Low Carbon Innovation Centre
University of East Anglia, Norwich, England
PROJECT TEAM & PARTNERS
- University of East Anglia
-
- Professor Trevor Davies
- Mr Marcus Armes
- Dr Chris Harrison
- Mr Chris Blincoe
- Dr Simon Gerrard
- Mr Matt Dolan
- Ms Ellen Fernau
- Ms Laura Chellis
- Ms Hayley Johnson
- Mr Matt Taylor
- Dr Bruce Tofield
- Mr Peter Metcalfe
- Mr Marcus Armes
CONTRACT VALUE
£10,000,000 to date
FUNDING
Mix of public funding and consultancy funds from private
sources
TIMESCALE
5 years
PROJECT TARGETS & LEGISLATION
The CRed Programme has set for it partner organisations a target
of a 60% reduction in carbon emission by 2020. To date
participants have achieved carbon reductions ranging from 80% to
around 5%.
There is very little legislation impacting on most of our partners,
which the exception of the EU carbon limits set by the EU carbon
trading scheme.
Future impacts are likely through the Climate Change Act and national indicator 186 which sets carbon reduction targets for local authorities.
CHALLENGES FACED
- Public apathy to undertake carbon reduction measures. This is being overcome by increasing costs of energy and concerns over security of supply.
- The usual problems over funding which we are overcoming by diversifying our offering to both public and private sectors and tapping into the needs of customers. Such as a great increase in the work we undertake on life cycle analysis.
- Regarding our sister programme, Carbon Connections, we faced a huge challenge in getting the Higher Education Sector to work with business. This was overcome by sustained contact with university departments and building up the all important level of trust between partners.
INNOVATIVE PRACTICE
The CRed Programme was the first UK carbon reduction venture to produce a comprehensive pledging system which informed the user of carbon savings and outlined a pathway for future action.
The CRed System is also transparent in stipulating how savings have been calculated and is also accompanied by an evaluation process to determine the real uptake of pledges.
Carbon Connections, which sought to develop low carbon expertise within the Higher Education sector, introduced business expertise to the development process by blending in commercial expertise with technical knowledge.
LESSONS LEARNT & APPLICABILITY IN OTHER SITUATIONS
The lesson learned are many and varied according to customer type - business, local authority or local community. Certainly although CRed provides bespoke on-line pledging tailored to the needs of clients, the product still works best when accompanied by face-to-face advice from a project co-ordinator.
The greatest lesson learned through our sister project, Carbon Connections, which funds the development low carbon technologies through partnerships between the private sector and universities, is the need to build up a comprehensive understanding of the expertise within the higher education sector.
CONTACT DETAILS
Mr Marcus Armes
