Writtle University College and ARU have merged. Writtle’s full range of college, degree, postgraduate and short courses will still be delivered on the Writtle campus. See our guide to finding Writtle information on this site.

Climate action and cultural systems

This page is longer updated. For the latest information on GSI research, please visit our research page.

Water Efficiency in European Urban Areas (WE @ EU)



Rapid population growth can amplify the challenges facing a country, including risks surrounding water. We've partnered with four European regions on the WE @ EU water project.

Read more about the WE @ EU project.



Capital Markets Climate Initiative (CMCI)



CMCI is a public-private initiative set up by Greg Barker MP, Minister at the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change. It's designed to support the scale-up of private finance flows for low carbon technologies, solutions and infrastructure in developing economies by:



•developing a common understanding among policy makers of why and how public sector action can help mobilise private capital, and encourage new markets in low carbon investments



•demonstrating the potential impact of public sector action by developing and testing tailored financial and policy tools in specific partner country case studies to mobilise private capital.

Working Group 1 is chaired by Dr Aled Jones and has developed a set of principles for policy makers to enable a common understanding of what constitutes 'investment grade policy', with the aim of leveraging climate-friendly private finance. A set of working draft principles will be published in early 2012 for comment, discussion and testing among stakeholders.

Principal Investigator: Aled Jones

 GSI researchers: Aled Jones

Communication of climate science

How interested are the general public in climate science? Are there ways of improving communication by climate scientists, to allow people to better engage with the climate change debate?

This project, funded by members of the Living with Environmental Change consortium (the Met Office, DECC, DEFRA, and NERC) has involved running focus groups and polls with the general public. We're investigating how communication of climate science in the British media could be improved, and measuring current public opinion in a range of areas, such as levels of trust in scientists. A report of our findings will be published in 2012.

Principal Investigator: Emily Shuckburgh (British Antarctic Survey)

GSI researchers: Rosie Robison



Climate policy and business lobby comparative analysis



We'll explore the commonalities and differences between policy calls made by leading progressive business groups from around the world (such as the UK Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change and the US Climate Action Partnership).

Principal Investigators: Aled Jones and Nicolette Bartlett (Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership)

 GSI researchers: Aled Jones

Cleantech market development

Drawing on network and institutional theory, this project will investigate whether institutions and networks connecting the different sectors already exist in the cleantech market in the UK and Switzerland; and how governments, NGOs, financial institutions, investors and entrepreneurs have to act in order to establish and sustain growth in the business. In a fairly new industry, institutional change comes from a collective action, involving many of the economic players.

Principal Investigator: Zsuzsa Pogats

 GSI researchers: Zsuzsa Pogats (supervisors: Dr Mahmoud Al-kilani and Dr Aled Jonesa)

Cloud computing and hardware loads

An optimised and novel approach to an Autonomous Virtual Server Management System in a cloud computing environment. One key advantage of this system is its ability to improve hardware power consumption through autonomously moving virtual servers around a network to balance out hardware loads. This has a potentially important impact on issues of sustainability, with respect to both physical resource management and economic viability.

Principal Investigator: Razvan-Ioan Dinita

 GSI researchers: Razvan-Ioan Dinita (supervisors: Dr George Wilson, Adrian Winckles and Dr Aled Jones)



Green Deal trials



The Cabinet Office's Behavioural Insights Team, The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), published a paper, Behaviour Change and Energy Use, in June 2011. It announced five trials, three of which focus on testing interventions to increase uptake of energy efficiency measures in the domestic sector.

The Green Deal is the Coalition Government's flagship policy to increase the energy efficiency of buildings in the UK, reduce emissions from homes by 29% and help meet carbon reduction targets. It will enable households to install energy-efficient measures: from loft, cavity and floor insulation, to innovative hot water systems and solar PV at no upfront cost.

Three different incentive structures will be tested to evaluate the impact of incentives on overcoming the 'hassle factor' associated with loft clearance, and the impact of financial and community incentives on uptake of energy-efficiency measures in the home. We're contributing to the design of these trials with local authorities and the commercial sector to determine how best to increase uptake, and which incentives are most attractive.

Principle Investigator: Dr Candice Howarth

 GSI researcher: Dr Aled Jones



Climate change discourse



This research project explores climate change discourse in terms of scepticism and denial. It looks at the categories that researchers have suggested for categorising climate change deniers, and illustrates the extent to which current research has captured the variety of sceptics. It also explores the issues and contentions inherent in classifying sceptics, due to the nature and fluidity of beliefs which lead to overlapping of sceptic types - and the inherent disagreements that sceptics experience among themselves.

Principle Investigator: Dr Candice Howarth

CONNECT2020: CONsumer Networking towards the EU's Energy and Climate Targets 2020

Consumer 2020 is a strategic framework for the novel use of existing consumer ICT capabilities. It suggests filling out the framework with innovative, simple to deploy and powerful initiatives that can be implemented across the EU's member states within existing legal framework and business models.

Consumer 2020 focuses on maximising the use of existing schemes, and using ICT to disseminate information that influences behaviour change and ensures the EU's 2020 energy and climate targets are met with minimal legislation implemented.

CONNECT 2020 involves collaborative work with selected EU Directorates led by INFSO. It's assessing the extent to which the initiatives described in Consumer 2020 are on track, and will allow the EU to reach its 2020 energy and climate targets – as well as wider Europe 2020 targets of economic governance, smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.

Principle Investigator: Dr Candice Howarth



UK farmers' perceptions of climate change



We're currently working in collaboration with Sustainability East on a pilot project to develop an understanding of farmers' perceptions of climate change in the UK, as well as current mitigation and adaptation practices.

Principle Investigator: Dr Candice Howarth

Barriers to sustainable behaviour change and climate change communication

This theme is being investigated through a research project on the evolution of attitudes and stated behaviours at Anglia Ruskin University. This will involve surveying, at specific time intervals, the attitudes and stated behaviours of staff and student's at the University throughout their experience there. Attitude, behavioural and group segmentation profiles will be produced and the impact of external influences will also be evaluated.

GSI Researcher: Dr Candice Howarth