Clean Slate No 111 Spring 2019

Clean Slate The Practical Journal of Sustainable Living

No 111 Spring 2019 ÂŁ2.50

Rapid transitions Zero emission cities Power-to-gas energy storage Personal carbon accounts

Clean Slate 18

IN THIS ISSUE… 15. Rapid transitions

Can society make the radical changes needed to tackle climate change?

Andrew Simms finds hope in recent examples of huge collective shifts in attitudes and behaviours.

18. Counting carbon

How can we radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a way that is fair, equitable and transparent? Martin Burgess makes the case for Personal Carbon Accounts.

20. Nature in mind

Could mindfulness techniques help people to act in more environmentally friendly ways? CAT graduate Stuart Anderson shares his dissertation research.

20

24. Zero emission cities

Tackling climate change requires radical changes to the way we live.

Paul Chatterton looks at how cities are responding to this post-carbon challenge.

26. Power to the people

Anne Chapman looks back at 25 years of community renewables in the UK, and explores how government policy has helped and hindered progress.

30. Power-to-gas: energy storage solutions

For a 100% renewable electricity system to work, we need reliable storage solutions.

Paul Allen looks at how power-to-gas back-up could transform the energy grid.

32. Insulating solid walls 24

Increasing the energy efficiency of heritage buildings isn’t always straightforward.

CAT graduate Antonia Khayatt looks at the challenges and possibilities of internal wall insulation.

Regulars 3. Editorial

With CAT’s Chief Executive Officer, Kim Polgreen.

4. CAT news

All the latest news from the Centre.

13. Your views

Over to you for your views, advice, ideas and suggestions…

35. Crossword 30

Cryptic crossword by Brominicks.

Cover image: Vauban, Freiburg; Shutterstock / Gyuszko-Photo

Editor Catriona Toms. Crossword Editor Sally Carr.

Design Graham Preston (grahamjpreston@hotmail.com).

The opinions expressed are those of individual originators, not necessarily those of CAT. If you wish to use material from Clean Slate for furthering the aims of the environmental movement, please contact the editor.

The printing of an advert in Clean Slate does not mean that the product or service has been endorsed by the magazine or by CAT. Published by CAT Publications, CAT Charity Ltd., Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth, Powys SY20 9AZ. Registered charity no. 265239

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editorial Kim Polgreen

Sharing solutions to the climate emergency

H

ello, and welcome to the first Clean Slate of 2019.

It ’s already shaping up to be a pivotal year for action on climate change, and I’m pleased to be stepping in as Chief Executive of CAT at this crucial time.

For the next six months, I’ll be overseeing the development and direction of the organisation whilst the charity’s board of trustees recruits a permanent CEO to replace Adrian Ramsay, who stepped down in January after more than four years at the helm – see page 4.

Having previously been a CAT trustee, I have long been impressed by the organisation’s work on practical solutions for sustainability. As the evidence of the potentially catastrophic impacts of global temperature rise continues to mount, and as more and more people begin to understand the need for urgent and far-reaching change, it ’s vital that we research and share the solutions that can bring us back from the brink of climate breakdown.

In this issue, read about the town, city and county councils across the UK that are lining up to declare a climate emergency, committing to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions in the next 20 -30 years.

From my home city of Oxford to CAT’s home town of Machynlleth, the momentum feels unstoppable.

Find out more on page 6.

Now it ’s time to turn those pledges into action.

CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain research shows how the UK can transform its energy systems, buildings, transport, diets and land-use to address climate change, whilst our education and training programmes provide the knowledge and skills to help understand the issues and implement the solutions.

Keeping within 1.5°C of warming is a huge challenge, but it is possible. In this issue, read about some of the ways that we can make change happen. Martin Burgess looks at how personal carbon allowances could help shift behaviours, CAT graduate Stuart A nderson explores how mindfulness can be used to inf luence pro-environmental choices, and A nne Chapman looks at the power of community-owned energy. A nd if you doubt whether any of this can happen fast enough, take a look at A ndrew Simms’ article on ‘Rapid Transitions’ on pages 15 -17.

I know that many of CAT’s supporters have been involved with action on climate change for many years – others of you will be new to the issues. Thank you for supporting our work and for everything else that you do to help bring about the changes that the world so urgently needs.

K im Polgreen, Interim CEO

Keep in touch isit our website: V www.cat.org.uk

Follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/centre_alt_tech

e our facebook friend: B Centre for Alternative Technology

Read the CAT blog: http://blog.cat.org.uk

email us: members@cat.org.uk

✆

Or give us a call!

01654 705988

Clean Slate is a member of INK, the Independent News Collective, trade association of the UK alternative press. www.ink.uk.com

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CAT news CAT CEO steps down Adrian Ramsay, who has been CAT’s Chief Executive since 2014, stepped down from his role in late January, having decided to take up a new position in the environmental sector in his home county of Norfolk.

During Adrian’s time as CEO, CAT has seen a range of significant developments, including an overhaul of the internal running of the organisation, improvements to our finances, the addition of new Masters degrees and short courses, and the development of new displays and classroom resources. At the same time, we have begun a major programme of investment in the CAT site, including the creation of a new woodland trail and installation of a highly efficient biomass heating system.

On stepping down, Adrian said: “I feel honoured to have led the work of such an esteemed environmental organisation over the last four and a half years. CAT’s work in demonstrating positive environmental solutions has never been more needed and I know the organisation will go on to inspire more and more changemakers.”

In advance of recruiting a permanent replacement, the Charity’s Board of Trustees has appointed Kim Polgreen as Interim CEO. Kim brings with her 30 years of experience across science, sustainability, business and education.

We’d like to offer our thanks to Adrian for his passion and commitment, and wish him all the best in his new role.

Take a look at our brand new website!

It’s now even easier to get information and advice on climate solutions, thanks to CAT’s brand new website, unveiled earlier this month.

Whether it’s highlighting how we can create a zero carbon Britain, helping householders work out how to cut their energy use, or showcasing CAT’s visitor centre and educational work, the new-look website will help us inspire, inform and enable more people than ever before.

Thank you to everyone who supported the new site either through making a donation or by giving us feedback. We’d love to know what you think – please take a look at www.cat.org. uk and drop us a line at members@ cat.org.uk with your thoughts and feedback.

4 Clean Slate

Join us at Futurebuild 2019 "CAT provides a safe and controlled environment for young people to have life-changing educational experiences."

This March, CAT joins Natural Building UK (NBUK) in the Natural Building Area at Futurebuild 2019. Previously known as Ecobuild, the event – which takes place 5-7 March at London’s ExCeL centre – is devoted to the future of the built environment. CAT and NBUK are there to ensure that natural, low impact building materials are on the agenda.

The NBUK Natural Building area will be dedicated to providing free educational information and demonstrations, showcasing natural materials, and exhibiting companies that work in the UK natural building industry.

CAT carpenter Carwyn Lloyd Jones will give demonstrations in timber frame building alongside demos of hempcrete, strawbale and earth building from leading experts, including Rowland Keable of Earth Building UK and Ireland (organisers of Clayfest, see page 10) and Alex Sparrow of UK Hempcrete, both of whom are also CAT course tutors.

An ‘ask the expert’ area will give builders, architects and DIYers the opportunity to get in-depth advice on natural construction materials from industry experts, whilst displays of informational posters and materials gives people the chance to learn more about the background to sustainable building.

Futurebuild 2019 is free to enter – to join us just register for your place at https://www.futurebuild.co.uk/

Learning Outside the Classroom award for CAT schools programme

CAT has been awarded an accreditation by the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) for providing quality learning and enrichment experiences for visiting school groups.

An internationally recognised body whose aims are to encourage and enable the use of places other than the classroom for teaching and learning, LOtC focuses on getting children and young people out and about, providing them with challenging, exciting and different experiences to help them learn.

CAT’s accreditation comes thanks to our varied workshops on topics ranging from ecology to renewable energy, which allow young people to engage in subjects and areas of the curriculum in a wide variety of practical and creative ways, both in a classroom setting and out and about on our Visitor Centre.

Our Engagement Manager Amanda Smith said: “CAT provides a safe and controlled environment for young people to have life changing educational experiences. Our woodlands, organic gardens, renewable energy displays and off-grid water systems offer engaging enrichment across a variety of subjects in a way that isn’t possible within a classroom setting.”

For more information on CAT’s tours, workshops and school trip facilities, see http://learning.cat.org.uk/.

Natural building demonstrations at last year's event.

CAT conference – save the date On 27-29 September 2019 we'll be hosting our annual conference for members, supporters and students of CAT. We'd love to see you there. Come and help us discuss and plan a sustainable future, with a range of expert speakers and workshop leaders. Keep an eye on our website for news as we start planning the details of the weekend, or contact our membership team for more information: members@cat.org.uk

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CAT news Local authorities show real leadership on climate John Clift

Paul Allen, Zero Carbon Britain Project Coordinator Support for planning for zero carbon If you’d like to encourage your local council to declare a climate emergency and start planning for zero carbon, or if you’re part of a local authority that would like support in creating a plan, join us at the ‘Climate Emergency’ conference organised by climateemergency.uk in Lancaster on 29 March.

Paul Allen is amongst the speakers, and there will be workshops covering what needs to be done, campaign strategies, and engaging with politicians, business and institutions. Find out more and book your place at https://climateemergency.uk/ In addition, CAT is holding a special Climate Emergency Solutions Summit on 3 May, immediately following our next Zero Carbon Britain short course, which takes place 1-2 May. CAT’s summit will bring together those who have been using Zero Carbon Britain across the UK to share ideas on what works to accelerate change.

To book your place, visit www.cat.org.uk or call us on 01654 704966.

Machynlleth has declared a climate emergency. Pictured: the town's iconic clock tower.

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ne of the key reasons climate change is such a serious problem is that it is non-linear, containing many systems that feed back on each other and accelerate change. The reason this is now an emergency situation is that governments and industry have not shown the necessary leadership and, so far, have not acted fast enough. We are not waiting for more efficient wind turbines or cheaper solar panels; what is lacking is visionary leadership.

Fortunately, however, the human response is also non-linear and contains an emerging array of feedbacks that can also

6 Clean Slate

accelerate climate solutions. One of the most exciting ways this is revealing itself is the scale and speed that the new leadership is emerging at town, city and regional levels.

Driven by a range of factors, city and town councils are increasingly declaring climate emergencies and are building plans to reach net-zero on timelines from 2030 to 2038. What is most exciting is that declarations such as those made by Bristol or CAT’s local town of Machynlleth were unanimous; instead of dividing society, rising to the climate challenge is actually uniting us. Society itself can offer the leadership needed and, as 2019 opens up, I’m sure we will see a wider range of new declarations as civil society decides to rise to the challenge.

One of the most recent declarations came from Scarborough Council, which looks to send a signal to other local authorities around Yorkshire and elsewhere in the country to follow their lead.

The council has committed to a target of zero carbon emissions by 2030, and will seek up to £80,000 in funding over two years for a sustainability officer to help achieve their goals. Green Councillor and deputy mayor Dilys Cluer said the action would allow Scarborough Council “the chance to play a small part in building a more secure future for this planet.”

The Forest of Dean Council was the first rural local authority to declare a ‘climate emergency’. The move, proposed by Green Party councillor Chris McFarling, was backed unanimously at a meeting of the full council on 6th December.

Machynlleth Town Council was the first town council in Wales to declare a ‘climate emergency’ after receiving a petition signed by more than 500 people. The council will now explore ways of working with other partners, including schools, businesses and local groups on proposals that can help the town reach zero carbon.

Machynlleth mayor Richie Gaskell said it was important that the town played its part in rising to the climate challenge.

The wave of councils declaring climate action is accelerating. As we prepare to go to press, the current UK list includes: London, Bristol, Frome, Machynlleth, Forest of Dean, Scarborough, Brighton, Trafford and Stroud – with many more in the pipeline. CS

Sharing solutions at the London Climate March

As the UN climate change talks began in Katowice, Poland, we joined the Climate March in London on 1st December to demand effective, urgent action from world leaders.

The march began at the Polish Embassy with speeches from a wide range of experts and campaigners including CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain project coordinator Paul Allen, Labour MP Clive Lewis, co-leader of the Green Party Sian Berry, fracking campaigner Richard Roberts and War on Want’s Asad Rehman, amongst many others.

Paul talked about the need to focus on and promote solutions to climate change, sharing findings and recommendations from our Zero Carbon Britain research.

As the march departed from the Polish Embassy to muster at Downing Street, the crowd called out messages of support to the activists in Katowice, due to be marching the following week: “razem dla klimatu” (“together for the climate”) and “klimat, sc éé (“climate, jobs, praca, sprawiedliwosc!” justice!”).

Natural building demos at Build It Live

Just before this issue of Clean Slate hits your doormat, we’ll be busy giving demonstrations of natural building techniques to self-builders at the Build It Live North West exhibition at Manchester’s Event City on 23-34 February.

Carwyn Lloyd Jones, CAT carpenter and tutor on our ‘Build a Natural House’ and ‘Build a Tiny House’ courses, will be joined by Alex Sparrow of UK Hempcrete (who teaches CAT’s ‘Hempcrete – Retrofitting for SelfBuilders’ course) to show people how to build with low impact, sustainable materials such as straw bales, timber, cob and hempcrete.

Alex was also giving demos at the Build It Live show in Kent in early February, and plans are underway for more hands-on building at the Build It Live Bicester show in Oxfordshire on 8-9 June. Find out more and book your tickets online at https://builditlive. co.uk/

Part-time Architecture Masters

Our popular Masters in Sustainable Architecture course is available to study on a part-time basis from September.

Recognising that many people already working in architectural practice may need to improve their knowledge of sustainability and adaptation to climate change, we wanted to make the course more accessible to those not able to study full-time.

The course is a part two architecture degree, which is accredited by the Architects’ Registration Board – it is aimed at people

who already have their part one architecture degree, or an equivalent level of experience, and wish to ensure that sustainability is at the heart of their architectural practice.

By making the course accessible to a wider range of people, we hope to ensure that more of the decisions on the built environment are made with a view to protecting and rehabilitating nature and enhancing human wellbeing.

Find out more at www.cat.org.uk or call us on 01654 705953.

Thank you for your Christmas gifts

Thank you so much to everyone who donated to our pre-Christmas appeal, which has so far raised nearly £10,000 to help us share information about renewable energy and sustainable solutions with thousands of people.

Examples of what your gifts can help us to do include: paying for our Information Officer to provide advice on green technologies; paying for one of our experts to write and deliver a lecture on environmental solutions; providing a CAT speaker at a political or academic conference or event; and helping us develop new courses in renewable energy and sustainable building.

Thank you so much for your support at this crucial time when the need for effective solutions to the environmental crisis is so clear to us all. If you haven’t yet had a chance to donate, and would like to, please visit www. cat.org.uk/donate or give us a call on 01654 705988.

New sustainability summer school for young people

This summer, CAT is hosting a week-long summer school for 16-18 year olds who would like to learn how to thrive in a post-carbon world.

Run by sustainability summer school experts Leadership in Global Change (LIGC), the week offers the chance to learn about zero carbon technologies from CAT’s experts, explore the beautiful Welsh mountains and beaches, and make new friends who share a passion for action on the environment.

Based in Oxford, LIGC is a non-profit philanthropic organisation supporting organisations to bring new educational opportunities to young people.

The Junior Summer School runs from 21 to 26 July. For more information and to book, visit the LIGC website: www.ligc.co.uk

New short courses launched

We have some great new short courses coming up this year, covering a range of topics to help build skills and knowledge on

nature and sustainability.

‘Build a Natural House’, with available dates in May and July, gives you a comprehensive introduction to building with timber framing, strawbale, hempcrete, cob and rammed earth, with practical, hands-on sessions throughout.

In April, ‘Plastic and Earth Building’ will look at combining traditional cob building with innovative ways of using waste materials in a two-day practical course.

If you’d like to learn more about renewable energy, we have courses in solar electric, building a wind turbine and sustainable biomass, as well as ‘Hydroelectric and Marine Energy Generation’ in May. This new module on our Sustainability in Energy Provision and Demand Management MSc covers how the technologies work, the policy and planning background, and the environmental benefits and impacts.

Adding to our popular nature connection and rewilding courses, we have ‘Wildlife Tracking and Bird Language’ coming up in April. This three-day course offers a unique insight into the secret life of woodland animals, helping you to develop your wildlife identification and tracking skills as you immerse yourself in the nature of Mid Wales.

For details of all of our upcoming courses, take a look at our website at http://courses. cat.org.uk/ or give us a call on 01654 704966.

CAT graduation 2018

Congratulations to our most recent group of CAT graduates, who celebrated their awards at their graduation ceremony on 17 November. Graduation is one of the highlights of the CAT year, when students can celebrate their achievements with family, friends and staff.

This year we had keynote speeches from Adrian Ramsay and CAT graduate and winner of the 2016 Ashden Award for community energy, Agamemnon Otero MBE. Agamemnon is co-founder of Repowering London, which has led development of community-owned renewable energy systems on social housing and inter-city transport hubs.

Graduating students included Sonya Bedford MSc MBE, who received honours from the Queen earlier this year for her services to community energy, and Richard Couldrey MSc, whose dissertation on transition towns will be made available in the National Library of Wales.

This was also the last year of students graduating from the Professional Diploma in Sustainable Architecture, which marks 10 years of CAT architecture students. The course has now been transformed into the ARB Part II prescribed MArch in Sustainable Architecture.

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CAT news New MSc courses starting this September Our new postgraduate courses in Sustainability and Behaviour Change, Sustainability and Ecology, and Green Building continue to take shape. By the time you read this, the former two courses should be fully validated by our university partner, Liverpool John Moores University, whilst MSc Green Building will be going through validation by the University of East London.

MSc Green Building offers practical experience of sustainable building materials and methods, as well as covering the theory behind the selection and use of materials, energy flows, site selection and preparation phases, waste management and project management.

The Sustainability and Ecology programme provides a scientific understanding of the issues surrounding the protection and rehabilitation of nature, whilst maintaining essential or useful ecosystem services. It looks at landscape management and local habitat management practices, exploring the potential values and limitations of habitat restoration, rewilding, species reintroduction, biodiversity, conservation, health and nature, and

urban green infrastructure.

MSc Sustainability and Behaviour Change explores how we can best bring about the changes that are needed to address the environmental crisis. The course draws on theories of behavioural science and social and systems models to explore behaviour change theories at all levels, including personal, organisational, community, institutional and governmental.

These new programmes are taught alongside CAT’s existing postgraduate degrees in architecture, energy, sustainability and adaptation, with many of the modules shared with other courses, creating a rich mix of learning opportunities. A range of modules specifically designed for the new programmes will bring together lectures from respected leaders in these areas with CAT's usual mix of practical, informative, accessible teaching.

You’ll find more information about these and other courses from CAT’s Graduate School of the Environment on our website at http://gse.cat.org.uk/

New MSc programmes include Green Building, offering in-depth knowledge and practical skills.

8 Clean Slate

UN climate talks latest

Credit: (c) cop24.gov.pl

This December saw the latest round of UN climate talks taking place in Katowice, Poland.

Paul Allen shares his thoughts on the talks (known as COP24), and looks at what must happen now.

T

he UN climate negotiation process can sometimes seem very distant and filled with impenetrable language, but ultimately it is rooted in trying to create a secure future for all.

Unfortunately the overbearing presence of the fossil fuel industry, combined with a rather coal-focused Polish Pavilion and a Presidency that lacked the commitment shown last year by Fiji, cast a shadow over this year’s talks.

However, after much ‘extra time’ and last minute rows over carbon markets, 196 states finally signed up to a common rulebook, known as ‘the Paris rulebook’, a complex set of regulations that will drive how countries cut carbon, provide finance to poorer nations and ensure that everyone is doing what they say they are doing.

Importantly, we need to recognise that COP24 is only an agreement on the rules of the game, not on a strategy for winning.

Scientists and policymakers have made it clear that the outcome from COP24 does not yet offer a plan that will prevent catastrophic climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ‘Special Report on 1.5°C’ published last October sent a strong message from the scientific community: staying within 1.5˚C of warming above pre-industrial levels is a much safer place for humanity, and it is still possible to keep within this threshold.

Many governments, especially those who are already facing severe climate impacts, were keen to take this message on board and rise to the planetary emergency. But, as is often the case with international agreements, a handful of countries such as the US, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia and the UAE stopped that from happening – despite the fact that many of them are also experiencing the reality of climate impacts.

Many delegates made passionate calls for a rapid increase in ambition before 2020 to keep the chances of staying under 1.5˚C alive, highlighting the urgent need to agree financial support for

poorer countries to take action on both mitigation and adaptation.

Analysis from Climate Action Tracker shows that if all governments press on and achieve their largely insufficient climate targets, the world will see 3.0˚C of warming by 2100, twice the 1.5˚C limit of October’s IPCC report.

The key cause for hope is that the trend is our friend. Clean energy prices are falling faster than anyone predicted, divestment is moving into the mainstream, and there is a growing movement getting ready to rise to the ambition gap. From the cities, such as London and Bristol, that have declared climate emergencies to the growing wave of citizen protests – people are setting the scene for government-level action plans that would unite us across borders, cultures and faiths.

So the future is unwritten, but at least we are still on the road. We just need to accelerate progress if we are to make our destination on time.

Country delegations must now begin the serious work of enhancing ambition by 2020. Having an agreed rulebook can build trust between countries, remove any excuses for not signing up to action, and allow us to measure our collective progress – which, after all, is better than being off-road without a map.

Read more about CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain research at www.cat.org.uk CS

CAT’s contribution CAT submitted our summary of zero- and low-carbon scenarios from around the world, Raising Ambition, to the process, and – to cut down on unnecessary travel – Paul Allen gave a video presentation to delegates on our Zero Carbon Britain research.

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CAT news Building confidence at Clayfest 2019 This summer sees CAT playing host to Clayfest, the biggest earth building event in the UK and Ireland. This unique festival offers a range of inspiring workshops led by experienced tutors covering a range of earth building and decoration techniques.

This year’s theme is ‘Confidence in Earth’, teaching core skills for everyone from beginners to skilled practitioners, and combining practical workshops with talks on the history and practice of earth building and the chance to take a tour of some of the best preserved earthen buildings and innovative new builds in Wales.

Workshops will cover a range of topics, including earth floors, earth structures, sculptural cob, rammed earth vaults and the heritage side of earth building – and there’s even a workshop especially for teenagers.

Earth floor making with Jeffrey Hart of earthfloors.co.uk will explore using earth to create a natural and durable floor finish for the modern home. The workshop will contain a mix of hands-on practical work and theory based sessions including how to analyse and test your local subsoil, creating the perfect mix, how to lay an earth floor, rammed earth sub floors, underfloor heating within earth floors, how to seal the floor with oil and finish with wax, and the benefits and aftercare for earth floors.

CAT architecture graduate Tasha Aitken will be looking at building rammed earth vaults – an innovative way of using rammed earth. During her workshop we’ll build three sections of

vault, creating a tunnel 1.7m long, using a repeatable formwork.

The workshop will teach the basics of rammed earth soil mixing, formwork assembly and removal, and earth-ramming technique, all whilst experimenting with the vaulted structure and testing the particular formwork being used.

Alan and Annabel Cameron-Duff will explore the art of building with cob, creating a sculpted cob arch and ‘totem’ pillar entrance with seating. Their main emphasis is to get hands-on with using cob but there will be time to explore other areas such as design, foundations and roofs through informal discussion and modelmaking for those who are interested.

There will also be the chance to design and construct small earth structures with architect Peter Cowman, whilst Dr Louise Cooke, lecturer in conservation in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, will lead a workshop on rethinking sustainability as heritage.

For teenagers, there’s a three-day workshop for 15-19 year olds who are looking to investigate the world of earth building. Led by experienced earth builders Becky Little and Tom Morton, the workshop will explore the science, craft and art of earth as a material, creating objects and small structures individually and together, and discussing the opportunities for futures in eco construction and heritage.

Clayfest 2019 is at CAT from 17 to 22 June – find out more and book your place at http://ebuki.co

Clay dabbins - the Cumbrian term for their form of cob - and heather thatch demonstration, Clayfest 2016.

CAT provides evidence to Committee on Climate Change

In November, CAT provided evidence to the UK Committee on Climate Change (CCC) to help push for more ambitious action towards zero carbon.

The UK’s current long-term emissions target, which was set in 2008, is for at least an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 to 2050. Following October’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ‘Special Report on 1.5 o C’,

10 Clean Slate

the governments of the UK, Scotland and Wales asked the CCC to provide advice on when the UK should reach net zero emissions as a contribution to global ambition under the Paris Agreement.

The CCC then launched a consultation process, to which CAT has provided evidence.

As well as offering detailed written evidence on the technical feasibility of reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions, CAT was invited to give a

presentation to the CCC at an event in Cardiff in November. Senior lecturer Tim Coleridge explored how improvements to the energy efficiency of buildings can help the UK reach ambitious zero carbon targets, including looking at barriers and opportunities for low-energy retrofit and use of natural building materials, and concluding with recommendations for policy interventions to stimulate transformational change in the built environment.

Place and passion Fernando García Vicario on his journey from CAT volunteer to MSc student. students and their feedback was overwhelmingly positive – everybody loved the MSc programmes.

Long-term volunteers are offered a free short course for their contribution, and I decided to use my free course to attend one of the MSc module weeks. For one week I became an MSc student, which gave me a real insight into what it was like to be a CAT student. I was convinced.

A place of changemakers

C

AT’s international reputation brought me all the way to Mid Wales from my home country of Spain. I was going through a professional career shift, seeking a more meaningful path, and CAT looked like the ideal place for this.

Such a drastic life change obviously came with some doubts. Had I made the right choice leaving my comfortable life to become an environmental advocate? But from the moment I pulled on my wellies on my first day of volunteering for the CAT gardens team, there was no turning back.

Stunning surrounds

Located in the UNESCO Dyfi Biosphere and bordering the Snowdonia National Park, CAT is a true paradise for nature lovers.

However, there is another kind of beauty hidden within the striking landscapes: the remarkable people taking part in the project.

I am lucky enough to have travelled the world, and I can honestly say that I am yet to find a place with a more inspiring and kind-hearted bunch of people. Since day one I felt welcomed as part of the family – a family working hard to make this world a better place.

A sense of community

My six months volunteering for the gardens team were very rewarding and educational.

CAT’s gardeners are highly knowledgeable professionals, and sharing time with them was an honour. They always took the time to pause and explain things to the volunteers.

We learned so much about organic horticulture, from seed to harvest and everything in between.

The dynamics between us volunteers were great. Even though we were busy, we always found time to share stories and enjoy each other’s company. There was a sense of community.

One of my favourite things from my volunteering experience was the feeling of openness to possibilities. It really is a place where the more you give, the more you get. I was soon given the opportunity to contribute some of my own skills, including one of my greatest passions: photography.

Being at CAT gave me the chance to regularly chat with the lecturers and staff members, and I eventually started growing interested in the courses offered in CAT’s Graduate School of the Environment. I had got to know several of the postgraduate

Fast-forward a few months and I am now a student of MSc Sustainable Food and Natural Resources.

Students from all walks of life come together at CAT – a blend of different ages, ethnicities, nationalities and professional backgrounds, including scientists, activists, artists, philosophers, economists and more. We all share one common cause: to contribute to a more sustainable future. There is passion.

There is commitment.

The same applies to the lecturers: they practice what they preach. They are world-class professionals already making an impact in their fields of expertise.

They are also very accessible. It is common to sit down with them and exchange ideas and thoughts over a cup of tea. They treat you as an equal, in a much more human way of interacting than in many other academic institutions, where the sense of strict hierarchy can be almost oppressive. Refreshing!

My favourite thing about studying here? The fertile ground for ideas, synergies and projects to flourish. This is a place of changemakers, where everybody’s contribution is welcomed.

It is very inspiring, motivating and empowering.

A sense of rightness

Looking back, I can now see that I made the right choice coming to CAT. It changed my life. Sustainability has become my new personal and professional path. A vibrant sense of ‘rightness’ flows inside me.

There is not a single minute to waste – the time to help the planet is now! CS Know someone who would find their path at CAT? Find out more about volunteering or studying with us on our website at www. cat.org.uk or call us on 01654 705950.

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Did you Show the Love?

This February, in partnership with the Climate Coalition, we asked visitors and supporters to make and share green hearts to ‘Show the Love’ for all the things that are at threat from climate change.

The #ShowTheLove campaign, which has been backed by 130 organisations and hundreds of thousands of people since it began in 2015, provides an important way of opening conversations with family and friends about what climate change could really mean.

You can read more about the campaign and get involved in future Climate Coalition actions at www. theclimatecoalition.org

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CAPITAL AT RISK. INVESTMENTS ARE LONG TERM AND MAY NOT BE READILY REALISABLE. ABUNDANCE IS AUTHORISED AND REGULATED BY THE FINANCIAL CONDUCT AUTHORITY (525432).

YOU WANT: To grow your money

YOU’D LIKE: To shrink fossil fuel usage

ISAs for people exactly like you (although some actually like olives)

Your views Opinions expressed are not necessarily those held by CAT. We reserve the right to edit letters where necessary.

Resilience for the next generation Dear CAT, We can learn from relatively recent history that things can change incredibly fast.

The CFC ozone layer crisis was a fine example of international cooperation that made a rapid and real difference, and it was on an environmental issue. We have seen regimes change, seemingly intractable problems resolved and peace restored to warring factions.

Yet with the news that from 2030 we expect to be locked into irreversible climate change, and no significant-enough move in sight internationally, when do we shift from amelioration to implementing resilience? Are the technologies the same? What do my children’s generation need to concentrate on?

I ask this because 2030 is the year when my oldest child turns 18. That means he has no opportunity to be part of the necessary change but, along with his peers across the world, could be starting his own family just at the time when the worst effects come to pass.

Dan Papworth

Food waste and climate change campaign Dear CAT, Thank you for the informative article on the impact of food waste on climate change (Clean Slate 109). The statistics were mind blowing and spurred our Global Justice Cleveland group into action. We shared a stall with the allotment association at the Saltburn Farmers’ Market to highlight the contribution food waste makes to climate change. By reducing food waste, we can help reduce climate change which will affect us but will have an even greater impact on those living in the global south. The market is always a good place to talk to people as mostly they are not in a hurry and have time to stop.

We made a display out of a rubbish bin filled with food and enlarged the statistics from Clean Slate to act as a back drop. We used the format of quiz questions to engage with children and their parents. The questions required people to make guesses about the concerning amount of food waste that exists in this country and worldwide. Almost everyone we spoke to agreed that food waste is a bad thing and they said that personally they do not waste food, so there was good support for the campaign. We distributed all of our leaflets which provided information from the Love Food Hate Waste campaign website and also statistics from Clean Slate on the impact of food waste both nationally and globally.

A bonus was that at lunchtime Jeremy Corbyn made a visit to Saltburn to ride down in the cliff lift and walk on the pier. Quite a lot of people were there to greet him, but we got the chance to

give him our leaflet and talk about what we had been doing. He said that they are trying to get the issue of food waste into their manifesto. We also got the opportunity to talk at length to his Mexican wife, Laura Alvarez, who runs her own company selling fairly traded coffee from Mexico and Guatemala.

Caryn Loftus

Why wind?

Dear CAT, The ‘Time to Act’ feature (Clean Slate 110) gives a good list of ‘10 things the government must do’, but I am disappointed that item 4 – ‘Invest in renewable energy’ – only mentions wind and not power from tides.

The moon guarantees that the tides rise and fall, causing tidal races every 12 hours and not just in one place, as high tides move round our islands.

I am thinking of tidal lagoons, small and large, as well as tidal races. It is proven technology and Britain is in a unique position to benefit.

Is there a reason this was not included?

I guess you did not have room to include hydro schemes like the one we have near Oldham which Adrian Ramsay came to open two years ago.

Richard Darlington We would like to see support for and investment in a range of renewables, including tidal, hydro and solar. Wind power was singled out in this article because the UK has huge potential wind resources and wind power is a mature, highly cost-effective technology ready to be rolled out at the speed and scales needed. Despite this, UK Government policy has been hostile to the development of new on-shore wind.

How do we make change happen?

Dear CAT, A very well-presented centre piece, with which I heartily agree (‘Time to Act’, Clean Slate 110).

My question is: how do we persuade MPs, Parliament and the Government to commit to long-term cross-party agreements? They can’t even agree on Brexit.

The only opening I have as an individual is to email my MP. What we are talking of here is a full social, economic and political change. While we are stuck with a party political system, I cannot see how this can happen legally.

If anyone has ideas on how I can proceed, I would love to hear them.

Phil Wort It’s certainly a challenge, and emailing your MP is a good place to start.

We take hope from the groundswell of town, city and county councils pledging to take action

(see Paul Allen’s article on page 6 and Paul Chatterton’s on pages 24-25). This is not only a good thing in itself, but if enough of the UK declares a climate emergency it could shame central government and industry into taking action.

One effective action we can take is to get involved with a local group and encourage our local councils to commit to a target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions. CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain research can be used as evidence for how this could be achieved on a UK scale.

Tipping points Dear CAT, Devastating as all your scenarios are (‘1 degree and rising’, Clean Slate 110), you have not mentioned the tipping point where the permafrost melts and vast quantities of methane are released into the atmosphere and make a mockery of our pathetic attempts at reducing CO2.

Richard Hill Yes, feedback mechanisms and the spiral of runaway climate change is the scenario that we should be doing everything possible to avoid.

And the danger is that these tipping points are not particularly well understood. The bottom line is that we need to do as much as we can as quickly as we can to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero.

Stay in touch and join the debate Call us: +44 (0)1654 705988 Email us: members@cat.org.uk Visit our website: www.cat.org.uk Follow us on twitter: @centre_alt_tech Connect on facebook: Centre for Alternative Technology

Errors and omissions The news item ‘Graduates share research at sustainable design conference’ in the last edition of Clean Slate was written by Lizzie Wynn – our apologies to Lizzie for missing her name from the article.

Clean Slate 13

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changing planet

Rapid transitions

Is it possible for society to make the radical changes needed in the short time we have left to tackle climate change? Andrew Simms finds hope in recent examples of huge collective shifts in attitudes and behaviours.

S

moking, drink driving… is climate the next big behaviour change challenge?

The latest science is telling us that nothing short of rapid, transformative change in our infrastructure and behaviour can prevent the loss of the climate we depend on.

One reason why this message, though long suspected, is only now being officially endorsed at the highest level, is because the implications are terrifying for today’s political and economic gatekeepers. It means big change, and incumbents fear change in case it threatens position, investments in the status quo, influence and office.

But are we better at society-wide changes in attitude and behaviour than we give ourselves credit for? And do recent cultural shifts relating to diet, plastics, sexism and attitudes to gender and identity suggest that

we might be entering a phase in which more rapid behavioural changes are possible?

In other words, is there cause for hope?

Research in a new report – ‘Climate and Rapid Behaviour Change: What do we know so far?’ – for the new international group Rapid Transition Alliance, of which CAT is a founding member, suggests so.

“History… teaches nothing, but only punishes for not learning its lessons,” is a sardonic aphorism, coined by the Russian historian Vasily Kliuchevsky. As a medievalist, he would know that in terms at least of public health and safety, there is indeed such a thing as genuine progress.

But he would know that progress is rarely linear and that reversals are always a threat.

In December 1952, a great smog enveloped London, killing thousands. It wasn’t the first, but it triggered change and led to the passing in 1956 of the Clean Air

Act. There’s an assumption in conventional economics that as countries get richer their problems with pollution dissipate like London’s smogs. By that logic, air pollution may be an understandable challenge for rising megacities like Beijing and New Delhi, but Britain’s cities should be beyond it.

That hasn’t happened, however. Nearly seven decades later, there are still around 10,000 premature deaths in London due to air pollution.

Even as sales of diesel cars – especially responsible for the particulate pollution which causes multiple health problems – fell in the UK in 2018, the average carbon emissions from new cars rose by 3 percent.

Globally, carbon emissions, driven by coal burning and transport fuels, hit an all time high.

Air pollution and climate change are

Clean Slate 15

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inextricably linked. Positively, however, tackling one problem typically helps to tackle the other. The era-defining question is whether we can find and implement solutions to the twin problems quickly enough to prevent climate breakdown gathering unstoppable momentum.

To answer that question the Rapid Transition Alliance has been created.

From school strikes by children alarmed at adult inaction on climate upheaval, and the emergence of the civil disobedience movement Extinction Rebellion, to towns like Machynlleth, neighbouring CAT, declaring a ‘climate emergency,’ change is in the air.

One thing holding many back is the difficulty of believing in the possibility of rapid transitions happening at the speed and scale necessary. It’s often said that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than a change to the current economic system. For that reason, the Rapid Transition Alliance has been created to find and communicate the lessons from clear, quantifiable changes in our values, behaviours, attitudes, and use of resources, energy, technology, finance

16 Clean Slate

and infrastructure that can happen and guide what we do over the next five to ten years.

It is about finding evidence-based hope in a dangerously warming world. Its success will depend on how quickly we can grow the conversation about rapid transition.

The climate is changing faster than we are. We need to make rapid shifts in how we live, work and run the economy, so we can all thrive, fairly, within planetary ecological boundaries. Critically that includes the globally agreed 1.5 oC upper limit on global warming to prevent climate breakdown. According to a special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), only ‘rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society’ can deliver the globally agreed target for stopping climate breakdown.

Rapid Transition Alliance provides examples of evidence-based hope for change whose speed and potential scale will steer us towards staying within those boundaries, and which advance social justice.

There’s no shortage of talk about the potential of greener technologies and long-term environmental targets, but change is needed now and we need a bigger conversation on the immediate possibilities of rapid transition and more sustainable behaviour.

That is what the Rapid Transition Alliance is for. We comprise experts in science, technology, community organising, finance, energy, communication and much more.

And, we will gather, share and demonstrate evidence of what is already possible in order to remove excuses for inaction and show ways ahead. These might be stories of community action, innovative policy or very personal, pivotal moments that allow us to see the world differently. If you know good

stories please get in touch at rapidtransition. org and share them.

Many examples exist, from the very local to very large scale, and from the past and present, that show our ability in achieving rapid change. No single example can tell us everything, but the range of evidence we are gathering shows the possibility of rapid transition across the economy and the diverse dimensions of our daily lives.

The really big behaviour changes need to be seen first and most among the populations of the high consuming, wealthier countries. In recent decades most of these have built up experience of how to achieve behaviour change by tackling several public health crises.

Today, in the UK less than one in five adults still smoke and rates have fallen sharply even in the last five years. But in the early 1970s, over half of men and over 40 percent of women smoked. It’s a huge success against the odds concerning a highly addictive product, promoted by a powerful industry that knew about, but publicly denied, knowledge of the harm it caused. Comparisons are close and disturbing with oil companies like ExxonMobil who were aware of climate change as early as 1977. Change to smoking behaviour was achieved with a comprehensive approach of awareness raising, tough regulation, pricing and support.

Dangerous and drunk driving is another example. Car use in the UK was 20 times higher in 2016 compared to 1949, but the risk of being injured or killed fell almost every year from 1949, from 165 deaths for every billion miles driven, to only 5.4 such deaths in 2015. To achieve that change meant changing people’s perceptions of risk about their own behaviour, raising awareness of the resulting harm to self and others, persuading people to leave their cars at home and take different forms of transport if they planned to drink, and changes to vehicles themselves and the physical driving environment.

Other examples of successful behaviour change can be found in responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis, diet, antibiotic resistance and in communities exposed to extreme risks such as living in the shadow of active volcanoes.

These all carry hope, but there are signs that something else may be happening that might bring the possibility of even faster shifts in attitude and behaviour, closer to

changing planet

cultural movements, not just government campaigns. In moving urgently to address climate change, we should ensure that the onus for change falls on those most responsible for it, and the benefits are shared by all. Once again, if you know of cases that can help light our way forward please get in touch. Making the rapid transition to a world that can flourish, fairly, without destroying our climate and the web of life we depend on, needs a big alliance, so if you are part of an organisation that shares our mission please get in touch to consider joining, and if you are an individual who wants to hear more evidence based hope sign up with us. CS

About the author

Andrew Simms is Co-director of the New Weather Institute, Assistant director of Scientists for Global Responsibility and the coordinator of the new Rapid Transition Alliance.

The Rapid Transition Alliance – www. rapidtransition.org - is being coordinated by a small group of people drawn from the New Weather Institute, the ESRC STEPS Centre at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), the Institute of Development Studies, and the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex, and with help from our friends, colleagues and supporters. The work of the Alliance is kindly supported by the KR Foundation.

Shutterstock/LanaElcova

what the science says is needed to meet vital climate targets. A mixture of new social movements and social media now seem capable of transforming gradual background shifts into defining moments of change. They reveal that while change can take decades, new social norms can become established almost overnight. From the shift around single-use plastics, to the arrival of #MeToo and the rise of the vegan diet, things are moving fast. The male-only charity fundraiser went out of business following a single investigative report by the Financial Times into the Presidents’ Club scandal. Likewise, the tide turned rapidly against male only conference panels once they began to be named and shamed online.

Things change. It’s one thing that is reliable. But the climate is changing faster than the attitudes and behaviour of the people most responsible for causing its disruption. Now, in the face of potentially runaway, climatic upheaval and corrosive inequality, the world needs change faster than anything governments are planning for. But we now know enough to speed things up if we choose to.

We’ve seen there are enough examples to learn from. After a summer of lethal, extreme weather events, it is becoming clear too that disruption of the climate is itself a major public health issue, even if on a grander scale than smoking or drink driving. The pollution and its effects are linked to asthma, dementia, depression, extreme weather fatalities and a host of other conditions. Unless stopped, warming will lock us into upward ratcheting, ever worsening trends.

If we now know that rapid shifts in how we live, work and run the economy have to made, we also know there’s a big evidence base for hope that changing our behaviour is possible.

But, to be effective, campaigns on behaviour must be linked to wider structural changes. The complexity of climate change means that to address it, we’ll need changes in areas ranging from food, to transport, manufacturing, water use, urban planning and finance.

To be legitimate and effective, these need to be fair and democratic. Past radical changes in behaviour are about inclusive

Clean Slate 17

changing planet

Counting carbon

Shutterstock / Pavel Kubarkov

How can we radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a way that is fair, equitable and transparent?

Martin Burgess makes the case for Personal Carbon Accounts.

C

onsider that all carbon emissions are ultimately driven by the demands of people: it immediately follows that unless people’s demands reduce then emission reductions targets cannot be met.

Technological solutions will help, but most of these do not seek to change actions – they simply replace one solution with another more efficient one, for example LED lighting replacing incandescent bulbs.

The crucial part of the solution, changing citizens’ behaviours, is something governments are reluctant to talk about or action. Even the landmark Paris Agreement positions global warming as a governmentto-government issue and avoids reference to the need for electorates to change their behaviours. The October 2018 IPCC report predicting dire consequences if drastic action was not taken immediately was completely ignored by most politicians (“Climate catastrophe warnings were greeted with global silence” Financial Times, Oct 10, 2018). Politicians appear disinterested; perhaps they simply consider carbon saving and behaviour change a vote loser.

18 Clean Slate

Beyond plastic bag charges and latte levies

Large-scale programmes aimed at changing people’s behaviour are rare – but they do happen. Take carrier bag charges, for example, which led to plastic bag use in England falling by 80% in just one year. This was followed early in 2018 by a call from MPs to put a 25p levy on disposable coffee cups and together these ‘tip of the iceberg’ actions might suggest that the UK is thinking about tackling collective individual behaviour which threatens the environment.

However, whilst such initiatives are laudable they are not going to challenge people’s current expectations around fuel usage. That’s why, in October 2017, the Welsh Assembly requested a feasibility study to look at piloting an environmental behavioural policy across Wales: Personal Carbon Accounts.

Personal carbon accounts are a very simple idea: each month the government adds free carbon points to each person’s carbon account. Every person gets the same points entitlement, with a third of an adult entitlement for children under 14.

Every time petrol, diesel, electricity, gas or heating oil is purchased, a carbon debit card is used and the account balance reduced.

There is no limit to the amount of fuel a person can buy, but if the points run out, the price of the fuel would be increased according to the price of extra points. So if you start with 100 points and use them all up, you would automatically buy a number of extra points to use when filling up the car.

On the other hand, if you only used 85 of your 100 points, the extra 15 points could be sold on to other account holders.

It seems like an easy-to-use initiative that could yield results. Yet in 2008 a previous government idea to use carbon allowances was dropped – so what is to say it will work 10 years on? To explain the logic behind the account, we need to look at the very nature of human behaviour and why initiatives such as the carrier bag charge worked so well to change our minds.

Keeping in credit

Broadly speaking there are three types of social conforming behaviours (“norms”), which when aligned and triggered can

changing planet

prices to depress consumption and are straightforward to understand. However, research shows that people soon forget the reasoning behind higher fuel prices and the tax is mentally absorbed in the price of the fuel – making behaviour changes highly unlikely.

Personal carbon accounts, on the other hand, employ personal norms (we inherently dislike waste), as well as injunctive norms – we know that saving energy reduces pollution as well as being the “right thing to do”. And it involves everyone. Others are perceived to be managing their energy consumption, increasing the likelihood we will too.

The trigger is to avoid paying for more points. As with plastic bags, the intention is not to penalise households severely for excess consumption, but to use the growing understanding of behavioural patterns to change individual habits for the benefit of us all.

Users will mentally separate fuel from other spending and consume the monthly “free” points – which reduce over time – more carefully. It will bring carbon pollution to the forefront of people’s minds, and the framework makes it likely that the population will demand steady changes to regulations to aid them staying within the points allowance, facilitating greater energy saving.

It’s simple and can be effective, besides being another initiative that Wales can show would work for Britain. It was the first UK nation to introduce a carrier bag charge – and has statutory targets that have made it

the second-best household recycler in the world behind Germany. If a pilot scheme proves that personal carbon accounts can be as effective as they should be, it could be only a matter of time before they are rolled out across the country.

Costings show that savings of less than 1% of fuel are necessary to pay for the administrative overheads involved in running the system and providing feedback (primarily to smartphones). Considerable evidence suggests that this should be easily achievable: for example, most people should be able to reduce their driving as under half is for work-related reasons. Increased walking and cycling has health benefits.

Moreover, focus group feedback suggests that the benefits from the wider public being aware that their individual actions are important could be seen to justify personal carbon accounts irrespective of financial savings. Welsh (or UK) Government undertaking of a feasibility study could be a game-changer for society. CS

About the author

Martin Burgess is a Chartered Accountant and former director of various businesses currently completing a PhD studying the implementation of Personal Carbon Accounts.

It concludes that there are no significant barriers to a pilot if politicians were supportive.

Shutterstock / Pavel Kubarkov

change behaviours permanently. The first is descriptive norms: we do things because others do them. We are more comfortable conforming than being the ‘odd one out’.

Closely linked to these are injunctive norms. These are actions taken because we believe they are publicly approved as “the right thing to do”, such as refraining from queue-jumping when the opportunity arises. And finally there are personal norms – what we believe in as a result of our upbringing, education or experiences.

If policymakers can align these three norms and find a trigger, then people’s habits can be overridden and real changes made. Looking at the plastic bag charge, research shows that most people’s personal norms consider waste to be bad. So they will save bags if the two public approval norms can be stimulated. The publicity campaign introducing the charge stressed the environmental impact of plastic bags including the harm they can do to animals as well as the visual impact of litter. This primed people to appreciate that avoiding plastic bag use was the “right thing to do” as well as being publicly approved.

There only remained one further norm to establish: subtly persuading individuals that most people bring their own bags to stores.

Making this standard practice socially reinforces individual actions, becomes habit-forming and is likely to be sustained.

The introduction of the 5p charge and the awkward conversation with the shop assistant about paying for bags triggers a loss-aversion process, which subliminally reinforces that buying plastic bags is neither normal nor “the right thing to do”. The pieces of the puzzle were assembled and the result has been terrific.

Making it work

So how can we use the success of this one initiative to drive a new carbon scheme?

Two main types of emissions-reducing carbon pricing schemes have been proposed internationally: carbon taxes and personal carbon accounts.

Carbon taxes raise fuel

Clean Slate 19

society & culture

Nature in mind Could mindfulness techniques help people to act in more environmentally friendly ways? CAT graduate Stuart Anderson shares his dissertation research.

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ne of the most rewarding aspects of studying at CAT is the immersive nature of the on-site modules. For 12 hours a day you study and socialise with a group of fellow students and tutors, who are all there for the same reasons: to affect change and work towards solving the environmental crisis. This creates a space for in-depth discussions and the exchange of ideas and strategies for making changes in your daily life. And it was through this process that I began to notice a trend - we seemed to be approaching these issues with a similar mindful disposition.

From these observations I decided that my dissertation research would investigate whether mindfulness was functioning as a dispositional state-of-mind to help people to enact and sustain pro-environmental behaviours.

To refine the focus of my research I identified three core mindfulness traits in the literature that could be relevant to pro-environmental behaviour: presentcentred awareness, sustained mindful intention and non-judgement. My research question became: “Are dispositional mindfulness traits effective in sustaining pro-environmental behaviours?”

The research

Most research into the role of mindfulness in supporting behaviour change utilises quantitative analysis of self-report questionnaires which, although identifying strong positive correlations, doesn’t fully investigate the lived experience of people

20 Clean Slate

attempting to sustain behaviours over time. For this reason, I decided to take the social science route and conduct 90 minute semi-structured interviews with relevant practitioners so I could delve deep into their experiences.

To find suitable participants I posted a pro-environmental behaviours questionnaire on environmental social media sites and invited potential applicants to complete and return. The two key benchmarks for suitability were that applicants must have been practising at least 30 pro-environmental behaviours for twelve months or more, and they must not have been involved in mindfulness training (e.g. yoga or meditation).

This process identified nine participants who were contacted and invited to participate in one-to-one 90 minute interviews. The transcripts of these interviews were then subjected to a thematic analysis that sought to identify key themes across the experiences of all participants, specifically the role of mindfulness traits in decision-making, sustaining behaviours and overcoming setbacks and barriers.

The themes identified through thematic analysis provided strong evidence that dispositional mindfulness traits were being activated to sustain pro-environmental behaviours over time. But this wasn’t the only evidence to emerge from the data.

Interestingly, all the participants had also moved through a similar process leading to the adoption of pro-environmental behaviours.

Environmental education

Eight of the participants had completed a higher education course related to environmental education, which had developed their understanding of two critical aspects relating to our relationship with the natural world: • I nterconnectivity: every behaviour and choice we make has an environmental footprint, and we collectively as a species are destroying the natural world through our daily unsustainable behaviours.

• I nterdependence: we rely on the natural environment for both our wellbeing and our survival, and so it is critical we reduce this footprint.

The ninth participant had acquired the same knowledge and understanding through working in natural environments leading to a role in ecosystems management.

Nature connection

Another key theme present across all interviews was the role of strong positive nature connection experiences in their lives. The natural world was a place to maintain and enhance both physical and psychological wellbeing, to escape from daily life, to have adventures and, for some, a place to experience transcendental feelings of oneness with the natural world.

When understanding, awareness and nature connection combined it led each participant to two conclusions: they had to ‘do the right thing’ and change their

society & culture

“

Mindfulness is paying attention, on purpose, in the present, and non-judgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.

John Kabat-Zinn

behaviours, and the decision to act was a ‘collective moral responsibility’ because these changes had to occur at the species level to prevent irreversible environmental damage. In essence, the participants had all independently formulated an environmental ethic that was to guide their behaviours.

Sustaining behaviour change

The next step was to adopt and sustain pro-environmental behaviours in line with this ethic, a process that utilised both the present-centred awareness and mindful intention traits.

When attempting to initiate and sustain pro-environmental behaviours participants described a process of intentionally expanding the boundary of their awareness in real time so that they could make connections in the moment between their behaviours, the inputs that enable them, and the outputs caused by performing them, all of which contribute to a behaviour’s environmental footprint.

They discussed the importance of utilising prior knowledge, experience and ethics to support a present-centred approach to thinking about what they were doing in that moment, to question it, intentionally modify the behaviour, and sustain the pro-environmental option over time.

This strategy was shown to bring habitual and automatic behaviours back into conscious awareness, where they could be questioned, evaluated and changed if necessary.

Although this process of combining awareness and intention was initially focused on questioning and moderating their behaviours on a daily basis, there was an evolution of this practice over time whereby all participants sought to extend their intention into the domain of learning new practical skills that would give them greater control over their personal environment (e.g. learning to grow food, build soil, enhance local ecosystems, repair clothing and domestic implements, etc.).

This is interesting as it shows a trend whereby people who are engaged in long term pro-environmental behaviour change appear to gravitate towards learning skills that will enable them to enact a degree of control (or mastery) over their immediate environment to ensure those changes can be sustained.

A logical conclusion as to where this intention could lead was demonstrated by two participants who were actively engaged in designing and building their own integrated and sustainable homes; homes that utilised sustainable building materials (straw bale, hempcrete, timber frame and lime render), renewable energy (solar PV, solar hot water), the use of an electric car, and outdoor space for organic food growing.

Overcoming barriers

One of the areas where the results proved most interesting was regarding the difficulties posed when trying to live an environmentally-focused ethical lifestyle in a society that promotes and normalises

unsustainable behaviours. All participants encountered personal and social barriers that challenged their intentions, and had in response learned to adopt a nonjudgemental, non-reactive disposition to navigate them.

On a personal level participants encountered a range of situational and structural barriers regarding living in rural environments (for example, having to drive rather than use public transport), urban environments (e.g. lack of access to affordable sustainable food), and a lack of time and/or money to always make the most sustainable choices.

In terms of social barriers, it was a common occurrence for participants to be a part of social circles and/or events where environmentally unsustainable behaviours were normalised, especially flying. All participants had flown at least once in the calendar year despite knowing that it was the most damaging personal behaviour.

This was due to having family living in other

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society & culture

Core mindfulness traits Present-centred awareness: an awareness and attention to inner thought processes and their relationship to decision-making. A trait that helps to identify, understand and change negative behaviours, which are often habitual, automatic and conditioned. Behaviours damaging to the environment are often these types of behaviours.

Mindful intention: the deliberate and conscious intention to use this presentcentred awareness to initiate positive behavioural changes and sustain them over time.

countries or close friends who wished to holiday abroad. Not having enough timeoff from work and/or money complicated this issue, with participants feeling that in certain moments they didn’t have a choice but to fly.

When participants confided with friends and family about struggling to maintain their intentions, or attempted to promote the adoption of pro-environmental lifestyles, they were often challenged or dismissed.

This had negative psychological and social consequences including instances of self-doubt, depression, negative spirals of thought, and also heated arguments with close friends and family.

In response, participants had found that a non-judgmental and non-reactive approach proved effective in maintaining both strength and intentions. They described learning to take a step back, to calmly reflect on their experiences, and to be gentle towards themselves and others. This in turn created a space for participants to recognise the areas where they were doing well and to identify those areas where they could sustain positive behavioural changes and maintain positive social relationships.

This last aspect is significant because there was still a conflict between maintaining social relationships and living with the knowledge that pro-environmental behaviour change needs to operate at the collective level. Interestingly, all participants had realised that not only were negative judgements and over-reactions counterproductive but that education was key to collective action.

All participants were actively involved in

22 Clean Slate

community-based environmental education projects to help raise awareness of local and global environmental issues (many of which had a strong nature connection focus). They had come full circle and realised that the formation of an environmental ethic based on knowledge, understanding and caring was the catalyst missing from most people’s lives.

This is an important realisation because, if we are to live in a world of increased efficiency, localisation and low carbon lifestyles, then we shouldn’t underestimate the behavioural changes that will have to occur (especially the process of bringing normalised, conditioned, habitual and automatic behaviours that are outside of our conscious awareness).

Teaching mindfulness

It is during this period that mindfulness could prove an important component in behaviour change. Present-centred awareness can help evaluate and moderate the impacts of our daily behaviours; mindful intention can support the commitment to adopt new skills and practices; and nonjudgement/non-reactivity can help navigate the inevitable personal and social barriers that will occur during this transition without participating in negative judgments and criticisms of the self and others.

For these reasons it seems logical to incorporate the teaching of mindfulness practice into education programmes that focus on environmental education and nature connection.

Mindfulness also does not cost anything to practise, can be practised in a multitude

Non-judgement (and non-reactivity): the ability to accept the psychological, social and environmental forces that shape our experience from momentto-moment, becoming less reactive or overwhelmed by them. This helps to navigate perceived failures, negative spirals of thought, rumination, depression and criticism of the self and others.

Instead we are able to respond with calm and measured thoughtfulness which can support positive behaviour changes, healthy social relationships and the successful negotiation of barriers and setbacks. of environments, and is accessible across all age, cultural and socio-economic ranges. This could potentially allow it to be implemented across the population simultaneously from primary schools to boardrooms, which could have interesting results.

If we had an entire generation who had the cognitive ability to sustain present-centred awareness, pro-environmental intentions, a non-judgemental disposition in the face of challenges, and who could combine these traits with an understanding of our relationship with the natural world, then we could have a very different society. CS

About the author

Stuart Anderson is a former teacher and recent graduate of CAT’s MSc Sustainability and Adaptation Planning. He currently researches the effectiveness of dispositional mindfulness in supporting individual proenvironmental behaviour change and as an important leverage point for systems change.

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changing planet

Zero emission cities

Tom Chance-Bioregional

Tackling climate change requires radical changes to the way we live, which will mean transforming urban spaces to break free from fossil fuel dependency. Paul Chatterton looks at how cities are responding to this post-carbon challenge.

BedZed, London - the UK's pioneering attempt at creating a zero carbon neighbourhood.

B

y 2050 an estimated three quarters of humanity will live in cities, accounting for 80 per cent of total energy demand and 70 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, so the need for cities to unlock themselves from fossil fuels is paramount.

As cities across the world begin to recognise the need to move beyond carbon, net zero emissions has become a rallying cry. The goal is for urban areas to produce as much energy from renewable sources as they consume. It’s a huge task, with end and start points constantly moving.

Target setting can be hubris without clearly identified plans, strong leadership and partnership working. There is no single consensus on what needs to be done and groupings of cities are striking out on their own.

According to global engineering consultants Arup, 228 global cities, representing 436 million people, have already set greenhouse gas reduction goals and targets. Many have adopted net zero emissions targets by 2050 and 80 per cent reductions by 2030.

24 Clean Slate

The UK is already legally bound by the Climate Change Act to reduce emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. More than 300 UK municipalities have signed the Nottingham Declaration, which pledges them to systematically address the causes of climate change and to prepare their community for its impacts.

The more ambitious task is to get to net zero emissions by 2050, in line with the evidence presented in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ‘Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C’ published in October 2018.

Cities such as Oslo, Antwerp, Melbourne and Copenhagen have risen to this bigger ambition and are pushing for 100 per cent greenhouse gas reductions by at least 2050.

Moreover, according to C40’s Deadline 2020 research, cities should reduce emissions to almost 3 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per person by 2030 in order to follow the path towards the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement. This will require an overall investment of $1 trillion up to 2050. That’s a huge challenge.

Networks of cities such as the C40

Cities Climate Leadership Group, Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) and the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) have emerged to share good practice and push city innovation. These networks have come together under the United Nations Cities and Climate Change programme to form the Compact of Mayors with the aim of creating a common platform to measure city emissions and report to the public. In 2016, the EU Covenant of Mayors came together with the Compact to create a Global Covenant which now includes over 7,000 cities and 600 million people.

This shows the extent to which the energy behind creating a post-carbon society is now rooted at the city rather than national scale.

Clearly, there have been many stalled and misguided attempts along the zero carbon road such as the much lauded zero carbon Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates, the as yet unfulfilled promise of new ecocities across China, as well as promised whole new eco-towns in the UK. But many cities are showing what is possible through coordinated planning.

For example, Mexico City has launched

changing planet

an ambitious Climate Action Plan and the measures it contains have the potential to reduce emissions by 10 million tonnes of CO2 by 2020, representing a decrease of almost 30 per cent relative to the baseline.

It was also the first city in Latin America to issue a Green Bond for $50 million.

Meanwhile, in 2016, Sydney launched its ambitious Environmental Action Plan, which aims to cut emissions by 70 per cent by 2030 and be a net zero emission city by 2050.

Equally, Vancouver – as the first city in North America to develop a Renewable City Strategy to 2050 – is committing to get 100 per cent of its energy from renewable sources. To achieve this, the city is prioritising reducing emissions from its polluting sectors, buildings and transportation, and increasing the use and supply of renewables. In transport, this includes renewably powered car sharing fleets and standards to support renewably powered private vehicles. Interestingly, further scrutiny from Simon Fraser University suggested that this kind of decarbonisation plan may be unworkable without drastic measures including phasing out parking spaces for diesel and petrol vehicles from 2025.

The World Business Council on Sustainable Development has also launched the Zero Emissions Cities (ZEC) project and initiated three pilot cities in 2015: Amsterdam (Zuidoost) in the Netherlands, Birmingham (Smithfield Market) in the UK and San Diego in the USA. Cities are also taking radical action as they face the risks and impacts of inaction. In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in New York in 2012, which left millions without power, there was a growing recognition that the city’s energy infrastructure needs rapid transitioning to help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and build an energy system more resilient to extreme weather events. The Governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo, sought to rebuild, strengthen, and modernise New York’s energy system, while bringing economic growth to New York through a strategy called ‘Reforming the Energy Vision’ (REV). This strategy has brought together city authorities to make a clean, resilient and more affordable energy system a reality.

Beyond high level city planning, much of this kind of thinking is rolling out at a very localised level where impacts can be gauged clearly. And given the growing

sophistication and cost effectiveness of micro-renewable technologies, the idea of every building acting as its own micropower station comes ever closer.

Early pioneering examples include the Vauban district in Freiberg and B01 in Malmo’s waterfront in Sweden. The largest net-zero community in the USA is West Village, a mixed-use campus neighbourhood at UC Davis, designed to house 3,500 students, staff and families.

Despite technological setbacks and high demand from residents in terms of electrical equipment, it is close to meeting its net-zero design target.

BedZed (Beddington Zero Energy Development) has been the UK’s pioneering attempt at creating a zero carbon neighbourhood. It was the creation of architect Bill Dunster. Completed in 2002 at a cost of £15 million, it includes 82 houses, 17 apartments and 1,405 square metres of workspace. The buildings use a passivhaus approach.

Originally powered by its own woodfuelled power station, problems with this led the community to switch to conventional condensing boilers and grid-provided electricity. It also switched from an on-site water treatment plant, which used reed beds to filter waste water, to a membrane bio-reactor filtration system and connection to the municipal sewer system. Locallysourced construction materials, watersaving appliances, green roofs, solar panels and an on-site car-share scheme contribute to further carbon savings. Residents report a strong sense of community, comfortable homes and energy bills up to 80 per cent lower than conventional housing.

Project partners Bioregonal have gone on to develop the One Planet Living neighbourhood concept based on ten principles that, taken together, can create post-carbon communities of the future.

In my own project LILAC where I live, we have developed a prototype of low impact living drawing on a co-operative and cohousing model that reduces a community’s ecological footprint through the use of highly insulating and carbon sequestering natural build materials such as lime, timber and straw, as well as developing a sharing economy between neighbours.

The zero emissions city agenda touches on much more than infrastructure, buildings and transport. It focuses attention on the stubborn and wicked problems of our age, especially around changing the very fabric of our daily lives. What most

cities are realising is that beyond the low hanging fruit of shifts in energy mixes and mobility options, uncomfortable work is required including changes in workplace and consumer behaviour and land zoning modifications.

We will simply have to learn to design and live in cities in a different way. We also need to rebalance the energy feast and famine – addressing where the urban energy system is bloated and over-used and where it is incredibly unequal and hindering human flourishing.

Demand reduction, curtailment and redistribution will remain political hot potatoes, but they are the invisible elements of any meaningful energy transition to postcarbon urban life. CS

About the author

Paul Chatterton is an academic, campaigner and writer. He is Professor of Urban Futures in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, and a visiting lecturer in CAT’s Graduate School of the Environment. He is co-author of Do It Yourself (2007) and author of Low Impact Living (2016).

This is an edited extract from Paul Chatterton’s latest book Unlocking Sustainable Cities: A Manifesto for Real Change, published by Pluto Press 2019.

You can buy the book through CAT’s Eco Store at https://store.cat.org.uk/ or by calling us on 01654 705959.

Clean Slate 25

energy

Power to the people It’s nearly 25 years since the UK’s first community-owned wind power scheme was installed.

Anne Chapman looks at how things have developed since, exploring how government policy has helped and hindered renewables across the years.

T

he renewable energy revolution is on its way. In the UK over a quarter of our electricity comes from renewables, up from about 9% in 2011, as well as just under 8% of our heat. Renewable energy can be generated anywhere the sun shines, the wind blows or water flows, so is inherently amenable to small scale systems that can be owned by individuals and communities. But to what extent are communities able to take control of their energy system from the big companies that currently dominate it?

Swedish inspiration

The first community in the UK to own a renewable energy system was the Baywind Energy Co-operative in Cumbria. This came about because a young English Architect, Keith Boxer, went to live in Sweden in 1993 and there got to know former anti-nuclear campaigners who were pioneering local community ownership of wind energy.

He suggested they look for some sites in the UK – the windiest country in Europe.

They found a site north of Ulverston and managed to get a Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation (NFFO) contract (the subsidy mechanism for renewable energy at the time) and planning permission for a wind farm. While building the wind farm in 1996 they set up a co-operative that raised funds from selling shares to the local community to buy two of the five turbines.

The Swedish company looked for other sites to repeat this success but did not manage to get planning permission and a NFFO contract. Keith Boxer said: “Government policy meant that the wind industry in the UK was very stop-start. Not only was it very difficult to get planning permission, but the NFFO process was uncertain and the auctions only took place every two years. If you were unsuccessful you would not have any projects to work on for two years.”

The Swedish-owned company was wound up, but Baywind went on to buy the remaining three turbines.

In response to the repeated requests they received from people to help them do what

26 Clean Slate

they had done, Baywind set up Energy4All in 2002. Energy4All worked with a number of groups developing wind farms, the first in southern England being Westmill, near Swindon, commissioned in 2008.

At about the same time, two community hydro schemes, Torrs Hydro and Settle Hydro, were constructed, both instigated by the community interest company, Water Power Enterprises.

Taking off with the Feed-in-Tariff

However, community energy in the UK did not really take off until the introduction of the Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) in 2010. The FIT was designed for small scale renewable energy and provided a fairly simple system of payment for renewable generation, which meant that income from a system could be predicted with a reasonable degree of certainty. Most importantly, the FIT meant that small scale solar PV systems became financially viable.

Low Carbon West Oxford and Lewesbased Ovesco pioneered the development by the community sector of solar PV systems on leased roofs, providing a model that others could use.

Solar PV can work at a variety of scales,

and assessment of sites for suitability is fairly straightforward. Many ‘low carbon communities’ or transition groups that had sprung up in the preceding five years or so, wanting to do something to help their communities reduce carbon emissions, saw an opportunity to obtain long-term secure funding for their activities from renewable energy projects. They often set up community benefit societies which could raise money from the local community by selling community shares. The income from the renewable energy projects had to pay the running costs of the society and a modest return to those who had invested, but there was generally money left over to put into a community fund. Often this was used to support projects to reduce energy use and carbon emissions, so producing a ‘double cut’ in carbon emissions – a model developed by Low Carbon West Oxford.

Community energy grew rapidly, so that by 2017 there was 168 MW of electricity-generation capacity in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, owned by 204 organisations, plus 1.9 MW of heatgeneration, owned by nine organisations. In addition there was 81 MW of community-led or owned generation capacity in Scotland.

The opening of John Cleveland College wood heat plant, set up by Green Fox Community Energy in Leicestershire.

Image courtesy of Westmill Solar Co-operative Limited.

energy

Westmill Solar Co-op: the first community-owned solar farm in the UK.

However, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland only one new community energy organisation was formed in 2017, compared with 13 in 2016 and 33 per year in 2014 and 2015. Of the 33.5 MW of electricitygenerating capacity added by the sector in 2017 at least 80% was through acquisition of existing projects – mainly large scale solar PV and wind. There were only 15 new projects installed.

The slow-down in community energy in 2017 resulted from the policies introduced in 2015 and 2016 by the Conservative Government. Firstly, it became even more difficult to get planning permission for wind turbines in England, and then measures that had supported community energy, such as tax relief for investors, were abolished. Most importantly, the FIT rates were drastically cut. The FIT scheme was also made much more complex, difficult to navigate and uncertain. Caps on deployment were introduced and for on-shore wind these were so small that even if you could get planning permission you were unlikely to be able to get FIT payments. The only renewable energy the government seemed to want to support is off-shore wind – which

has to be done at a scale that is currently too large for the UK community energy sector.

Beyond generation: community storage and charging

The community energy sector has branched out into other areas. For example, Charge My Street in Lancaster was set up in 2018 to install electric vehicle charging points in areas where households do not have their own off-street parking. Bristol Energy Cooperative has installed battery storage (see box). Wey Valley Solar have installed LED lighting in local schools.

As prices for solar PV and batteries come down it may be viable to install solar PV with battery storage on buildings such as community centres which at the moment do not use enough energy during the day to make solar PV viable.

Community energy organisations have also worked with District Network Operators (DNOs), the companies who own the low voltage distribution network.

Energise Barnsley, for example, has received funding from Northern Powergrid to install batteries in domestic properties, some of which have solar PV, to see if

Bristol Energy Co-operative Founded in 2011, the Bristol Energy Cooperative (BEC) has grown into one of the largest community energy organisations in the UK. Their first share offer in 2012 funded 63 kWp of solar PV on three community buildings. Following further share offers, they now own 11 roof-top systems and two solar farms. In autumn 2017 they were able to distribute ÂŁ45,000 to local community projects through their Megawatt Community Energy Fund.

In 2018 they installed a 100kW capacity Tesla powerpack battery at a housing development. They also submitted a planning application for a hydro scheme in Bristol, and are working on developing a further battery project.

BEC received initial seed funding from Bristol City Council and in more recent years has been supported by Mongoose Energy, set up by the neighbouring Bath and West Community Energy.

Clean Slate 27

energy

Energy Local www.energylocal.co.uk Energy Local is developing a system to enable local consumers to make more use of local generation and benefit from time of use tariffs:

• A group of consumers and generators

Lancaster Cohousing solar panels are owned by Morecambe Bay Community Renewables.

batteries can reduce the need to reinforce the local network when clusters of solar PV systems are installed in an area. They are also looking at whether installing batteries in properties with air source heat pumps can enable those properties to shift their use of electricity away from peak periods.

Selling electricity directly to consumers

Many community energy organisations would like to be able to sell the electricity they generate directly to local consumers.

The way the electricity market is currently regulated means that this is generally not possible. A solar PV system on the roof of a building is connected ‘behind the meter’, so that the electricity it produces is first used by the building, with only the excess being exported to the local grid. However, a solar farm in a field is connected to the local grid, and the electricity it generates has to be sold to an electricity supply company.

People in the adjacent village then have to purchase their electricity from a supply company, not directly from the solar farm.

One organisation attempting to devise a system that would allow the generator to sell to local consumers is Energy Local (see box).

The stop-start nature of the wind industry in the 1990s has unfortunately also been the story of recent years, with the boom

28 Clean Slate

generated by the Feed-in-Tariff followed by the bust caused by the changes to policy brought in after 2015. The Renewable Energy Association has said that these changes resulted in 9,000 jobs being lost.

For the community energy sector, which relies on the motivation and commitment of many volunteers, these changes were dispiriting to say the least.

The FIT scheme is coming to an end in March 2019 and when that happens there will not even be a guarantee that generators will be paid a fair price for what they export.

The government is proposing a ‘smart export guarantee’, but the rates to be paid per kWh and the length of contract given to generators are up to the energy suppliers to determine, so it seems unlikely to provide the predictable income over the long term given by the FIT system.

However the five years of growth between 2010 and 2015 mean there is now an established community energy sector in the UK that did not exist before. There are organisations such as Energy4All, Sharenergy and Mongoose Energy that support community energy groups, as well as organisations that represent and lobby for the sector in England, Scotland and Wales, and an on-line Community Energy Hub managed by Community Energy England. If the financial viability of small scale renewable energy improved, the

in a local area get together and form an ‘Energy Local Club’; • Everyone in the club has a smart meter fitted, which monitors their consumption and generation on a halfhourly basis; • The consumption and generation within the club are matched (‘netted off’) each half hour and the generators are paid for the electricity used; • Each member of the club has a contract with the energy supplier working with Energy Local, to buy electricity when they need it and to sell surplus generation.

Another key aspect of the model is helping consumers to switch their use of electricity to when it is available from local generators, or can be purchased from a supplier at a cheap rate.

Energy Local, working with the energy supplier Co-operative Energy, has trialled this system in the village of Bethesda in North Wales where there are hydro schemes owned by the National Trust and the local community. They are currently working on setting up further Energy Local clubs in Wales, where they have support from the Welsh Government, and clubs in Oxford and Brixton. support systems are therefore already in place to enable community energy to grow rapidly. CS

About the author

Anne Chapman is a Director of Green House Think Tank (www.greenhousethinktank. org) and the author of ‘Community Energy in the UK’, published in 2018 by the Green European Foundation with the support of Green House Think Tank and the financial support of the European Parliament to the Green European Foundation. The report can be downloaded at https://gef.eu/publication/ community-energy-in-the-uk/. Anne is also a director of Morecambe Bay Community Renewables.

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energy

Power-to-gas: energy storage solutions

T

he costs of renewable energy generation from solar and wind have fallen faster than any of us in the green movement expected. Once we include all the costs of any energy choice, many renewables now compete with fossil fuels, and renewable costs are still falling.

So we will undoubtedly have a rapidly growing percentage of renewable energy in our electricity grids.

However, the remaining key challenge with renewables is that their output changes with the weather – sometimes they don’t produce enough power, whilst at other times they produce too much.

Peaks and troughs

If it is your job to manage the electricity grid, and ensure that both the voltage and frequency remain within very tight limits, then dealing with the peaks, when there is lots and lots of power at time when no one wants it, can be every bit as challenging as dealing with the troughs, when there isn’t enough electricity to meet the demand.

One of the current ways of dealing with the peaks in wind power at times of low-demand, such as during the night, is called ‘curtailment’ – basically this means switching off the turbines and letting the wind energy pass us by. This works perfectly well, but is rather wasteful, as

30 Clean Slate

we might very well find that we need that missed energy just a few hours later, when Britain wakes up and demand rises as we all reach for our kettles.

So the electricity grid needs back-up systems that can be switched on and off very quickly so that we can keep everything in balance. One of the ideal technologies for doing this is our existing combined cycle gas turbines. These can be ramped up from cold very quickly, and can also be throttled down fast when electricity demand falls or the output from renewable generation rises.

Predicting what the wind will do a week ahead is fairly risky, but predicting the wind speeds an hour or two ahead is actually relatively reliable as we can track existing weather fronts with satellite and ground stations. This means gas back-up power stations can be ready and waiting to either increase or decrease their output.

Gas seems the ideal back-up solution, but how well it can help the UK achieve its netzero carbon emissions target depends on where you get the gas from.

the atmosphere. In addition, developing more fossil gas will place even more investments from pension funds, hospitals and universities into assets that must eventually become stranded as we take the actions needed to avoid dangerous climate change (or, if we don’t, the courts may well make fossil fuel investors legally and financially liable for the damage they have caused). So what can we do to back up our increasingly renewable energy driven grid?

Fortunately, there is a smart new technology that can balance the grid in a really clean way. It’s called power-to-gas, and we highlight this in our Zero Carbon Britain: Rethinking the Future report.

Power-to-gas converts surplus renewable energy into hydrogen gas by a long-proven process known as electrolysis, which uses the electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. We can then use the hydrogen as an energy store, and we can add a little of it to the mix of gases currently in the gas grid. But our massive existing gas storage and transport infrastructure is not compatible with 100% hydrogen, and you can’t put 100% hydrogen into our existing combined-cycle gas power stations. © Regioenergie Solothurn

Shutterstock / jaroslava V

For a 100% renewable electricity system to work, we need reliable storage to cover days when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. Paul Allen looks at how power-to-gas back-up could transform the energy grid.

Clean gas

Burning more fossil gas or fracked gas doesn’t work from a climate change perspective as it means pulling more greenhouse gases from deep beneath the earth, releasing new carbon dioxide into

Store&Go plant in Solothurn, Switzerland.

energy

capturing it directly from air. This way, the project can analyse and compare the advantages of power-to-gas in various environments.

Gerald Linke, chair of the German Association for Gas and Water says:

Like most developed counties, the UK already owns a vast gas storage and transport infrastructure, so it makes sense to design back-up storage systems that can use this infrastructure if possible.

The smart trick that power-to-gas offers is to combine the hydrogen with carbon dioxide to create synthetic methane. Using carbon dioxide from an existing source like biomass or waste, for example, to convert the hydrogen to methane would create a methane gas that is more or less carbonneutral.

This means that you can use it with all the existing natural gas transport, storage and power generation systems, and when you burn it the carbon simply cycles back into the atmosphere. Power-to-gas therefore allows the peaks in renewable electricity generation to be used for the storage of significant amounts of energy via the provision of carbon-neutral fuels that can be used directly by industry, by consumers for heating and cooking, or used to produce electricity during the troughs in renewable generation.

should help ensure that the project can make a real difference: large industrial players, innovative small companies, and research institutes with a focus on technical concepts, electricity grids, economic studies, business development and law.

The project focuses on the integration of power-to-gas into the daily operation of European energy grids, delivering carbon-neutral natural gas to real-life customers via the existing grid. In Europe, approximately 70 million consumers of gas could be served using the 2.2 million km long gas grid.

At sites in Germany, Italy and Switzerland, research is carried out using a range of different power-to-gas concepts at a considerable scale, between 200 kW and 1 MW. These demonstration sites provide highly diverse test-beds: different climates, different grid types, different combinations of solar, wind and hydro energy. They also explore different carbon dioxide sources, including bioethanol, waste water and

“The Store&Go project as a reality lab exemplifies the integration of large amounts of renewable energy sources.

Integrating such large amounts of renewable energy poses technological difficulties, as those sources, like wind and solar, are volatile and generate electricity intermittently. Thus, at times there will be a surplus of energy when there is no demand for it, and vice versa. Storing large amounts of electrical energy from renewable sources will enable countries to deal with long lasting periods without sufficient wind and sun available.�

As the costs of renewables fall and the technology is scaled up, the potential of power-to-gas to ensure a continuous supply of power to our homes makes it a technology worth exploring. So, as the new nuclear plants at Moorside in Cumbria and Wylfa in Wales look too expensive to build, power-to-gas would seem to be a technology that the UK should be rapidly investigating at scale. CS

About the author

Paul is project coordinator for Zero Carbon Britain. He has been a member of the Wales Science Advisory Council (2010), board member of the International Forum for Sustainable Energy (2008) and a Climate Change Commissioner for Wales (2007). He holds an Honours degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering and has been at CAT since 1988.

The European Commission and the Swiss Government have recognised the massive opportunity provided by power-to-gas, and are supporting research in this field with 24 million euros, paving the way to bring this innovative technology to an industrial stage, ready for mass roll out.

Funded under the Horizon 2020 European funding programme, a powerto-gas project called Store&Go was founded in 2016. It benefits from the involvement of a mixture of organisations with different areas of expertise, which

Š Domenico Grossi

Store&Go

Store&Go in Troia, Italy captures CO2 from ambient air.

Clean Slate 31

building

Insulating solid walls Increasing the energy efficiency of our homes is one of the key ways that we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but when it comes to heritage buildings this isn’t always straightforward. CAT graduate Antonia Khayatt has been researching the challenges and possibilities of internal wall insulation for solid walls.

Shutterstock / Tom Gowanlock

I

t is obvious that the UK needs to improve the energy efficiency of its housing stock. Almost a quarter of the country’s annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from our hopelessly inefficient homes, 98% of which will still be standing in 2050 at current rates of demolition. By then we need to have reduced our emissions to net zero to help avoid dangerous levels of climate change.

Indeed, by 2050 we are legally obliged to have reduced emissions by 80% compared to 1990 levels. If we don’t tackle our existing dwellings, we’ll blow the UK’s entire 2050 greenhouse gas emissions budget on running old houses.

Unfortunately, Green Deal style tinkering isn’t going to solve this problem.

To radically reduce emissions from dwellings, we need to tackle space heating in a big way – more than halving energy demand from an average of 120kWh/m 2/ yr to less than 50kWh/m 2/yr. To achieve this level of energy efficiency, you need U-values in the order of 0.15W/m 2K and an airtightness of around 2ach at 50Pa. This cannot be achieved with a bit of loft and cavity wall insulation. A deep, whole-house retrofit is required.

Of the UK’s 24 million dwellings, almost 7 million are solid wall – in other words, the home’s external masonry walls

32 Clean Slate

have no cavity and are load-bearing. Of these an estimated 3.5 million cannot be altered externally because they are listed, in conservation areas and/or have an exposed brick finish. This means that, amongst other measures, these dwellings will require internal wall insulation (IWI), making them particularly hard to treat.

Internal wall insulation has some serious drawbacks including a loss of space, reduction in thermal mass and potential loss of internal heritage elements. It can also lead to moisture build-up within the wall and the subsequent rotting of timbers, frost damage to brick, reduction in thermal performance and worsening of indoor air quality due to mould growth. This is because internal wall insulation reduces the wall’s ability to dry out to the inside.

Solid walls are constantly getting wet from rain and water-vapour and they need to be able to ‘breathe’ – i.e. they need to allow moisture to move through them to the inside and out. Internal wall insulation can inhibit this essential breathability. In addition, it renders the original masonry cooler, and thus makes it more prone to interstitial condensation.

Research by others on how to reduce the risk of moisture build-up with internal insulation on solid walls gives us four key recommendations:

• Minimise rainwater penetration through good maintenance.

• Minimise water-vapour penetration from the inside by limiting internal humidity and using a vapour control layer.

• Ensure the wall can still dry out to both sides.

• L imit the insulation thicknesses.

Several researchers and organisations, including the Passivhaus Institut, recommend aiming for wall U-values no lower than 0.35W/m 2K. This latter recommendation suggests that very high energy efficiencies are simply not achievable with internal wall insulation on solid wall dwellings. However a study of a house in north London suggests otherwise.

In 2011, an Edwardian terrace home with nine inch thick solid brick walls underwent a deep retrofit by Anne Thorne Architects.

The front wall was internally insulated using breathable materials – 200mm of sheep’s wool insulation, an intelligent vapour control layer, 60mm of wood fibre board and a 30mm lime plaster. The intelligent vapour control layer limits water vapour entering the wall from the inside in winter, whilst still allowing the wall to dry out to the inside in summer.

A U-value of 0.16W/m2K was achieved, far below the recommended 0.35W/m2K.

building

Glossary U-Value

Airtightness

Thermal mass Interstitial condensation Relative humidity (RH)

Hygrothermal

The rate of transfer of heat through a material or structure.

The lower the U-value the better the insulation.

Airtightness refers to the elimination of unintended gaps and cracks in a building to minimise the loss of heat through uncontrolled ventilation.

During an airtightness test, the building is pressurised to 50Pa and the volume of air leaking out of the building is measured. The Passivhaus standard demands very high airtightness – less than 0.6ach (air changes per hour) at 50Pa.

The ability of a building or material to absorb and store heat energy.

Condensation inside the building fabric.

RH is the amount of water vapour present in air expressed as a percentage, whereby 100% RH would be the amount of water vapour required for saturation at that temperature.

The movement of heat and moisture through buildings.

Following completion, the house’s energy and water use were monitored for several years by Ben Croxford of University College London. The house enjoyed a measured energy usage of around 52kWh/ m 2/yr – less than half the current energy use for the average UK home. In addition, Ben monitored relative humidity and temperature both internally and within the front wall.

My CAT MSc dissertation research analysed Ben’s measurements and compared them with a hygrothermal model of the front wall, using WUFI Pro modelling software.

I then assessed the likelihood of moisture-related problems in the wall and house against six criteria, which were established after an extensive literature review: •M oisture must not accumulate year on year and should not exceed 80% relative humidity for more than six months.

•R elative humidity and temperature isopleths must stay below limits to mould growth (an isopleth is a graph that plots simultaneous relative humidity and temperature conditions).

•M oisture content in wood-based materials must not exceed 20% mass of moisture for prolonged periods of time.

• Moisture content of brick must not exceed levels liable to frost damage at times when external temperatures cross 0oC.

•T he wall U-value must not exceed the design value for prolonged periods of time.

• I nternal humidity levels should be kept at a comfortable level of 40-70% relative humidity most of the time.

At Hawthorn Road, both the measured data and WUFI model showed that, against all six criteria, long-term moisture risks were low.

This is very exciting, but before we go about retrofitting every solid wall dwelling in a similar manner, let me introduce some pretty hefty caveats.

Firstly, during the first two years after renovation, the wall was worryingly damp.

This may have caused permanent, unseen damage.

Secondly, the moisture content of the timber joist ends in the front wall was not assessed. Research by Joseph Little suggests that problems can occur in joist ends even if the rest of the wall seems fine.

Thirdly, the accuracy of the WUFI model is questionable due to a lack of data on material properties (in particular the original brick) and external climate (specifically direct solar radiation).

Fourthly, the house is in sheltered, dry London. One simply cannot apply the same solution to a wind and rain-swept cottage in Wales or Cornwall.

Finally, despite its limitations, the WUFI model highlighted one unassailable fact:

a small adjustment of certain material properties completely changes the hygrothermal performance of the wall. For example, when the brick modelled in WUFI had a low rainwater absorption coefficient – i.e. the brick didn’t absorb much rain – the front wall seemed fine. However, when modelled with a more absorbent brick, the wall was unacceptably wet.

In short, this is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Solid wall dwellings retrofitted with internal wall insulation need to be assessed and ideally measured on a caseby-case basis.

Then there are the social and economic barriers. To retrofit a solid wall home to this level of energy efficiency requires the house to be gutted – stripped back to the original plaster and brickwork with floor and roof joists exposed. How many homeowners can afford to spend over £100,000 and find alternative accommodation for a year?

By comparison Energiesprong projects, which carry out similarly high energy-efficiency retrofits using off-site construction, can over-clad an existing house in a week, with the occupiers living at home throughout. But to date the Energiesprong approach has only been carried out on dwellings where the external appearance can be altered. External wall insulation is so much easier.

To conclude, it is technically feasible to retrofit at least some of our historic solid wall homes to very high energy efficiency levels. It is also necessary, not least if we wish to retain these heritage assets for future generations and ensure they are decent homes for their occupants. But it is not easy, and we need to collectively learn the lessons from each and every project so that we don’t ruin millions of historic buildings with bad, moisture-inducing retrofit. This will take time.

Time, unfortunately, is in short supply when it comes to climate change. Massscale retrofit is required. Let’s start with the 17 million dwellings that aren’t so hard to treat. CS

About the author

Antonia Khayatt is an Architect with numerous degrees and over ten years experience. Antonia leads the Environmental team at Nicholas Hare Architects, an award winning practice working primarily in the school and higher education sectors. She lives and works in London.

Clean Slate 33

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