This briefing provides a summary of key findings and highlights recommendations, grounded in past experience, to give concrete form to the current government’s priority of resetting relationships with Europe.
Nowadays, people in the Global North spend most of their time indoors (80-90%). Indoor air pollution has therefore become a major health concern and is increasingly recognised as an issue of environmental and social justice. Vulnerability to indoor air pollution is often interrelated with the health impacts of living in a cold home, and the activities of those living in fuel poverty, including rationing of energy or living homes that are difficult to heat, can promote the growth of mould or poor ventilation. Both exposure to poor-quality ambient environments (surrounding physical and material chemical conditions in a specific area) and vulnerability to adverse effects on health and well-being are disproportionately impacting specific neighbourhoods.
The UK environment sector is notoriously one of the least diverse and there is a clear need to explore solutions for greater diversity and inclusion in the sector (Bell, 2021:2). Although these issues are well known to people working in the environment sector, there is a lack of time, resources, and actionable knowledge on the topic, which leads to low confidence to overcome systemic exclusion (Boss et. al, 2023).
A just transition to net zero requires policymakers and practitioners at the local level to be able to draw on a wide range of national policy instruments. This brief makes recommendations on how the policy translation process from the national to the local level can be improved.
Decarbonization of the UK energy sector must be intensified in order to achieve current targets. One of the existing challenges to accelerate decarbonization in energy systems is a lack of enabling infrastructure, including construction and upgrades needed to produce, transport, and store clean energy in different forms. This lack of infrastructure creates delays and restrictions for connecting new renewable generation projects to the grid. Although renewable energy is affordable and widely available, the initial cost in enabling infrastructure can be prohibitive for certain customers, including community groups and vulnerable customers. These high costs leave them unable to deploy renewable energy technologies and benefit from local renewable energy production and consumption.
Conservation and restoration of coastal and marine environments are key environmental targets.
High numbers of young people not in education, employment, or training highlight the need to prioritize green skills agendas to help them find secure work in a net-zero future.
The improved energy efficiency of UK homes is one of the key strategic priorities of the newly-created Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
As part of the UK Government’s net-zero strategy, by 2025, all gas boiler installations are due to be phased out for new build properties, and phased out completely by 2035.
To support the UK Government’s net zero commitment, the energy system must become increasingly decarbonised, digitalised and localised and the skills required to develop, install and operate its components are changing.
Digital technologies play an increasingly important role in how households engage with the energy system. They promise significant benefits, facilitating greater efficiency and flexibility, and potentially better outcomes for consumers (e.g., cheaper bills). However, this digitalisation also risks deepening inequalities in the ability of households to access sufficient energy to ensure health and wellbeing, especially for people without the tools and skills to engage with new digital services and technologies.
As digital innovations proliferate across critical infrastructure sectors, we begin to regulate them to ensure reliable and safe delivery of essential services like water, energy or transport. The Network and Information Systems Security (NIS) Directive, implemented across the EU and the UK, is a prime example of such efforts. It is a novel regulatory response to the increased interconnection of industrial computers to the internet.
Awareness of environmental issues, calls to action, and changing behaviour patterns are growing. 86% of Bristol citizens express concern about climate change, and concern remains high across age and ethnicity, and the city’s 34 council wards.
In 2019, new emissions of the internationally banned ozone depleting substance, CFC-11, were identified using data from atmospheric measurement stations in Asia. The emissions were in clear breach of international commitments to limit the use of gases that are harmful to the atmosphere. High profile cases like this demonstrate the importance of atmospheric measurements and modelling, to understand whether commitments are being met. There is an urgent need to expand the use of these measurement and modelling verification techniques, as an important tool to aid international efforts against ozone depletion and climate change.
The Central Arctic Ocean plays a pivotal role in regional and global climate and ocean circulation, and influences UK weather patterns.
The research was conducted through a review of the science and policy literature, and consultation with national and international stakeholders. It has produced a comprehensive overview of past, current and future research activity in the Central Arctic Ocean (CAO), and outlined the geopolitical and legal structures governing relationships in the region.
In 2019 Riding Sunbeams demonstrated that it is possible to connect solar photovoltaic panels directly into the electrified rail network to power trains. Direct supply of solar power to railway traction systems has never been done before, anywhere in the world. The market and decarbonisation potential for railways and mobility in general is huge.
The conversations around the future of food, the Agricultural Bill and the UK national food strategy tend to focus exclusively on people as eaters, forgetting the role that women and men have in farming, harvesting, processing, selling, distributing and disposing of food.
Around 8.4 million people in the UK struggle to get enough to eat. At the same time, small-scale farmers and local grocery shops are disappearing, the country is increasingly dependent on food imports and healthy food is too often unavailable or unaffordable. Enshrining a right to food in law can end this situation.
The impressions that people have of a city are often driven by what we call soft properties, its spirit or vibe. But the vast majority of interventions made by policymakers are on the hard properties of a city, such as physical infrastructure and traffic management.
Fish production is increasing to meet the protein demands of a growing human population. However, cross-breeding large-bodied native species with small-bodied non-native species can reduce yields and lead to loss of unique biodiversity, with negative consequences for food security.
Research led by the University of Bristol and partners provides the evidence to show that current support for improved animal welfare policy is sustainable and achievable.
In a range of UK and international projects, the University of Bristol has been exploring how facilitated farmer-led approaches can tackle societal challenges, husbandry issues and market opportunities.
Fouling of public areas by dog faeces has serious public health impacts, not least by discouraging healthy outdoor play. This research engaged schools and communities to support and monitor their efforts to stimulate behaviour change among dog owners.
This research focuses on social enterprises responding to climate change and the regulatory barriers and facilitators they encounter.
This research assesses the impact of urban policies on human wellbeing.
This research focuses on the extent to which global sustainability standards and certification schemes can prevent ‘land grabs’.
This research analyses the changes in nuclear-risk perception in England and Wales subsequent to the Fukushima nuclear accident.
This particular sub-study of URGENCHE examines environment and health implications of the heat and electricity required by the buildings in: Kuopio, Finland; Basle, Switzerland; Stuttgart, Germany; Thessaloniki, Greece; and Suzhou and Xi’an in China.
This research examines the change in house prices following the release of drilling licenses in 2008.
This research has developed a model for analysing energy related policies and their effects both in the city and beyond.
This academic research on MPAs in Europe emphasises the importance of participatory processes in the establishment and management of MPAs.
