Government recognition for research evaluating low carbon communities
Friday, 21 February 2014
A research project led by Oxford Brookes has been held up as an example of key work in a Government report on energy.
Research
being led by Professor Rajat Gupta, as part of the Evaluating Low Carbon
Communities (EVALOC) project, was highlighted in the Department of Energy and
Climate Change’s (DECC) Community Energy
Strategy.
The
report looks at the benefits of putting communities at the heart of energy
policy, of which EVALOC is an excellent example. It notes that “the researchers
have developed a robust approach to evaluating the impacts and effectiveness of
community-led renovations of homes and behaviour change initiatives on
household energy use.”
Speaking
about the project, Professor Gupta said: “EVALOC is an exciting, novel and
collaborative four-year project. We are undertaking community-led action
research and a programme of household level monitoring and evaluation. We are
building on the experience of a number of professional researchers, as well as
the experience and knowledge in communities and we hope to make a real
difference to energy use and carbon emissions.”
The
EVALOC project will be developing a Community Energy Toolkit that includes
materials and guidance for energy projects. The toolkit also includes methods
for monitoring and evaluation of household energy use as well as carbon mapping
tools to help groups identify, action and monitor energy projects in their
communities.
Further
information is available on the dedicated EVALOC
webpages. The DECC report can be read
online.