the difference between ‘energy decadence’ and ‘high energy need’?”
Highlights
• Analysis of new UK datasets based on over 70 million domestic energy meters and vehicle odometers.
• New spatial analyses of household direct energy consumption, through gas, electricity and private car use.
• Investigation of high energy consuming areas in terms of ‘choice’ or ‘need’.
• Assessment of greater capabilities of high energy consumers to reduce energy consumption.
• Recommendations for policy to target high energy consumers on the basis of principles of equity and justice.
The paper is open access.
Chatterton, T., Anable, J., Barnes, J. and Yeboah, G. (2016) Mapping household direct energy consumption in the United Kingdom to provide a new perspective on energy justice. Energy Research & Social Science. ISSN 22146296 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2016.04.013
Abstract:
Targets for reductions in carbon emissions and energy use are often framed solely in terms of percentage reductions. However, the amount of energy used by households varies greatly, with some using considerably more than others and, therefore, potentially being able to make a bigger contribution towards overall reductions. Using two recently released UK datasets based on combined readings from over 70 million domestic energy meters and vehicle odometers, we present exploratory analyses of patterns of direct household energy usage. Whilst much energy justice work has previously focussed on energy vulnerability, mainly in low consumers, our findings suggest that a minority of areas appear to be placing much greater strain on energy networks and environmental systems than they need. Households in these areas are not only the most likely to be able to afford energy efficiency measures to reduce their impacts, but are also found to have other capabilities that would allow them to take action to reduce consumption (such as higher levels of income, education and particular configurations of housing type and tenure). We argue that these areas should therefore be a higher priority in the targeting of policy interventions.
Thousands of people across Europe will be invited to share their views on how to reduce air pollution and improve public health in six cities as part of a multi-million pound project featuring the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol).
In an innovative approach to addressing air quality, residents will use a specially-created game on their smartphones, tablets and laptops to suggest how their home cities should develop in future.
Responses gathered from players will form a 'people's vision' spelling out to civic leaders exactly how the cities should be shaped over the next 35 years – and what measures need to be taken to improve air quality, reduce CO2e emissions and diminish negative health effects.
Named CLAiR-City, the four-year project which kicked-off in Bristol last month, features 16 partners including the pilot cities of Bristol; Amsterdam; Aveiro, in Portugal; Ljubljana, in SIovenia; Sosnowiec, in Poland; and the Liguria region in Italy.
UWE Bristol's Dr Enda Hayes, Technical Director of CLAiR-City, said a bold approach was being taken because all other efforts were struggling to combat air pollution, a problem responsible for the deaths of more than 400,000 people in Europe every year.
Up to a third of Europeans living in cities are exposed to pollutant levels exceeding EU air quality standards, with approximately 90 per cent affected according to the World Health Organization's more stringent guidelines.
Dr Hayes, an Associate Professor and Director of the Air Quality Management Resource Centre (AQMRC) at UWE Bristol, said: "Air quality management is failing in many cities around the world. This is an exciting and innovative project to try to address one of the key issues – how do you empower citizens to define their own solution?
"Using game technology as an engagement platform means everyone's voice and opinion is valued. If you run traditional workshops or surveys it can be that the quiet voices get lost and the reach can be limited. With our game, everyone's voice is equal and we can all be experts on our own city."
Funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 programme, the project is aimed at creating a major shift in public understanding towards the causes of poor air quality – encouraging a focus on people's everyday practices like commuting and shopping rather than technology such as cars, buses and HGVs.
Dr Hayes said: "To date, air quality policy has primarily been focussed on technology and technological solutions. Instead of apportioning the pollution to the technology (e.g. cars), this project will apportion it to people and our behaviour (e.g. why do we use our cars).
"By apportioning pollution to behaviour and practises, we want to give people a better understanding of how their behaviour generates pollution. If they change their behaviour it can have a substantial impact on a city. The innovation lies in how we are bringing social science into our data analysis and then engaging city citizens with that data to help them visualise and define their city's future."
The game, being developed by UWE's in-house gaming studio PlayWest, will give the player the chance to outline how they would like to live, behave and interact in their city up to 2050. Responses from players will lead to the creation of a 'citizen-led future city scenario' which will be delivered to city leaders as a 'policy package' document setting out what changes they would eventually like to see introduced.
Dr Hayes said: "We wanted to empower citizens to define their futures and use that to influence policy. We are using game technology to engage a wider population and to envision what a city looks like in 2050 so the project is particularly relevant to younger people.
"Also involved in the project is UWE Bristol's Science Communication Unit, whose internationally-recognised expertise in public engagement and dissemination will help enhance the reach of the study."
The project will also involve detailed data and policy analysis, with a study of existing evidence on themes such as energy and transport at a local, national and European level. It will explore six cities in detail but will also generate data which could be utilised by all EU cities with a population of more than 50,000.
The 16 partners include universities, cities, small and medium sized enterprises and research organisations.
Ten members of staff from UWE Bristol – which has received over £980,000 (€1.25m) of the total funding - will be involved including members of the Air Quality Resource Management Resource Centre, Science Communication Unit and PlayWest.
Jeroen van der Laan, of economic policy consultancy Trinomics, the project coordinator, said: "We are very excited to start implementing our CLAiR-City project over the next four years with the excellent group of Europe's leading research organisations and frontrunner cities we have in our consortium. CLAiR-City will develop innovative approaches and means of communication to inform European citizens about the air quality in their cities and engage them in forming ideas and pathways on how their living environment should look like in 2050."
UWE's Assistant Vice Chancellor for Environment & Sustainability, Professor Jim Longhurst, said: "CLAiR-City is a great example of how different expertise can be blended together across the university, and indeed Europe, to build imaginative and effective responses to the profound environmental and public health challenges we face."
Citizen Led Air pollution Reduction in Cities (CLAiR-City) Consortium Members:
1. Trinomics B.V. (Project Coordinator - Netherlands)
2. University of the West of England, Bristol (Technical Lead - UK)
3. Statistics Netherlands (Netherlands)
4. Technical University of Denmark (Denmark)
5. Norwegian Institute for Air Research (Norway)
6. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Netherlands)
7. REC Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe (Hungary)
8. Techne Consulting (Italy)
9. Transport & Mobility Leuven (Belgium)
10. University of Aveiro (Portugal)
11. Municipality of Amsterdam (Netherlands)
12. Bristol City Council (UK)
13. Intermunicipal Community of Aveiro Region (Portugal)
14. Liguria Region (Italy)
15. Municipality of Ljubljana (Slovenia)
16. Sosnowiec City Council (Poland)
On Tuesday 3rd May, Tim will be giving a presentation to the Centre on Innovation and Energy Demand at Sussex University.
The talk, titled 'Energy Consumption from Private Motor Vehicles - Exploring a rich new dataset' will present an overview of the EPSRC funded Motoring and vehicle Ownership and Trends (MOT) project.
http://cied.ac.uk/engagement/newsandevents/events?id=35193
