Powering our lives: foresight sustainable energy management and the built environment project

215 Pages·2017·2.64 MB·English

Loughborough University
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Powering our lives: foresight
sustainable energy
management and the built
environment project: final
project report
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by the/an author.
Citation: RYDIN, Y. ... et al, 2008. Foresight sustainable energy manage-
ment and the built environment project: final project report. London: The
Government Office for Science, 2008.
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Publisher: Government Office for Science ((cid:13)c Crown copyright)
Please cite the published version.
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Powering our Lives:
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Printed in the UK on recycled paper with a minimum HMSO score of 75
First published November 2008.
The Government Office for Science.
© Crown copyright. URN 140-08-Fo/b FINAL PROJECT REPORT
Powering our Lives:
Sustainable Energy Management and
the Built Environment
This report is intended for:
Policy makers and a wide range of professionals and researchers whose interests relate to
Sustainable Energy Management and the Built Environment. The report focuses on the UK
but is also relevant to the interests of other countries.
This report should be cited as:
Foresight Sustainable Energy Management and the Built Environment Project (2008).
Final Project Report.
The Government Office for Science, London.
The Government Office for Science (GO-Science) would like to thank the
Project’s Lead Expert Team who oversaw the technical aspects of the Project,
who were involved in much of the work, and who contributed to drafting this
final Report. They were led by Yvonne Rydin and are: Patrick Devine-Wright,
Chris Goodier, Simon Guy, Lester Hunt, Martin Ince, John Loughhead, Lorna
Walker, and Jim Watson.
Particular thanks are due to the Project’s High Level Stakeholder Group as well
as the many experts and stakeholders who contributed to the work of this
Project, who reviewed this Report and the state of science reviews and who
generously provided advice and guidance.
The Foresight Programme in the UK Government Office for Science is under the direction of
the Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government. Foresight strengthens strategic policy-making in
Government by embedding a futures approach.
Foreword
In 2006, when my predecessor Sir David King commissioned this
Report, there was already a pressing need to understand how
the UK could shift its systems of energy production and patterns
of energy consumption to help mitigate the impacts of future
climate change.
During the life of the project the case for change in our energy
systems and the built environment has become stronger than
ever. The scientific work of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change has pointed to the need for more radical cuts
in emissions and the Government has responded in its Climate
Change Bill. Changes in the geo-political environment and the evolving global economic
situation have added new energy uncertainties in recent months. The recent peaks in
energy prices put fuel poverty on the agenda for very many more households.
There is considerable activity across Government on different aspects of this agenda.
The Departments for Communities and Local Government, for Environment Food
and Rural Affairs, and Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform have all contributed
to the project. The new Department of Energy and Climate Change is sharpening the
policy focus on decarbonisation, energy efficiency and energy security.
Energy-consuming activities in the built environment account for around half of
the UK’s carbon emissions. This Foresight Report is distinctive in looking at energy
systems and the built environment in the round, in conjunction with the human values
and behaviours that shape them. It has brought together evidence and expertise
from a very wide range of disciplines – from the physical sciences underpinning
energy systems, to economics, construction, sociology and planning – to understand
what might drive or inhibit future changes. Sixty evidence review papers have been
published and over 200 experts and professionals have contributed to workshops and
discussions. I am most grateful to these contributors, to the core team of lead experts,
to the group of senior stakeholders who have advised on the scope and direction
of the project, and to the leading experts from around the world who have peer-
reviewed the work.
A strength of Foresight projects lies in their combination of evidence, expertise, and
futures thinking. This project, as well as presenting an evidence-based analysis of the
challenges, has created four narrative scenarios of possible future worlds. I hope that
these will stimulate policy makers and other communities of interest in thinking creatively
about how to increase the pace of change to meet the pressing challenges ahead.
Through the publication of this report I have pleasure in handing over the project
findings to Government.
Professor John Beddington CMG, FRS
Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government, and
Head of the Government Office for Science
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Preface
I am delighted to receive this Report from Professor John
Beddington on behalf of the Government. Its findings will have
relevance for the work of the Department for Communities and
Local Government (CLG) in a number of areas, from building
regulations and the planning aspects of new development to
the broader arena of renewal and development of sustainable
communities.
Reducing carbon emissions from buildings, and ensuring that
buildings are adaptable and resilient to climate change, are crucial
parts of the Government’s programme for tackling climate change
and promoting sustainable development. We will need innovative and integrated
solutions across building standards, urban design, planning and energy systems. The real
value of the Foresight process, reflected in this report, is its ability to draw together the
different strands into a set of long term scenarios, to identify uncertainty and risk, and
to develop new insights into how the challenges can be met.
Over the next few months, the Government will be responding to the advice of the
independent Climate Change Committee on the first three carbon budgets, which take
us up to 2022. We are putting in place strategies, including for reducing emissions from
both new and existing buildings, to meet those budgets. But we need to be looking
long term, beyond 2022, to 2050. The Foresight scenarios set out in this report, the
evidence and analysis which support them, and the questions and issues which flow
from them, will make an important contribution to thinking on how to meet that long
term challenge.

Rt Hon Margaret Beckett, MP
Minister of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government
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Blue Background
includes 3mm bleed
Please crop to edge
of A4 page
Contents
Foreword 4
Executive Summary 9
1. Introduction 26
2. Transitions in energy systems and the built environment 42
3. Exploring the future 64
4. Behaviours, values and interventions for change 88
5. Scales of energy systems 104
6. New and existing buildings and future decarbonisation 120
7. Security and resilience of future systems 138
8. Conclusions 152
Appendix I: Scenario narratives 169
Appendix II: Using the Scenarios 189
Appendix III: Acknowledgements 191
Glossary 196
References 204
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