Reports & policy briefs

This brief sets out how the pursuit of climate security for all can drive opportunities for adaptation finance – the next generation of green finance – and where markets can lead, and governments can accelerate action, focusing on the UK as a case in point. A new approach to public policy and an investment plan to match is required. This entails a systems-change approach to ensure economies and communities can be resilient to the impacts of the climate change that we are already experiencing. This focus on resilience must not be delivered as an alternative to driving economy-wide decarbonisation. Both are needed, and by taking a dual track approach, climate security can be delivered for citizens.

This report, completed by the Resilient Planet Finance Lab at the ECI, reviews the status of nature finance globally, to learn from the role played by nature-focused funds and their investment managers, understand what works, and draw conclusions for how we might mobilise more financing for nature-based solutions for adaptation. Our focus is on exploring opportunities to overcome the barriers that hold back finance and action for NbS at scale. This knowledge will inform a roadmap and toolkit for identifying viable investment modalities in Bangladesh.

New study reveals in excess of 5 Trillion USD in nature-related risks to the global economy that will amplify the impacts of climate change. Shocks to the global economy related to biodiversity loss and ecosystem damage could cost upwards of five trillion USD. Human activities, such as pollution, deforestation, land-use change and overextraction, are fundamentally eroding the natural capital upon which are societies and economies are built – including our water, clean air, fertile soils and pollinators – and act as ‘risk amplifiers’ on the impacts of climate change. Study by the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) and the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford.

Bringing together a vision for achieving the shift towards bean-rich diets, this report outlines case studies, key themes and next steps as discussed at the summit held on 27 to 28 September 2023 in Oxford.

Energy prices in the UK continue to be very high, and in the absence of Government help, millions of households will struggle without adequate energy for heating, hot water, cooking and other vital services. This report uses data from smart-enabled prepayment meter customers to explore how the Government can best target support to those in greatest need, and to describe the minimum level of support needed to prevent serious suffering this coming winter.

Energy prices in the UK continue to be very high, and in the absence of Government help, millions of households will struggle without adequate energy for heating, hot water, cooking and other vital services. This report uses data from smart-enabled prepayment meter customers to explore how the Government can best target support to those in greatest need, and to describe the minimum level of support needed to prevent serious suffering this coming winter.

This report describes UK demand and supply of plant-based alternatives to meat, for human consumption, and the role of beans. The aim is to provide a better understanding of the current and potential future demand for, and supply of, beans and how this fits into a broader shift to plant-based foods.

Energy Superhub Oxford's (ESO) main focus was investment in infrastructure for energy storage, electric vehicle charging, low carbon home heating and developing innovative, smart ways of generating benefits for users, investors and society at large. This summary report highlights research findings spanning each of the major work packages: transport, decarbonising heat, and the transmission grid connected battery, its operation and carbon impact. 

Foresight is a key tool that governments, private sector, and civil society can jointly use to better understand future risks and opportunities, explore possible futures, and to adapt. Foresight4Food anticipates trends and changes in food systems, analyses solutions and innovations, and creates foresight-backed scenarios and options to guide action. 

Better digital networks, accessible venues and nutrition-based subsidies could all help community-scale food providers play a greater role in making the UK food system more resilient and nutritious. This policy brief explores the barriers to market faced by three community-scale food provision models – farmers markets, salad suppliers and community growers – as Covid-19 changed food consumption patterns.

Collaboration with larger institutions could untap the potential for small and medium sized enterprises to contribute to greater UK food security, according to a policy and practice brief from the GFS FSR Programme. The briefing note examines how specific interactions between SMEs and larger players in the food system could result in greater food system resilience.

Discussions with Greater London Authority’s (GLA) Food Resilience Champions Group were framed around four key resilience questions: Resilience of what? Resilience from whose perspective? Resilience to what? And resilience over what time frame? These discussions led to co-creation of three resilience strategies based on robustness, recovery and re-orientation.

This report contains insights from a major interdisciplinary research programme to enhance the UK’s food security in a changing world. Undertaking collaborative research spanning UK universities, research institutes and many other stakeholders, 13 projects produced evidence and recommendations for policy and practice to help to identify and develop interventions to strengthen UK food security.

The GFS FSR Programme  policy and practice brief recommends actions for enhancing the resilience of grazing livestock systems. Transforming the resilience of UK grazing livestock systems presents an integrated set of system-level interventions for transformational change in UK grazing livestock systems to improve their resilience to environmental, social and economic shocks and stresses.

A policy and practice brief from the GFS FSR Programme examines the risks associated with soy dependency in the food industry and shares recommendations on how those in the food system can mitigate exposure to current and future risks.

A short report of the method used to generate preliminary Natural Capital maps for Oxfordshire. The work was undertaken under an Oxford Policy Exchange Network fellowship, enabling Alison Smith to work with Oxfordshire County Council, with support from Cherwell District Council, and develop evidence on natural capital to feed into development of the Oxfordshire Plan to 2050.

An overview of the report on Oxfordshire can sustain the momentum of the last decade to achieve net-zero emissions. Decarbonising transport, reducing reliance on fossil fuels for heating, and protecting and enhancing carbon stored in the natural environment are priorities for the next two decades.

Further details on the methodology used to analyse the role of the land use sector in Pathways to a zero carbon Oxfordshire, Chapter 9.

Oxfordshire has made good progress on achieving its climate goals, with success in decarbonising electricity and reducing energy demand over the last. This report addresses how Oxfordshire can sustain the momentum of the last decade to achieve net-zero emissions. There remains significant work to do to decarbonise transport, reduce reliance on fossil fuels for heating, and protect and enhance carbon stored in the natural environment.

What does the future hold for the world’s 500 million small-scale farms as food systems change? A significant transformation of small-scale agriculture is needed to realise the SDGs, and to achieve healthier, more equitable and environmentally sustainable food systems. This report argues that a much deeper, more nuanced and up-to-date understanding of small-scale agriculture and family farming is urgently needed to drive such a transformation.

Executive summary contains highlights of the distribution of economic value, the number of enterprises, and levels of employment across the UK food system. 

This report quantifies the distribution of economic value, the number of enterprises, and levels of employment across the UK food system. It has ‘mapped’ UK food system activities as described by their economic value, employee and enterprise numbers. This provides a first assessment of the overall shape of the UK food system and a foundation to build on for further analyses.

This short guidance note lists potential datasets that can be used to create a base map of existing green infrastructure assets, and suggests how they could be combined into a single asset map.

The nexus of interdependencies between the water, energy and food (WEF) systems are multiple. The increasing pressure on all these systems has been described as the ‘perfect storm’; stresses and shocks in one system have potential knock-on effects on the others, with implications for life and its quality. A multi-disciplinary study – WEFWEBS – sought to explore, map and measure these relationships at multiple scales and in different places across the UK. Local Authorities can play a critical role in building awareness of the water-energy-food nexus regionally, and developing capacity and resilience to manage likely stresses and strains.

An introduction to the Food System Group at ECI. Our aim is to have a positive impact on food systems through collaborative initiatives, ranging from understanding the links between food security and global environmental change to creating new communities of food systems thinkers.

This report addresses the question: how and where is public participation in energy systems occurring in the West of England? Achieving deep and timely cuts to carbon emissions requires fundamental changes to the way society produces and consumes energy, and the active engagement and participation of citizens. 

Scenario building is just one tool to help us think about the future. The Zero Hunger, Zero Emissions project uses scenario building to ask questions about the future of Bangladesh, particularly in terms of climate change and food security. This issue of Climate Tribune explores the importance of scenario building, insights into the process, the scenarios that were developed by this project and how people reacted to them.

This protocol outlines the research design and methodological steps for a rapid review of evidence for the project Energy Publics. The aim is to gather up-to-date information about energy participation within the West of England.

A short report that describes a simple method for mapping ecosystem services based on scoring different types of land cover from 0 to 5, depending on their ability to supply different services. We applied this approach to the Bicester area, by adapting a matrix of land-cover scores generated from a study in Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull.

This guidance note presents evidence on the value of Bicester’s green spaces to local people, gathered through a public survey in summer 2017, using interviews, a focus group and an online app; and through a new online tool called ORVal that estimates the welfare value of green spaces for recreation anywhere in England.

Data from the Energy publics project final report.

In the Canadian Maritimes, coastal sea level rise, changing temperatures, and erratic weather impact the way food is produced, stored, distributed, and consumed. We asked 40 farmers, retailers, and other food system actors about the vulnerability of the Maritimes food system. Our research identifies key areas of intervention for governments and other institutions, from integrating local knowledge to inform adaptation action to switching to more sustainable and resilient practices. 

E-SPAS (Energie Sparen An Schulen) is an energy education program at primary schools in Emden, north western Germany. The objective is to raise awareness about energy efficiency and to convey practical know-how about energy saving in households.

A reports on decisions about theories of change and existing frameworks for assessment made through the IN-BEE project.

Tackling climate change presents both a profound challenge and opportunity to improve people’s lives and the environment. This report aims to promote discussion and provide practical ideas about how Oxfordshire can achieve both a fair and a fast transition to a low-carbon economy in a way that benefits local residents, reduces social divides and builds public support for action. With a foreword by Danny Dorling.

This report provides a policy framework to ensure that all energy use in all buildings in the whole UK results in zero carbon emissions by 2050. The study views the challenges from a people’s perspective – the roles of the property owner and the occupant – with the implications for energy supply one of the results. The emphasis on energy services, rather than energy purchases, shifts the debate on to demand reduction rather than energy supply and on to lower, not higher, bills. Investing in greater energy efficiency provides users with a better standard of living: a future-friendly property is one that it is warmer, more comfortable, healthier.

Home Truths reveals that not only is an 80 per cent cut in household emissions achievable, but it can be done in an equitable and fair way that wipes out fuel poverty and enables every UK citizen to live in a warm, comfortable home. The low-carbon house – the individual is warmer, has more hot water and can even have more appliances than now. Carbon emissions are cut, national energy security is increased and fuel poverty has disappeared. Market transformation is the strategic approach recommended, setting a long-term policy framework and recognises that combinations of policies are the most effective.

This presentation was given as part of a seminar on 26 April 1989 at No. 10 Downing Street to members of the Cabinet. Nick Eyre co-authored the presentation during his time at the Energy Technology Support Unit (ETSU). The presentation discusses eight options for what the UK might do to mitigate carbon emissions: reforestation; burning waste; energy efficiency; alternative transport fuels; removal of carbon dioxide; renewable electricity; more nuclear power; and alternative fossil fuel generation.