Tag: Rich Pancost

COP21 daily report: Be brave, work together and involve the next generation

Posted on by janet.crompton
Cabot Institute Director Professor Rich Pancost will be attending COP21 in Paris as part of the Bristol city-wide team, including the Mayor of Bristol, representatives from Bristol City Council and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership. He and others Cabot Institute members will be writing blogs during COP21, reflecting on what is happening in Paris, especially in the Paris and Bristol co-hosted Cities and Regions Pavilion, and also on the conclusion to Bristol’s year as the European Green Capital.  Follow #UoBGreen and #COP21 for live updates from the University of Bristol.  All blogs in the series are linked to at the bottom of this blog.
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Scene from COP21

The first several days of COP21 have seen a flurry of announcements, propositions and commitments.  Just within the Bristol/Paris/ICLEI tent, numerous new ideas have emerged as city after city has stepped forward and proposed its Transformative Action Plans. Despite the diversity of propositions, the key themes are emerging: Leaders must be brave and adventurous; we must all work together in new and innovative partnerships built on trust; and engagement with the next generation is crucial.

These are not terribly surprising!

The challenge for leaders to be brave was the key message from the Mayors of the past and future European Green Capitals. Speaking after the panel, Katarina Luhr, Vice Mayor from Stockholm, said:

“My message to the politicians negotiating at COP21 is to look to the future and be brave.”

I could not agree with this more.  Going ahead, as we face increasingly difficult challenges, navigate contentious compromise, or try something new and unknown, this bravery will become even more important… and more complicated.  Populations will have to empower leaders to be bold and leaders will have to earn that right by building trust.

The Cabot Institute has been discussing this with our colleagues and partners (including the University’s new Brigstowe Institute) over the past year – and we are certainly not alone in this. We will report more on these issues in the coming months, but one emerging theme is how trust can be built through partnership. (See my blogs on the importance of University of Bristol partnerships here and here).

Few challenges, whether it be tackling climate change, resolving inequality or building a sustainable health service as our population ages, can be solved by a single agent acting alone.  Appropriately, George Ferguson and Cllr Daniella Radice, Assistant Mayor for Neighbourhoods, including Environment, emphasised partnership as they opened the discussion on the first day of the Cities and Regions Pavilion. And of course, the Pavilion itself is the product of partnership between Bristol, Paris and ICLEI, itself a partnership of >1000 local and sub-national organisations.

Partnership is necessary.  Diverse contributors with diverse perspectives and expertise must work together to solve the climate change crisis.

And partnership is hard. It requires a deep and long-term commitment and a willingness to share, compromise and trust. It is at the heart of the University of Bristol’s ambitions , including how we work with our city, but we also recognise that that requires long term commitment. We’re trying but we’re not going to pretend we have it cracked.

One great example of successful partnership is Bristol is Open, a joint venture between the University of Bristol and Bristol City Council but designed in a way to be open to a variety of new partners from business and civil society. BIO is a combination of state-of-the-art, publicly owned fibre-optic infrastructure, environmental sensors, 5G wireless technology, the university’s high performance computing and programmable city models.  It could enable a new type of smart city in which traffic, flood, emergency, and energy services are managed in real time to achieve efficiency, sustainability and resilience.

But that is the future of BIO.  What it is now is a city-wide laboratory that will be open for experimentation and innovation.  It is an invitation to partnership.  And one of the first steps in that invitation was the 18 November Festival of the Future City launch of the Data Dome, the UK’s first 3D, interactive dome for data visualisation at At-Bristol. The purpose and value of the smart, programmable city can be difficult to grasp – it was for me!  The Data Dome, similar to the Playable City initiative, is a way to share and explore the potential of this technology while learning about our city. [And the Bristol Brain, one of Bristol’s Transformative Action Plan propositions discussed on Tuesday, will also be central to this.]

Another truly exciting arena for partnership is the recently announced UKCRIC programme, led in Bristol by Professor Colin Taylor, also the theme leader for the Cabot Institute’s Future cities and communities research theme.  We will be discussing this much more in the future, especially as we launch the Collaboratory component of it, which will bring investment to the centre of Bristol to support even further collaboration and innovation.

Of course, one of the most exciting and successful examples of partnership that I have seen in Bristol or any other city is the Bristol Green Capital Partnership (BGCP), which was key to winning the European Green Capital award and remains dedicated to building momentum for climate action. Gary Topp, Development Director for the Partnership and Honorary Fellow in the University of Bristol, was part of the team showcasing Bristol’s ambition on Tuesday in Paris, where he outlined its work involving over 850 organisations committed to creating ‘a low carbon city with a high quality of life for all’. For other Green Capitals, creating a partnership was a major success; we started with one. And it is now the largest of its kind in the world.

One of the things I am most proud of in the Cabot Institute has been our support of and work with the BGCP (which predates my current role by several years).  Our Manager Philippa Bayley was the directly elected co-Director of the Partnership in 2014 (with the amazing Liz Zeidler of Happy City, about which I could write a whole extra blog!), and we have several ongoing projects. The Partnership is now gearing up to be a central and sustainable part of the 2015 legacy, serving as a uniting, empowering and vocal participant in the future of our city. On 26 November 2015, working with Crowdfunder UK, they launched their most recent initiative, the Better Bristol campaign to find new ways to support exciting and potentially transformative projects.  The largest such partnership in the world, the BGCP will play an essential role in ensuring that Bristol continues to be a place where grass roots projects thrive.

Mayor George Ferguson emphasised this principle in his concluding comments, noting that while targets and technology were important, the European Green Capital award was about people and partnerships among civil society, with schools, businesses and other cities. “Recognising that we cannot work in isolation,” he added, “is absolutely vital. We need to shape our cities in partnership, finding common links to suit everybody, provide confidence to deal with the unknown and take control of our destinies.”

A final example of this Partnership came later in the day, when our former Cabot Institute colleague Professor Andy Gouldson (now at Leeds) shared his research in investment in a sustainable future for Bristol. It revealed that over the next decade, such investment could save Bristol up to £300 million on its energy bills and create up to 10,000 jobs.  The report ‘The Economics of Low Carbon Cities: a Mini-Stern Review for the City of Bristol, was commissioned by the Cabot Institute and funded by the University, and uses a robust model to assess the costs and benefits of low carbon projects to accelerate Bristol’s progress.  A similar initiative, STEEP, involving Cabot Institute academic Mike Yearworth, showed how Systems approaches could also bring about city-scale energy efficiencies.  Both are underpinning Bristol’s consultation around its Climate and Energy Security.

So enough patting ourselves on the back.  These are some nice emerging success stories.  But we can do better.

Partnerships work best when everyone benefits, but we must put more effort into building deeper and more powerful trust so that partnerships create room for compromise.  Or even temporary sacrifice. Perhaps more importantly, we recognise that many people do not feel included in these ‘partnerships’. This requires more thought and reflection than a few paragraphs in a single blog.  Therefore, allow me to simply note this challenge and trust me to return to it; and I will finish by focussing on one of our most important partners.

The youth of our city and our planet

As an educational institution, we must make a strong commitment to prepare the next generation. Our offer should be imaginative, distinctive and innovative – and it should prepare our students to be global citizens, committed to a sustainable and just future, and inspired to be creative and enterprising.  These concepts are intrinsic to our ongoing Strategic Review, being led by our new Vice-Chancellor Hugh Brady.

They are also being embedded at an earlier age through one of Bristol 2015’s flagship successes. On 24 Nov, the city launched the Sustainable Learning programme, shared with thousands of Bristol children and  underpinned by the award-winning Shaun the Sheep app.

We must prepare the next generation to live in a more volatile and unpredictable world.  The University of Bristol is committed to that.

We must also prepare the world for them.  This is not about solving all the problems for them; nor is it just about giving them the education to solve problems.  It is also about creating the social, economic, legal and infrastructure framework that leaves room for them and their ideas and their creativity.  I think all policies, regulations and treaties (or their removal) should be tested against a central rule: does this create options for future generations or take them away.   The next generation must inherit a world where creativity and innovation are allowed to thrive. The Cabot Institute is committed to that.

But we must be equally committed to working with them now.

Young people at the Bristol Climate March this year.

George Ferguson emphasised this in Paris: “We all recognised the importance of putting our young people first and foremost; involving them in how we plan for their future… those young people often come up with ideas and solutions that are better than those of their older counterparts. Building cities for the future cannot just be for youth, it has to be with them”.

I have written (and tweeted) about how deeply impressed I am by our Youth Council and our Youth Mayors, several of whom were just nominated by RIFE Magazine as 24 Influential People under 24. They are brave!  And smart and informed and passionate.  They have ambition for themselves and ambition to make the world a better place and we would be fools to simply wait for them to become future leaders. They have much to offer now.

But that involves more than just inviting them to the meeting; it means letting them set the agenda.

Are we brave enough to do that?



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This blog is by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol.  For more information about the University of Bristol at COP21, please visit bristol.ac.uk/green-capital
Prof Rich Pancost

 

This blog is part of a COP21 daily report series. View other blogs in the series below:
 
Monday 30 November: COP21 daily report
Tuesday 1 December: Setting a more ambitious agenda – Bristol’s Transformative Action Plans
Wednesday 2 December: Reflecting on the science of climate change
Thursday 3 December: The politics and culture of climate change

COP21 daily report: Setting a more ambitious agenda – Bristol’s Transformative Action Plans

Posted on by janet.crompton
Cabot Institute Director Professor Rich Pancost will be attending COP21 in Paris as part of the Bristol city-wide team, including the Mayor of Bristol, representatives from Bristol City Council and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership. He will be writing blogs during COP21, reflecting on what is happening in Paris, especially in the Paris and Bristol co-hosted Cities and Regions Pavilion, and also on the conclusion to Bristol’s year as the European Green Capital.  Follow #UoBGreen and #COP21 for live updates from the University of Bristol.

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On Monday, the Bristol Team arrived in Paris for the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference (COP21).  The Bristol cohort includes not just the Mayor and Bristol City Council, but also representatives from the Green Capital Partnership and an independent group from Love the Future (15 stalwarts who cycled from Bristol to Paris through typically British November weather). I’ll be joining them on Sunday… but some of the most exciting activity will happen today.

Bristol’s primary engagement with COP21 will be via the Cities and Regions Pavilion, hosted by Paris and Bristol and facilitated by ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, with support from over 40 partners.  It is testimony to the stature of Bristol as 2015 Green Capital that it is able to share this venue with Paris. Moreover, the Pavilion is a fantastic opportunity for Bristol to share, connect with and learn from hundreds of cities from across the globe.

Bristol is one of 88 cities and regions in 42 countries to present innovative projects aimed at placing local and regional governments at the heart of positive and long-term climate action.  These Transformative Action Plans (TAPs) represent a 10-year initiative that aims to transform the lives of their citizens.  They arise from ICLEI’s recognition that local entities must take the lead in delivering but also extending the commitments emerging from the national-scale negotiations.  Bristol is pitching two projects, one on energy efficiency and one on smarter future planning of cities. The University of Bristol, including its Cabot Institute, has been closely involved with the development of both and former Bristol Professor Andy Gouldson will be sharing the stage with Mayor George Ferguson today.

George Ferguson, Mayor of Bristol, said: 

“Bristol’s innovative plans, boosted by our year as European Green Capital, have been rated amongst the very best across cities and regions around the world thanks to their potential to transform the lives of our citizens. We’re proud to be among the world’s pioneering sustainable thinkers at COP21 and we look forward to bridging the gap ahead of the expected 2020 agreement with immediate actions that help reduce emissions, tackle poverty, improve lives and create new jobs through investment in low carbon projects.”

The first proposal, entitled ‘Energy efficiency for everyone’ (or Bristol Billion), is for a $1B (or £700m) investment to make Bristol’s buildings more energy efficient, thereby achieving significant carbon, energy, economic and even health savings. It will involve refurbishing 56,000 homes in Bristol – 30% of the city – and crucially it will not only make our city more sustainable but it will lift these homes out of fuel poverty and reduce health costs.  This proposal is based in part on a Cabot Institute-commissioned report that has also been released to the public today: The Economics of Low Carbon Cities: A mini-Stern Review for Bristol. This research shows that Bristol can achieve marked reductions in its emissions while saving money; in fact, the whole project could pay for itself in under a decade.  However, such a bold endeavour requires bold financing and hence the Bristol Billion proposition.

The Economics of Low Carbon Cities – report commissioned by the Cabot Institute

The Bristol Billion should achieve the energy efficiency gains necessary for the city to meet its 2015 to 2025 emissions reductions targets, but Bristol must also establish a foundation for the more challenging emission reductions to occur beyond 2025 and especially 2030.  Whether it be transforming the South West energy supply chain via the Bristol Energy Company or transforming its transport system, these changes will be more challenging and controversial. And that is the basis for the second project, the ‘Bristol Brain’, which seeks to reimagine how citizens and planners can work together to shape a sustainable future for the city. The Bristol Brain is ‘a physical and digital city model, on top of which, real-time data and sophisticated analytics can be projected and visualised, creating environments that can be explored through virtual and augmented reality. This will allow different scenarios for future developments to be explored as if they are real, and for the impact on energy, transport, air quality and other factors, to be fully understood.’

The Bristol Brain could facilitate city-scale planning decisions ranging from emergency services, road maintenance, and new public works. It could allow the social and economic impacts of major investments to be assessed and justified. Most importantly, it is a tool for testing and thereby empowering the radical reimagining of Bristol. It is the type of tool that citizens can use to justify maintenance of the M32… or its conversion into a bus-exclusive route… or even closing it and turning it into a city-scale garden.
This type of creative imagining is vital. Professor Colin Taylor, the head of the Cabot Institute’s Future Cities research theme, has argued that robust future city planning requires a city emulator so that we can truly explore the potential costs and benefits of truly transformative change. Crucially, the Bristol Brain would also support the more real-time interactive experiments that will be enabled by Bristol is Open and ensure that Bristol remains at the cutting edge of creative technology.
There remain challenges.  According to Bristol City Council, ‘The critical next step is to ensure these projects receive adequate financial resources to address urgent and evolving local needs to create a sustainable future.’ 

Another challenge is ensuring that such projects, especially the Bristol Brain, create an open and inclusive conversation about Bristol’s future. The University is committed to supporting these efforts.  If the Bristol Brain were to be made available to the public, perhaps via an allotment of the University’s High Performance Computing facility, then it becomes not just a resource for planning and consultation but for citizen-led propositions and inclusive innovation. 

The COP21 ambition, expressed by national governments via their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), is very likely to fall short of the global target of 2 degrees C warming. As such, it is crucial that other actors, including cities, take the lead in driving a more ambitious emissions reduction agenda. Moreover, they must work with universities, industry and civil society to stimulate, incubate and test new innovations. 

Bristol recognises that it can do more than follow an emissions path set by others. It can be a Laboratory for Change.
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Note: This blog is based partly on and includes text from a Bristol City Council press release.

This blog is by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol.  For more information about the University of Bristol at COP21, please visit bristol.ac.uk/green-capital
Prof Rich Pancost
This blog is part of a COP21 daily report series. View other blogs in the series:
 

COP21 daily report: Monday 30 November

Posted on by janet.crompton
Cabot Institute Director Professor Rich Pancost will be attending COP21 in Paris as part of the Bristol city-wide team, including the Mayor of Bristol, representatives from Bristol City Council and the Bristol Green Capital Partnership. He will be writing blogs during COP21, reflecting on what is happening in Paris, especially in the Paris and Bristol co-hosted Cities and Regions Pavilion, and also on the conclusion to Bristol’s year as the European Green Capital.  Follow #UoBGreen and #COP21 for live updates from the University of Bristol.
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I started pondering this opening blog, the first in our Bristol at COP21 series, on Friday morning, while walking from the St Werburgh’s Community Centre back to the University.

It was a reflective walk. The  previous evening, Bristol’s COP21 team met at Brunel House to talk logistics, covering everything from travel, to security, to the main messages Bristol would want to share with the rest of the world.  All of this had come at the end of a whirlwind month of events and announcements.  In November, we had already hosted George Marshall and Jonathan Porritt (with the National Union of Journalists and Festival of Ideas), celebrated our fifth birthday, and discussed what we will achieve in the next five years with our new VC and in a rapidly transforming university.  The previous week had seen the Festival of the Future City, at which we presented some of our findings from the year on Bristol’s climate challenges, its future resiliency, its nature and connection to the countryside, and the new governance and financial structures needed to achieve transformative change.

The interactive Bristol Data Dome had opened on 18 Nov, the first in the UK and part of the rollout of Bristol Is Open.  The City’s Sustainable Education programme launched, and the Shaun the Sheep app that underpins it won the ‘App with a Purpose’ prize.  Bristol City Council launched its own Energy Company, only the second in the UK.  George Ferguson gave his annual lecture in the Wills Memorial Building, at which he announced his ambition for an up to £1 billion investment in a citywide urban retrofit to increase energy efficiency and tackle fuel poverty (a plan partially based on our mini-Stern review of Bristol as a Low Carbon City).  And of course, we are headed to COP21, where Bristol will co-host the Cities and Regions Pavilion with Paris.

And despite all of these announcements and achievements, the year feels incomplete.  The meeting in St Werburgh’s, co-sponsored by ourselves and some great partners, thoughtfully examined whether the Green Capital project had really engaged all of our citizens, from all perspectives and all walks of life. The answer to that was complex and we will be exploring that more during 2016 as the conversation continues.  But there was an overall consensus that much had been achieved but much more could have been achieved.  It seems a common opinion as 2015 races towards its conclusion in Paris.

I’ve seen this tension between satisfaction and ambition exemplified on a large scale by Andrew Garrad, co-founder of Garrad Hassan now part of DNV-GL, Chair of the Bristol 2015 Company and member of the Cabot Institute’s Advisory Board. He has spent 35 years in the wind industry; in one sentence he can celebrate the success of UK renewables, which in 20 years have become central to the UK’s energy mix, and then pivot to regret that he has not been able to push even further.

This is something that sometimes frustrates me about my adopted city but that ultimately I love – and is perhaps what I love most about it. No matter how much we achieve, we argue about how we could have done better.  Or more.  Or faster.

Bristol is the least complacent place I have ever lived, sometimes exhausting but always exhilarating.

I am concluding this first blog on Sunday night, having just returned from the Climate March, which drew thousands of people on a cold, wet and windy day.  And at which people sang songs, chanted, cheered – but also debated and argued and demanded more innovation and more action.  My abiding memory of the Climate March will be listening to the smart, informed and passionate debates among members of the Bristol Youth Council about the future of their party. 

That edginess and ambition is exactly what the whole planet needs as we tackle the profound challenges not just of climate change but the sustainable use of the resources on which we depend. No matter what happens in Paris, complacency must not be accepted and it will not be accepted in Bristol.

Bristol was awarded the European Green Capital in part because we are ‘the City with a sense of fun’.  And Bristol is fun – and quirky and odd and artistic and brilliant. But it is also edgy and passionate and often proudly unsatisfied. We do not have all of the solutions, but we will never stop looking. That is the Bristol I will be taking with me to Paris.

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This blog is by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol.  For more information about the University of Bristol at COP21, please visit bristol.ac.uk/green-capital
Prof Rich Pancost

This blog is part of a COP21 daily report series. View other blogs in the series below:

Complex cities in an uncertain world

Posted on by janet.crompton

The Festival of Ideas have invited partners and participants in the Festival of the Future City to contribute articles on areas of work they are engaged in of relevance to the upcoming events. Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute, blogs below.

Photo by David Iliff. License CC-BY-SA 3.0

Half of the planet lives in cities. By the middle of this century, that number will rise to nearly 75%, nearly 7 billion people. The decisions we make today will dictate whether those future cities are fit for purpose, whether they are just, sustainable, vibrant, resilient and pleasant. But those decisions must navigate an increasingly perilous web of urban complexity and global uncertainty.

The Nobel Prize winning physicist Niels Bohr famously said,

‘Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future,’ 

a quote that recognises and subverts the very nature of the scientific endeavour. Scientists aspire to understand something well enough that we can predict what will happen under certain conditions in the future, whether it be a chemical reaction or nuclear fission – or administering a drug or raising interest rates. In fact, prediction is the basis for all decision makers, not just doctors and engineers but mayors, CEOs, teachers and you. Whether it is predicting when you will run out of bread or predicting whether a residential parking scheme will bring about a net positive change to a congested city, we all make decisions based on what we think is about to happen or will happen if we take an action. In a simple world, we barely need to think about these things because the pattern has been reproduced numerous times or the solution will clearly address the challenge.

But we do not live in a simple world. We live in a complex world – an astonishingly complex world in which the landscape is changing faster than our ability to map it.

People are complex: our emotions, motivations, desires and fears make us notoriously (and wonderfully) difficult to understand and predict. Society is complex: our communities, whether they be geographical, historical, ethnic or religious, interact in marvellously messy ways. And most of all, our cities are complex. Beautifully, fantastically, unpredictably, frustratingly and vibrantly complex. Cities represent tens or hundreds or even thousands of years of ad hoc expansion, destruction and redevelopment; the accumulation of technological and infrastructural strata, from ancient paths, to great roads, to modern electrical grids, to smart city digital networks; and vast demographic changes including an aging population, migration, globalisation and a frightening increase in social inequality.

That is just the complexity within a city, but cities are not isolated from the rest of the world. They are nodes within a vast and increasingly complex global supply chain on which we depend for everything from our food and electricity to our culture and entertainment.

And adding yet additional layers of complexity are our global environmental and societal challenges. We are warming the planet and depleting it of vital resources. Those would be challenging enough given the complex interdependencies that now define 21st century society. Unfortunately, global warming could change our planet in ways that are unique in human history and possibly geological history. We have not experienced and our models cannot fully constrain this uncertain world. Forecasts for rainfall patterns, extreme weather events or food production are fraught with uncertainty – and by extension, so are forecasts for political insecurity and financial markets.

How does the complexity intersect and overlap, how do these systems merge, either dampening or enhancing their collective impacts? How will climate change and food insecurity, for example, exacerbate inequality? We do have tools for navigating these complex systems – ranging from cognitive shortcuts in decision making to community histories to sophisticated models. However, those are almost all based on experience, and experience loses value when the ground rules are changed. Our vast experiment with the Earth’s climate and ecosystem – making our world not just complex but complex and uncertain – makes it harder for scientists to predict the future, decision makers to plan and individuals to act with creative and empowering agency.

Of course, complexity need not be bad. Complexity and change can bring about positive challenges, shaking us out of complacency and inspiring creativity. Perhaps even more inspiring, complexity could be harnessed as a tool for connection rather than isolation. Although our interdependence makes us particularly vulnerable to conflict or instability on the far side of the planet, it also makes us all invested in one another’s lives. This also applies to the urban scale as exemplified by Bristol is Open, in which an additional layer of complexity – a publicly shared digital infrastructure managed by a smart city operating system – could generate new platforms for social cohesion. It could be a new set of cross-city linkages, a digital commons, or a shared lab for city-scale experimentation in which all of us are the scientists.

Ensuring how our complex cities thrive in an uncertain world is a rather exciting challenge that will likely require a range of solutions. During the Festival of the Future City we will explore both what it means to be a citizen in a complex city, how we navigate that complexity both on a personal and societal scale, and the new technologies that create both new challenges and new opportunities. In some cases, we should avoid unnecessary uncertainty, such as potentially devastating climate change. In others, we should harness the social and economic opportunities it presents. But in all cases, we ourselves must change. A more complex world requires a more resilient citizen or community, one that is empowered to learn, to improvise and to create.

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This blog is by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol.

Prof Rich Pancost

This blog has been reproduced with kind permission from the Bristol Festival of Ideas blog.

University of Bristol’s Green Heroes: Rich Pancost

Posted on by janet.crompton

In the run up to the Bristol Post’s Green Capital Awards, we thought we’d highlight some of our key Green Heroes and Green Leaders at the University of Bristol.  As part of a four part blog series this week, we will be highlighting some of the key figures behind the scenes and in front of the limelight who are the green movers and shakers of our university.  There are many more Green Heroes across the University that we would like to celebrate. To find out more about who they are and what they are doing to make our university and city a better place, please visit our Sustainability Stories website.
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Rich Pancost

With a background in Geology, Rich has steered his academic progress through a career straddling a range of disciplines from oceanography to isotope geochemistry, but all of which has been focused on understanding environmental change and its impact on life.

Rich has now been based in Bristol for the last 15 years and became Cabot Institute Director in 2013. The Cabot Institute engages interdisciplinary approaches to address the major environmental challenges of the 21st century. Rich’s work within the Institute has incorporated an assortment of current topics relating to how we live on the planet including natural hazards, climate change and food security.

One of Rich’s primary goals for the institute is to stimulate a dialogue between contrasting academic communities, particularly between the social and physical sciences, in combination with communication between the university and the city of Bristol. His modern vision of progress comprises a union of thoughts and ideas as he explains: “There are very few Newtons, Keplers and Darwins. I think that relatively few breakthroughs in the next century will be because of some genius sitting in a room by themself. Ultimately, those who come up with exciting new ideas will do so because they have been exposed to a cocktail of different interactions and stimuli, that will challenge us to think in very different ways.”

Under Rich’s direction, the Cabot Institute is trying to link up academics to create new communities within the university that can reach out into the public. It is this process that Rich identifies as a fundamental issue for our community to overcome: “The biggest challenge facing our city is inclusion and this is also true of Bristol 2015. We need to show how this is relevant to everyone’s lives; it is about carrying everyone along for the journey”. Additionally, he believes in maintaining the long term benefits of Bristol 2015:

“Being Green Capital isn’t a one year thing- it’s a long term legacy. We will always be the UK’s first Green Capital and that will always carry obligations and opportunities.”

This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Keri McNamara, a PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol.

If you would like to nominate your Green Hero or Green Leader in the upcoming Bristol Post Green Capital Awards, please visit the official Green Capital Awards website.  Entries close on 18 September 2015.

To learn more about the University of Bristol’s activities  and commitments during the Bristol 2015 European Green Capital year, please visit bristol.ac.uk/green-capital.

Withdrawn: Reflections on the past and future of our seas

Posted on by janet.crompton

On the 23rd of August, and as part of Bristol 2015 European Green Capital, I have the privilege of participating in a conversation about the future of our coastal seas that has been inspired by Luke Jerram’s ethereal and evocative Withdrawn  Project in Leigh Woods.  The conversation will include Luke, but also the esteemed chef, Josh Eggleton  who has championed sustainable food provision and is providing a sustainable fish supper for the event, and my University of Bristol Cabot Institute colleague, Dani Schmidt, who is an expert on the past and current impacts of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems.

My engagement with Withdrawn has been inspired on multiple levels, primarily the enthusiasm of Luke but also arising from my role as Cabot Director and my own research on the oceans. Withdrawn inspires reflection on our dependence on the sea and how we have polluted and depleted it, but also on how we obtain our food and the people at the heart of that industry.

All of these issues are particularly acute for our island nation, ringed by nearly 20,000 kilometres of coastline and culturally and economically dependent on the sea. Beyond our own nation, over 2.6 billion people  need the oceans for their dietary protein, a point driven home when I interviewed Sir David Attenborough on behalf of Cabot (see video below). He passionately referred to the oceans as one of our most vital natural resources. And of course, as Withdrawn reminds us, the oceans have vast cultural and spiritual value. It also reminds us that those oceans and those resources are at profound risk.

I’ve spent over 25 years studying our planet and its oceans. However, my first ocean research expedition did not occur until 1999, and it was a profoundly eye-opening experience. We were exploring the deep sea communities fuelled by methane extruded from the Mediterranean seafloor.  Isolated from light, the ocean floor is a largely barren world, but in parts of the Mediterranean it is interrupted by explosions of colourful life, including tubeworms, bacterial colonies, fields of molluscs and strange and lonely fish, all thriving in exotic mountains of carbonate crusts cut by saline rivers. These are vibrant ecosystems but so far removed from the surface world and light that they instead depend on chemical energy sourced from deep below the bottom of the ocean. And even here we found human detritus, plastic and cans and bottles.

Those were powerful observations, in large part because of their symbolism: our influence on the oceans is pervasive and quite often in ways that are challenging to fully comprehend and often invisible to the eye. These include, for example:

  • The potentially devastating impact of plastic on marine ecosystems, including plastic nanoparticles that are now, for all intents and purposes, ubiquitous.  Of course, pollutants are not limited to plastic – our lab now identifies petroleum-derived hydrocarbons in nearly every ocean sediment we analyse.
  • The decreasing pH of the oceans, due to rising CO2 levels, an acid when dissolved in water. We acidifying the oceans, apparently at a rate faster than at any other time in Earth history, a deeply alarming observation. We are already seeing some consequences of ocean acidification on organisms that make calcium carbonate shells. However, what concerns most scientists is how little we know about the impacts of rapid ocean acidification on marine ecosystems.
  • Ocean warming. A vast amount of the energy that has been trapped in the Earth system by higher greenhouse gas concentrations has been absorbed by the oceans.  Its impact on marine life is only beginning to be documented, but it has been invoked, for example, as an explanation for declines in North Sea fisheries.

And these represent only a few of the chemical and environmental changes we are making to the marine realm. They do not even begin to address the numerous issues associated with our over-exploitation and poor management of our marine resources.

Compounded, these factors pose great risk to the oceans but also to all of us dependent on them. As Cabot Institute Director, I engage with an inspiringly diverse range of environmental scientists, social scientist, engineers, doctors and vets.   And in those conversations, of all the human needs at threat due to environmental change, it is water and food that concern me the most.  And of these, our food provision seems the most wildly unpredictable. The synergistic impact of warmer temperatures, more acidic waters, and more silt-choked coastal waters on a single shellfish species, let alone complex ecosystems such as coral reefs or North Sea food webs, is very difficult to predict. This uncertainty becomes even more pronounced if we factor in nutrient runoff from poorly managed land, eutrophication and ocean anoxia leading to more widespread ‘dead zones’. Or the impact of plastic, hydrocarbon, and anti-biofouling pollutants. The ghost ships of Withdrawn quietly tell the story of how our increased demand and poor management have led to overexploitation of fish stocks, causing an industry to face increasing uncertainty. But they also invoke deeper anxieties about how environmental change and pollution of our seas could devastate our food supply.

But Withdrawn, like other Bristol Green Capital Arts projects and like all inspiring art, does not telegraph a simple message.  It does not shout to ‘bring back local fisherman’ or ‘save our oceans’.  These messages are present but subtly so, and for that both Luke and the National Trust should be celebrated. The boats themselves are captivating and draw you into the fisherman’s efforts; they acknowledge our dependence on the ocean and that we must continue to exploit it. To others they are suggestive of some past catastrophe, a tsunami that has somehow deposited fishing boats in a wildly unanticipated place. And yet to others, they suggest the changing character of seas, seas that once stood 100 m higher than they do today and which almost certainly will do so again if all of our coal and oil is burned into carbon dioxide.

Withdrawn is about all of those things. And consequently, at its deepest level, I think Withdrawn is about change.

Ammonite by Alex Lucas as part of Cabot Institute’s Uncertain World art project.

Geologists have a rather philosophical engagement with the concept of change – on long enough timescales, change is not the exception but the defining character of our planet and life. I should clarify that the aforementioned Mediterranean expedition was my first proper research excursion to the modern seas, but it came long after numerous visits to ancient ones.  In 1993, my PhD co-supervisor Mike Arthur took a group of us to Colorado where we collected samples from sedimentary rocks that had been deposited in the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway 90 million year ago, a Seaway from a hotter, ice-free world, in which higher oceans had invaded a downflexed central North American basin. That might not seem like a proper marine experience but to a geologist you can reconstruct an ocean in startling clarity from the bold clues preserved in the rock: current flows that tell you the shape of the coastline; fossils that reveal the ecosystem, from cyanobacterial mats on the seafloor to inoceramids  and ammonites  to great marine reptiles in the waters above; and the rocks themselves that reveal a shallow sea in which limestone was deposited across a great platform.

But it was only like this at some times.  The fascinating aspect of these rocks is the complex pattern of sedimentation – from limestones to shales and back again – limestones that were much like the lime cliffs of Lyme Regis, switching in a geological blink of the eye to oil shales similar to those in Kimmeridge Bay, from which, further North and at greater depths and pressures, North Sea oils derive. Limestone. Shale. Limestone. Shale. A pattern repeated hundreds of times.  In the Western Interior Seaway.  Along the Jurassic Coast. Across the globe, from the Tarfaya, Vocontian and Maracaibo basins to the Hatteras Abyss, from Cape Verde to the Levant Platform. Cycles and cycles of astonishingly different rock types – all bundled up in patterns suggesting they were modulated by the ever changing character of Earth’s orbit.  These cycles are change, from a sea with clear waters, little algal growth and ringed with reefs to one fed with nutrients and gorged with algal blooms and stripped of oxygen.

Change is a necessary and inevitable feature of our planet.  And of the human condition.

But we seem incapable of resisting the urge to impose a value judgment for or against change. It is either viewed as a technocratic marvel to be celebrated or a violation against the natural state of the world and to be resisted.  But often, change is conflated with loss.  And there is something of loss in Withdrawn. These are the ‘Ghost Ships’ of Leigh Woods.  Ghosts of a way of life that no longer exists. Ghosts of the animals these boats once hunted.  Ghosts of some past and inexplicable event.

Of course, change will always be about progress vs loss, its value neither solely good nor bad but nonetheless inevitable.  But just because a geologist recognises the inevitability of change does not mean he thinks we should be passive to it. Change will come but should be managed, a significant challenge given its rapid pace over the past 150 years. In fact, one of the main observations of Dani Schmidt’s research is that our current rate of environmental change appears to be essentially unprecedented in Earth history, let alone human experience.

My hope is that Withdrawn has caused people to engage with the concept of change. How do we manage change in the 21st century?  How do we recognise those things that can and should be let go. As one visitor said, ‘We want to resist romanticising the past.’  Conversely, how do we decide what change must be moderated, because its cost is too high?  We can reduce our plastic consumption and waste, and we can enforce more rigorous regulations to stop the pollution of our planet – and we should.  More complicated questions arise from how we manage our dependencies on these precious marine resources, but it is clear that we can eat fish more sustainably, and chefs like Josh Eggleton are showing the way. We can create marine reserves that will not only conserve species but serve as biodiversity hotspots benefitting all of the oceans.

Perhaps most importantly, how do we recognise those things that must be preserved?  When I see the ghost ships of Withdrawn, I feel the poignant loss of our connection with nature and our connection with what it provides. Our food is now produced far away, delivered to sterile supermarkets via ships, trains and lorries; maybe that is necessary on a planet of over 7 billion people but if so, we must strive to preserve our connection to the sea – to our whole planet – understanding what it provides and understanding its limits.

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This blog is by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol.

Prof Rich Pancost
The final Withdrawn talk at Leigh Woods will be taking place on 23 August 2015 and will feature Cabot Institute scientists, Luke Jerram and chef Josh Eggeleton who will be cooking up a sustainable fish and chip supper for attendees.  This event is sold out.

Why partnerships are so vital to the University of Bristol and the Cabot Institute (part 2)

Posted on by janet.crompton

Launching VENTURE during Bristol 2015

VENTURE is a new collaborative partnership with some of our major corporate partners.  It is the latest in a series of announcements (including Bristol is Open, the UK Collaboration for Research and Infrastructure and Cities, and the launch of a new project on Re-Distributed Manufacturing and the Resilient, Sustainable City) that represent a step change in how we are engaging with the city and region during 2015.  In my previous article, I discussed the ethos that underpins our drive to build partnerships – across the city, the region, national and globally.  In this follow-up, I want to share some of the very exciting activities that are currently happening, many of them catalysed by the efforts to win the European Green Capital award.

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For the Cabot Institute, one of the great opportunities of Bristol 2015 has been a stronger relationship with organisations across the city. Many of our 2015 activities are the culmination of our past partnership ambitions, but it is also the opportunity to make a step change towards broader and deeper collaboration.

The nature of our University and the Cabot Institute and the scope of global environmental challenges has always dictated diverse partnerships with national and international agencies – we study melting ice sheets with the British Antarctic Survey, develop climate models with the Met Office, predict floods with the Environment Agency and advise the Government Office of Science on the ash cloud crisis.  We work with DFID and the United Nations, with the Somalian government to develop grassroots security and with small island developing nations to help them adapt to climate change – and to learn from their experiences.

Cabot Institute scientist Isabel Nias working with the British Antarctic Survey in Antarctica.
Dame Pearlette Louisy at the Small Island States: Living at the sharp end of
uncertainty conference in Bristol, July 2014.  Image credit: Amanda Woodman-Hardy

Working globally never stopped Cabot Institute researchers from also working locally; we have collaboratively studied housing and education in our city, partnered on new innovations such as Bristol Green Doors, worked with Voscur on equality issues and with the Knowle West Media Centre on numerous digital engagement projects.

And yet we could have been doing so much more….

Our commitment to the Green Capital arose from a recognition that we could do more and that we had to do more if we wanted to learn from the vibrant experimentation occurring in our own backyard. To that end, the Cabot Institute Manager, Philippa Bayley was an early member of the Bristol Green Capital Partnership and was elected with Liz Zeidler to be the first co-director after the award.

The Wills Memorial Building, which
will be lit green in the evening throughout 2015

Since then, we have put on numerous events, worked with the 2015 Company on the launch and with the Festival of Ideas on the Coleridge Lectures and the Summits, and contributed to the Arts Programme.  Moving ahead, we are keen to include all of the city, with events planned at Hamilton House and with local schools.  That engagement has mirrored the University’s pledges and contributions.  We are aiming to become a net carbon neutral campus by 2030; bringing in a series of working practice incentives to decrease our transport footprint; including social and environmental considerations into our procurement process; and ensuring that all students have the opportunity to encounter Education for Sustainable Development at the University. We are doing far more than just turning Wills Memorial Tower green for the year!

So this year is a culmination of ever-growing engagement over the past decade…. Not just for the researchers of the Cabot Institute but for the whole city.  But more importantly, it is the platform for newer and much deeper partnership.

Implicitly, the University’s fifth and most important pledge is to be the best possible partner with our city.  That includes our students who have committed 100,000 volunteer hours to the City and who are driving new initiatives such as BrisBikes.  It includes our commitment to spend £60,000 pounds to plant trees across Bristol.  It includes working with BCC and the NHS to create a new district energy supply, key to realizing our carbon neutral ambitions.  And it includes a commitment from the Cabot Institute to do more coordinated research – with everyone in the city.

To empower that, we have launched VENTURE and we have worked very closely with the Partnership.  We have also aggressively appointed new people: Andy Gouldson, who studies urban resiliency and sustainability; Clive Sabel, who uses big data to study health and well-being; Sean Fox, who investigates urban governance; a whole swathe of experts on flooding and water quality in both urban and rural environments; Justin Dillon, the new head of our School of Education and who is passionate about ‘learning outside the classroom’; and many, many more.  These people have been hired because they are brilliant and because they are keen to work with people in the city and region.

Wildflower meadow in Bedminster.
Image credit: Julia Kole

We are also funding our research students and colleagues to work with our City.  Caroline Bird has been supported to work with the Bristol Energy Network and is now coordinating our community to better engage with the Green Capital legacy. We have asked many of you across the city to propose projects for our brilliant Masters Students, yielding great projects conducted by students like Julia Kole who studied how to improve biodiversity in Bedminster; seeds soil and social change. Dr Kath Baldock and Professor Jane Memmott and many others have been studying pollinators in Bristol and the surrounding countryside – which has led to the Urban Pollinators Project and Get Bristol Buzzing.  Dr Trevor Thompson and his team are working with local GPs, to help their practices become more efficient and sustainable.

These are all part of an ongoing and continuous buzz of activity and we will work hard to ensure that these are not just one-off successes but instead a step change in how we work with Bristol.

Big new initiatives

On the 27th of January, we launched Bristol is Open with the Bristol City Council.  This is the first joint venture between the city council and the University of Bristol and it combines University research and advanced technology (our investment in high performance computing, computational innovations by Professor Dimitra Simeonidou and wireless technology developed by Professor Andy Nix and industry collaborators) with council-owned infrastructure.  The company will develop an innovative high-performance, high-speed network in Bristol, that will be open for all to use and put Bristol at the forefront in the UK.  It is a bold experiment not just in technology but hopefully in democracy, insofar that it empowers the citizens of the city to communicate with one another and explore the urban landscape. (And if you want to know more, visit the refurbished and re-opened Planetarium!)

More recently, the government announced funding for the UK Collaboration for Research and Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC), and a partnership between the University, Bristol industry and the City Council is at the heart of that.  UKCRIC will apply globally important research to ensure that the UK’s infrastructure is resilient and responsive to environmental and economic impacts. In doing so, according to Prof Colin Taylor, the Bristol UKCRIC lead, ‘It will ensure that our infrastructure is resilient to future change while also avoiding conservative over-engineering thereby saving hundreds of billions of pounds.’  At the heart of the Cabot Institute’s contribution to the bid is the University’s Earthquake Engineering and Simulation Laboratory in the Faculty of Engineering.  Via enhanced world-leading experimental capabilities, the Laboratory will develop unique techniques to improve the performance and reduce the costs of foundations of buildings, bridges, ports and nuclear facilities. UKCRIC will also ensure that our innovative City Operating System is funded and fully capable of supporting Bristol is Open.

On 22 April we launched a new collaborative research project to determine how highly adaptable manufacturing processes, capable of operating at small scales (re-distributed manufacturing), can contribute to a sustainable and resilient future for the City of Bristol and its hinterland. I am particularly excited about this project as it is so fundamentally…. Bristol.  Our city is a champion of the power of localism, whether it be food production, launching our own energy company or the Bristol Pound. And we have a strong upcycling and maker culture. Why not extend these brilliant initiatives to how we manufacture the goods on which we depend.  New technology now allows manufacturing to be downscaled, redistributed and decentralised, making it more sustainable and also more resilient.  This new project, led by Prof Chris McMahon, will explore exactly how to do that.

These are exciting times and we are proud of our Cabot Institute colleagues working on these projects.  But we do recognised that there remain challenges.  As a climate change scientist, I have always argued that many of the sustainability and resilience challenges that Bristol wants to address are issues of fairness and equality. Those who profit from our current fossil fuel, water, nutrient, and wildlife consumption are least vulnerable to climate change and diminishing resources.  As such, racial, ethnic, gender and class diversity is also high on our agenda and our partners must reflect that diversity.  Fortunately, we are based in a city with an outstanding variety of leaders.  The City and University recognise that we have a long way to go, but there is no lack of energy and wisdom.

We are not even halfway through 2015, but I think that Bristol is in the midst of building something from its historic strengths to create something new and position it as a model of global leadership.  For me, personally, the year has been exhilarating.  I love Bristol and have done so since arriving 15 years ago and attending my first Ashton Court Festival; and I have always known of the innovative creatives and social enterprises that thrive here.  But I have not had the opportunity to partner with them – my own research tends to take me to distant lands and eons into the past, as far away from Bristol you can go and still be on our planet!   But this year, I have finally engaged with them – with you – in a professional context and the ideas and wisdom have exceeded all of my expectations. The Cabot Institute would strive to build partnerships no matter what City it called home; fortunately, we are in Bristol and the partnerships are opening up opportunities that you could not find anywhere else in the world.

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This blog is by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol.

Prof Rich Pancost

Read part one of this blog.
For further information on VENTURE please email cabot-business@bristol.ac.uk

Why partnerships are so vital to the University of Bristol and the Cabot Institute (part 1)

Posted on by janet.crompton

Launching VENTURE during Bristol 2015

Nishan Canagarajah, PVC for Research at the University
of Bristol, launched VENTURE on 18 March 2015.
Image credit: Amanda Woodman-Hardy

VENTURE is a new collaborative framework for the Cabot Institute and some of our key corporate partners. Building stronger partnerships with our City has been the major theme of our engagement with the European Green Capital year. VENTURE, then, represents the latest step (including Bristol is Open, the UK Collaboration for Research and Infrastructure and Cities, and the launch of a new project on Re-Distributed Manufacturing and the Resilient, Sustainable City) in the progression of how we are engaging with Bristol and the South West Region.  This is the first of two blogs that explore the intrinsic value of partnership to the Cabot Institute, what we have achieved and our aspirations.

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On 18 March, the Cabot Institute and the University of Bristol PVC for Research launched VENTURE, a new initiative and network that will facilitate the partnership of Cabot Institute academics with key corporate partners.  The focus of VENTURE is on the risk, insurance, future cities and infrastructure sectors. Those areas do not represent the entirety of the Cabot Institute remit, but they are particularly central given the challenges of environmental change and the need for cities and society to become more sustainable and resilient. These needs are also central to our City and Region, exemplified by the Green Capital agenda but also a long history of social and technological innovation.
The first VENTURE workshop held at the
University of Bristol in May 2015. Image credit:
Amanda Woodman-Hardy

We are very excited about VENTURE – it is a chance for the Cabot Institute to build stronger links to our external partners and our City and it is will inspire exciting new ideas and solutions. Increasingly, our corporate, governmental and public partners have asked for a conduit to the more diverse, multidisciplinary and sector-appropriate communities that sprawl across multiple Schools or even Faculties.  That is one of the primary reasons that the Cabot Institute was founded, and as such VENTURE is the logical progression in supporting and nurturing those relationships.

In a subsequent blog, I will discuss the history of our partnership and some of the other initiatives that excite us as part of the Green Capital year and its legacy.  Here, however, I’d like to discuss exactly why partnerships are so important to the University of Bristol and particularly the Cabot Institute. This may seem obvious: we work together to procure funding and to conduct research.  It is taken as read that Universities must be engaged and work closely with stakeholders, and this is enshrined in the University of Bristol’s engaged University vision and Engaged University Steering Group.  However, the rationale for specific partnerships vary and they bring different types of values and motivation.  Moreover, there are legitimate questions about engagement. Who should our partners be and who should Universities serve? There is a strong push that Universities provide value for the UK, but who determines ‘value’ and how do we avoid becoming overly focussed on one stakeholder at the expense of others?

What does partnership mean to the Cabot Institute?

The Cabot Institute’s main goals are to build a vibrant and new multidisciplinary community and stimulate new ideas; in turn, these will position us to conduct novel research that addresses 21st century challenges.  External partnerships are key to all of these aims.  They are part of that multidisciplinary community and they stimulate academics to collaborate in new configurations.  They ask those studying hazards to work with those studying risk perception, and they demand that engineers consider how infrastructure is occupied and navigated by people.  In doing this, they create the environment to generate fundamentally new ideas and forge new intellectual ground; these creative, occasionally disruptive, interventions and requests stimulate, challenge and inspire new directions of research.
Bringing together experts from different disciplines to tackle
global environmental problems at the Cabot Institute.
Image credit: Amanda Woodman-Hardy

This is an aspect of collaboration and partnership that means a great deal to me, personally. I have used the challenge of working with other disciplines and with people with different skills (and more importantly different perspectives and preconceived notions) to invigorate and continually refresh my research. Those experiences have allowed me to work in teams that developed new approaches and made new breakthroughs. It is not my own special abilities but rather the cauldron of brilliant but often contradictory and occasionally tangential ideas that has led to the findings of which I am most proud. Partnership is good because collaboration is good – and not just because you need to collaborate to achieve your goals but because the very act of collaboration is intellectually invigorating.

Those new collaborations and ideas are helping us make a difference, addressing the global environmental challenges of the 21st century.  Clearly, if the Cabot Institute research aspires to solve societal challenges it has to be strongly connected to those who can make good use of it.  However, this requires more than translation; it requires close collaboration during inception and development of ideas, such that discoveries, inventions and conclusions are useful and relevant. Partnership is also crucial to ensuring the wider community co-owns an idea.  The world is facing difficult challenges that will require paradigm shifting ideas and difficult decisions. Acceptance of radical new proposals or difficult compromises requires an inclusive and engaged public – from the very beginning.  This is why we need VENTURE.

For all the rewards of a vibrant partnership, we cannot pretend that it is easy. Different organisations have different priorities, stakeholders, responsibilities and interests.  In my experience, University – Stakeholder partnerships can too easily fall into one of two, equally unsatisfying scenarios.  At one extreme, academics ‘push’ our research out into industry or government, arguing for its relevance, hoping it is used and allowing us to claim a positive social or economic impact.  At the other, industry or government partners approach us with a project or consultancy, often with an unrealistic turnaround time and not inspiring our interest.

Fostering a more creative partnership atmosphere is why the University created the Research Enterprise and Development division in 2000, and VENTURE will build on that legacy, ensuring more long-term, broader and deeper relationships.  It will develop genuine partnerships, in which we work together on challenges that represent both fundamental, intellectual advances but also have deep value to the partner. We will write grants, co-supervise students, publish, advise and share our findings together.  Specifically, VENTURE will fund and support the Cabot Institute to more effectively guide our partners to the specific knowledge, expertise and skills of our academic community. It will facilitate access to our resources, whether that be computer models, materials analysis or infrastructure resilience. It will create a network and enable a higher degree of partnership and mutual profile-sharing, as we not only work together but share common messages.

Crucially, VENTURE will be the nucleus of the wider portfolio of partnership required to face the environmental and sustainability challenges facing Bristol, the UK and our planet.  The corporate members of VENTURE will be integrated with our other partners: the civil organisations that want to govern their own energy futures or instigate new social movements; government agencies, like the Met Office or the Environment Agency, who have their own expertise; Bristol City Council but also the Bristol Green Capital Partnership with whom we are working to ensure a resilient and sustainable future for our city; and many others. VENTURE will focus on our key corporate partners but it will be part of a wider, University subsidised portfolio of civil and government partners in the city and region.  It will be a network whereby these corporate partners develop stronger relationships with Cabot but also the City and in which our community can challenge and champion interventions.

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This blog is by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol.

Prof Rich Pancost

Read part two of this blog
For further information on VENTURE please email cabot-business@bristol.ac.uk

Manufacturing in Bristol – Bridging the gap to a more sustainable and more resilient future

Posted on by janet.crompton
University of Bristol

The University of Bristol and partners announce the launch on 22 of April of a new collaborative research project to determine how highly adaptable manufacturing processes, capable of operating at small scales (re-distributed manufacturing), can contribute to a sustainable and resilient future for the city of Bristol and its hinterland. 

The next few years have the potential to be transformative in the history of our society and our planet.  We are faced with numerous choices in how we live our lives, and our decisions could either embed the practices of the last two centuries or empower new paradigms for the production of our food and energy, our buildings and transport systems, our medicine, furniture and appliance, all of those things on which we have grown to depend. It could be a transformation in what we own or borrow, how we use it…. And how we make it.

Bristol is one of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Global Resilient Cities.  Unlike many of the other cities (and somewhat unconventionally), Bristol, the University of Bristol and its Cabot Institute have adopted a holistic definition of resiliency that includes not just adaptation to future change but also the contemporary behaviour that minimises the chances of future shocks.  Recognising that, the launch of the Bristol 2015 European Green Capital year focussed on the need to bridge the gap  between our resource intensive and environmentally harmful current behaviour and a more sustainable – and resilient – future.

This combination is key.  Increasingly we recognise that our non-sustainable behaviour could bring about dangerous climate change and resource stress. But we are also obtaining a sharper understanding of the limits of our knowledge. Unfortunately, our behaviour is not just threatening the security of our food, water and energy but is inducing a profound uncertainty in our ability to forecast and adapt to future change.  Not only does such radical uncertainty demand mitigative rather than adaptive action  but, where we fall short or the damage has already been done, it will require an equally radical emphasis on resiliency.

Part of Bristol’s path to achieving these goals of sustainability and resiliency is localism, including local production of food and energy, exemplified by the recent launch of a municipally-owned energy company  but also community-owned energy and food cooperatives.   Localism can only go so far in our highly interconnected and interdependent world, but it is undeniably one of Bristol’s strongest tools in empowering local communities and driving its own sustainability agenda while making us more resilient to external factors.  But why stop at food and energy?

Manufacturing has undergone a suite of radical transformations over the past decade, the potential of which are only now being harnessed across a range of manufacturing scales from high-value (such as Bristol’s aerospace industry) to SMEs and community groups.  Crudely put, the options for the manufacturer have traditionally been limited to moulding things, bashing things into shape, cutting things and sticking things together.  New technologies now allow those methods to be downscaled and locally owned. Other technologies, enabled by the exponential growth of computer power, are changing the manufacturing framework for example by allowing complex shapes to be made layer-by-layer through additive manufacturing.

Crucially, these new technologies represent highly adaptable manufacturing processes capable of operating at small scales.  This offers new possibilities with respect to where and how design, manufacture and services can and should be carried out to achieve the most appropriate mix of capability and employment but also to minimise environmental costs and to ensure resilience of provision.  In short, manufacturing may now be able to be re-distributed away from massive factories and global supply chains back into local networks, small workshops or even homes. This has brought about local empowerment across the globe as exemplified by the Maker movement and locally in initiatives such as Bristol Hackspace.  These technologies and social movements are synergistic as localised manufacturing not only brings about local empowerment but fosters sustainable behaviour by enabling the remanufacturing and upcycling that are characteristic of the circular economy.

There are limits, however, to the reach of these new approaches if they remain dependent on traditional manufacturing organisations and systems into which we are locked by the technological choices made in two centuries of fossil-fuel abundance.  As well as the technologies and processes that we use, a better understanding of how to organise and manage manufacturing systems and of their relationship with our infrastructure and business processes is central to the concept of re-distributed manufacturing and its proliferation.  It requires not only local production but a fundamental rethinking of the entire manufacturing system.

This is the focus of our exciting new RCUK-funded project: it will create a network to study a whole range of issues from diverse disciplinary perspectives, bringing together experts in manufacturing, design, logistics, operations management, infrastructure, engineering systems, economics, geographical sciences, mathematical modelling and beyond.  In particular, it will examine the potential impact of such re-distributed manufacturing at the scale of the city and its hinterland, using Bristol as an example in its European Green Capital year, and concentrating on the issues of resilience and sustainability.

It seems entirely appropriate that Bristol and the SW of England assume a prominent leadership role in this endeavour.  In many ways, it is the intellectual and spiritual home of the industrial use of fossil fuels, responsible for unprecedented growth and prosperity but also setting us on a path of unsustainable resource exploitation.  Thomas Newcomen from South Devon produced arguably the first practical steam engine, leading to the use of fossil fuels in mining and eventually industry; in the late 1700s, coal-powered steam energy was probably more extensively used in SW England than anywhere in the world.  Continuing this legacy, Richard Trevithick from Cornwall developed high pressure steam engines which allowed the use of steam (and thus fossil fuels) for transportation, and of course Brunel’s SS Great Western, built in Bristol, was the first vehicle explicitly designed to use fossil fuel for intercontinental travel.

But that legacy is not limited to energy production.  Abraham Darby, who pioneered the use of coke for smelting iron in Coalbrookdale, i.e. the use of fossil fuels for material production, had worked at a foundry in Bristol and was funded by the Goldney Family, among others.  He married fossil fuels to the production of materials and manufactured goods.

These are reasons for optimism not guilt.  This part of the world played a crucial role in establishing the energy economy that has powered our world.  On the back of that innovation and economic growth have come medical advances, the exploration of our solar system and an interconnected society.  That same creative and innovative spirit can be harnessed again.  And these approaches need not be limited to energy and materials; our colleagues at UWE been awarded funds under the same scheme to explore redistributed healthcare provision. The movement is already in place, exemplified by the more than 800 organisations in the Bristol Green Capital Partnership.  It is receiving unprecedented support from both Universities of this city.  This new project is only one small part of that trend but it illustrates a new enthusiasm for partnership and transformative change and to study the next generation of solutions rather than be mired in incremental gains to existing technology.
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This blog is written by Cabot Institute Director Prof Rich Pancost and Prof Chris McMahon from the Engineering Department at the University of Bristol.

Prof Rich Pancost

More information

For more information about the issues covered in this blog please contact Chris McMahon who is keen to hear from local industries and other organisations that may be interested in the possibilities of re-distributed manufacturing.

The grant has been awarded to the University of Bristol, supported by the Universities of Bath, Exeter and the West of England and Cardiff University, by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The network, one of six being funded by the EPSRC for the next two years to study RDM, will also explore mechanisms by which interdisciplinary teams may come together to address societal grand challenges and develop research agendas for their solution. These will be based on working together using a combination of a Collaboratory – a centre without walls – and a Living Lab – a gathering of public-private partnerships in which businesses, researchers, authorities, and citizens work together for the creation of new services, business ideas, markets, and technologies.

EPSRC Reference: EP/M01777X/1, Re-Distributed Manufacturing and the Resilient, Sustainable City (ReDReSC)

The Cabot Institute

The Cabot Institute carries out fundamental and responsive research on risks and uncertainties in a changing environment. We drive new research in the interconnected areas of climate change, natural hazards, water and food security, low carbon energy, and future cities. Our research fuses rigorous statistical and numerical modelling with a deep understanding of social, environmental and engineered systems – past, present and future. We seek to engage wider society by listening to, exploring with, and challenging our stakeholders to develop a shared response to 21st Century challenges.

The Fog Bridge and the Coming Storm?

Posted on by janet.crompton
Fog Bridge. Image by Freya Sterling.

This year, as part of its contribution to Bristol 2015, European Green Capital, the In Between Time Festival commissioned the Fog Bridge  by internationally renowned artist Fujiko Nakaya. She shrouded Pero’s Bridge in fog, eliciting a combination of delight and introspection – as well as befuddling the occasional commuter.  The Fog Bridge stimulated debate, criticism, celebration and interest. The most interesting of those debates, that I hope are only starting, revolve around its impact. Like all great art, Fog Bridge should be and is a bit dangerous, in that it causes us to consider – if even for a while – some alternatives to our perspectives.  But who saw it and engaged with it?  Has it affected belief systems and values?  Has it changed behaviour and, if so, of whom?  And is that all a bit too much of a burden to put onto a single piece? 

Nonetheless, it certainly stimulated discussion and that was its primary aim. It was my good fortune to be asked to reflect on Fog Bridge and be involved with an event of this stature.  Some of those conversations contributed to the themes explored during the Festival: Enter the Storm, including a focus on living with uncertainty.  And part of that was my participation in the Festival’s Uncertainty Cafes (see more here).  I was asked to throw out ideas – some well informed and some more adventurous – and then partake in the fascinating conversations this artwork had stimulated.  In that spirit, I share the following unabridged transcript of what I spoke about at the Uncertainty Café on 13 Feb

Our world has always changed.  I have spent over 20 years studying the history of our planet’s climate and environment, and one of the most recurring themes is that on long enough timescales, change rather than stasis is the norm. But the coming changes to our climate, arising from our lifestyles and consumption, are distinct in their speed.  They are nearly unprecedented in Earth history and they are certainly unprecedented in human experience.  The Earth is warming, the oceans are acidifying, sea level is rising, droughts and floods are becoming more frequent – and we as a people are being challenged to adapt to these changes.  One of the most profound challenges is not the higher temperature of more frequent flood but the uncertainty associated with those.  Change, almost by definition, imposes uncertainty and we must discover how to live in this increasingly Uncertain World.

We live our lives informed by the power of experience: the collective experience of ourselves, our families, our communities and our wider society.  Our weather projections and crop harvesting, our water management and hazard planning are also based on experience: tens to hundreds of years of observation that inform our predictions of future floods, drought, hurricanes and heat waves. Now, however, we are changing our environment and our climate, such that the lessons of the past have less relevance to the planning of our future. As we change our climate, the great wealth of knowledge generated from human experience is losing value every day.

Fog Bridge.  Image by Freya Sterling.

This is how I am provoked by all of Fujiko Nakaya’s art and especially  her wonderful Fog Bridge.   Yes it makes me think about our changing weather. Yes, it serves as an enigmatic warning of the Coming Storm. But more, the image of fog, the obstruction of our vision, the demand for a more careful navigation over a bridge that is normally one of our most reliable paths, makes me think of an Uncertain World.

Fog Bridge. Image by Freya Sterling.

Uncertainty is a challenge.  Uncertainty makes it harder for us to live with our planet and with each other. But there is something gentle about the uncertainty evoked by the Fog Bridge that invites alternative perpectives. Is an environmental disaster the only possible outcome of the path on which we walk?

Fifty years ago, between 1962 and 1966, J. G. Ballard wrote a trio of seminal environmental disaster novels: The Drowned World, The Burning World and The Crystal World.  That is why one of the Cabot Institute’s themes this year is The Uncertain World. But there is a more nuanced lesson from Ballard when it comes to change: ‘I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring.’  In many ways, that statement, like the Fog Bridge, challenges the idea of uncertainty being solely negative. I think much of what is embedded in that statement is reflected in Ballard’s post-disaster novels – from Crash to High Rise to Cocaine Nights, all dealing with the tedium of late 20th century, bored lives, gated retirement villages on the Costa del Sol, manicured lawns, 99 channels with nothing on.

And what a tragedy that is for our species. Our most unique and exceptional characteristics are adaptability, imagination and creativity.  Most of our achievements and many of our sins are a direct consequence of our incredible ability to adapt and create.  We can live in the desert, in Antarctica, in space.

If we return to Ballard’s environmental disaster novels with this perspective, they take on new shapes.  The protagonists in those novels – and especially the Drowned World – are not destroyed. Nor do they overcome.  They are awakened and they are transformed.  And in the end, they embrace those transformations:

“By day fantastic birds flew through petrified forests, and jewelled crocodiles glittered like heraldic salamanders on the banks of the crystalline river. By night the illuminated man raced among the trees, his arms like golden cartwheels, his head like a spectral crown.”   – The Crystal World, J.G. Ballard

Catastrophic change can be beautiful and it can startle us out of complacency, it can challenge us, it can demand of us that we embrace the entirety of human potential.

But there are limits to this train of thought.

Taking that perspective towards global environmental disaster is the rather unique luxury of the upper middle class, privileged western European.  Those who might die in floods or famines or whose way of life is not changed but obliterated by rising sea levels will have a different perspective.  Let us never forget that those bringing about climate change and those likely to suffer most from it are not the same.  That is true globally and it is true in Bristol: if the price of food doubles, I will grumble; others will be unable to feed their families.

And in that is a deep and unsettling irony.  Those of us who perhaps would benefit most from embracing the challenges we face are profoundly reluctant to accept any change, whether that be to our sources of energy or food, to our way of lives or to our growth-based economy. And our inability to envision societal change is imposing potentially catastrophic environmental and climatic change on others – those who are most poor and most vulnerable.

That is why the Green Capital conversations must focus on issues of inclusion, empowerment and social justice. We must avoid unfair, unequal, unethical change. But if we can do that, then maybe change can be a catalyst for something fresh and exciting.  Fujiko’s Fog Bridge is beautiful. Fog is beautiful.  A storm is beautiful.  This does not have to be a Disaster Story.  We can change how we live, thereby mitigating the most dangerous aspects of climate change.  And when we fall short and change does come… we can fight it a bit…. But we can also embrace it.

And what might that look like?

We must be radically resilient. If radical uncertainty is on the way then our response must be radically flexible. Our buildings and roads must be able to change.  Our railroads and our health service. Our laws. Our jobs.  Our economy.  Our businesses.  Ourselves.

Our response must be fair and equitable. Those who can barely afford the rent or who work two jobs to put food on the table have less capacity to be flexible. Some of us will have to bear more of the burden of change than others.  Ultimately, I believe we will have to achieve a more fair and balanced society: It is difficult to imagine how grand challenges of resource and planetary sustainability can be achieved if billions are held back by poverty. [NB. This paragraph was the most difficult to express in only a few words during the Uncertainty Café and I want to expand on this here. I believe that everyone in society has great assets of imagination and creativity.  All communities and all individuals can make a positive difference and should be encouraged to do so – and supported in doing so. And in the future, as throughout history, some of the most exciting ideas will come from some of the poorest on our planet.  But overall, I think that poverty steals time and lost time means lost ideas. And that is a tragedy at a time when we need a proliferation of new ideas, and especially those that run counter to ‘conventional wisdom’.]

And we need political inclusion.  If difficult choices are to be made – if our sacred cows are to be sacrificed or compromises are to be made – then we must rebuild a universally owned political system.  We will not weather any storm by hectoring and lecturing nor if mired in apathy and cynicism. I sincerely hope a new platform for more inclusive decision making is a major outcome of Bristol 2015.  It is certainly the ambition of the Green Capital Partnership.

If we share these risks and the costs, then perhaps we can collaborate with our changing planet to achieve something exciting and new – lifestyles that embrace rather than stifle the very best of our creative, dynamic and resilient nature. Maybe we walk across the Bridge a bit more slowly, maybe we don’t cross it at all, maybe we just stop and stare. I don’t know.   Nor do I know if we will make such dramatic changes. But I know that we can.

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This blog is by Prof Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol.

Prof Rich Pancost
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