Transforming homes kick starts rapid transition. Providing affordable, energy-efficient and decent shelter is a primary responsibility of a society to itself.
Big global shifts in recent decades have seen populations rise and move to cities and urban areas where space is limited and the provision of housing a challenge. The built environment is one of the biggest users of energy and emitters of carbon, both in construction and day to day use.
Story of change
A fast plant for rapid shifts in construction – how the ancient supercrop Hemp can help build low carbon homesReducing emissions in the construction industry, with its dependence on carbon-intensive concrete, is notoriously difficult and extraordinarily important in tackling the climate emergency. When...
But there are huge economic, environmental and social gains to be made from making sure that new buildings are zero carbon, and existing buildings are retrofitted to become energy efficient. New thinking about how where we build relates to where we work can also radically reduce energy use and improve quality of life by, for example, designing out unnecessary commuting in cars.
New or revived interest in common land ownership, and cooperative or part-communal housing developments are further demonstrating how to change how we live to radically and rapidly reduce our climate impact, while also easing a range of social and health problems.
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Story of change
Charged up: breakthroughs in battery technology are rapidly draining demand for fossil fuelsAt the outset of the millennium, evidence-based hope for a rapid energy transition was consistently challenged by the critical matter of storage. Generating...
Commentary
Vaccine Verse: medicine for our timesVaccine Verse by the Plague Poets This volume of poetry from troubling times emerges on National Poetry Day and at a time when global and local challenges...
Story of change
London’s ‘Great Stink’ of 1858: how a rapid policy response stopped the stenchIn 2022 raw human waste was pumped into the United Kingdom’s rivers and seas 825 times per day on average. Modern Britain has a big, steaming sewage...
Commentary
Rapid transition to beat the heat – HousingUK homes are not built to handle the heat. Most of them were designed and constructed for a much cooler climate where extreme heat events were rarer and...
Story of change
Keeping cool without costing the earthIn May 2022 temperatures in India and Pakistan reached 50°C. Heat this fierce causes chaos to infrastructure, water security and also triggers irreversible...
Commentary
An alternative energy strategy to stimulate rapid transitionAll around the world, governments’ energy policies are at a crossroads. In order to insulate themselves from dependence on Russian oil and gas, tackle...
Story of change
Goodbye gas: making the global leap to heat pumpsThe humble heat pump, a clean energy technology, is making a late global leap to help wean homes off fossil fuels and slow the climate crisis. The shift is...
Reset series
Repair and maintenance – how we learned to use our hands againThe human urge to mend, repair and improve is nothing new – it has just been forgotten and gone untrained, buried under an avalanche of mass produced...
Story of change
Citizen-led retrofitting: how the poor relation of climate policy is becoming its secret weaponLessons for rapid transition: A citizen-led renovation model ensures that policy is aligned with local needs, while stimulating skills, business and supply...