CEP to assess the socio-economic impacts of Low Carbon Development Strategies (LCDS)

CEP commissioned by WWF to provide a socio-economic assessment of LCDS as part of the MaxiMiseR project

The aim of the project is to scope the wider social impacts on citizens of Low Carbon Development Strategies (LCDS), focusing on policies and measures related to energy efficiency in buildings. The project will map the wider social impacts of these policies and measures, and draw out the implications for strengthening LCDS. Alongside this, CEP will also examine the extent of stakeholder and citizen engagement within the strategy development process, and consider the impact of the MaxiMiseR project in promoting the development of strong LCDS. To do this, CEP will draw upon a review of existing LCDS strategies and interviews with expert stakeholders.

The MaxiMiseR project aims to help Member States to develop meaningful LCDS and identify opportunities for funding. The project began in January 2016 and runs until December 2018.

For more information on the project, please contact the project director Dr Clare Twigger-Ross or the project co-ordinator Dr Sian Morse-Jones.

CEP presenting Clyde marine dialogue results

CEP presenting results from Clyde marine dialogue at Clyde Marine Planning Partnership meeting

Between July and December 2017, CEP, in collaboration with the Scottish Association for Marine Science Research Services Limited (SRSL), designed, organised and delivered a public dialogue process to aid the development of the Clyde Regional Marine Plan (CRMP). On 30th January, CEP's Dr Peter Phillips will be presenting key results from the dialogue at a meeting of the Clyde Marine Planning Partnership (CMPP). The project ran two rounds of dialogue at two locations across the Clyde Marine Region (CMR); Tarbert and Greenock. The approach involved storytelling to elicit participants' connections to the CMR, participatory mapping of important places / activities across the region and a multi-criteria based evaluation of alternative approaches to marine planning policy and management. Peter will be co-delivering the presentation with Jake Ainscough from SAMS.

CEP to measure the societal impact of network activities

WRc and CEP commissioned to measure the societal impact of network activities

WRc, in partnership with CEP, have been contracted by the Energy Innovation Centre, a group of  gas distribution networks, to measure the societal impact of network activities.

Co-ordinated by the Energy Innovation Centre, Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) and water and wastewater companies have commissioned this work to address the current lack of a framework for evaluating the societal impact of network activities. Network activities can include a range of activities from preventative maintenance to remediation work.

The objective of this project is to determine mechanisms, tools or techniques allowing the quantitative assessment of societal impacts caused prior to, during, and following network activities.

This project has the potential to bring about a step-change in understanding network operators' impacts on local populations and other stakeholders.

Dr Clare-Twigger Ross is CEP's project manager for this work.

CEP assesses the knowledge base on society’s dependence on natural capital

CEP COMMISSIONED BY THE EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENT AGENCY (EEA) TO ASSESS THE KNOWLEDGE BASE ON SOCIETY’S NATURAL CAPITAL IN SUPPORT OF THE EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENT — STATE AND OUTLOOK 2020 (SOER 2020)

CEP has been commissioned to lead a specific contract, let under the CEP-led framework service contract on forward-looking analysis, sustainability assessments and systemic transitions for the European Environment Agency (EEA), to provide expertise for Assessing the knowledge base on society’s dependence on natural capital in support of SOER 2020.  CEP is also leading one of the two explicit tasks in this project which will take stock of and synthesise available knowledge on how green infrastructure (GI) / nature based solutions can contribute to sustainability challenges for maintaining natural capital and ecosystem service capacity. This will include assessing the knowledge base on whether GI / nature based solutions are cost-effective investments that can serve similar functions to grey infrastructure and even provide more benefits for local economies, the social fabric and the broader environment. This task is linked to the other specific task under the contract exploring society’s dependence on natural capital, which is being led by CEP’s partner Trinomics.

This contract is an opportunity to gain a better understanding of societal dependence on natural capital (i.e. biodiversity, ecosystems and their services) and to highlight its importance for Europe, and further incorporate these findings into the EEA’s upcoming SOER 2020 report. 

For more information on this project please contact Ric Eales or Peter Phillips.  

CEP's Owen White is the overall Framework Contract Manager and can provide general information on the framework.  CEP's Dr Bill Sheate is the Framework Contract Director.

CEP's Dr Bill Sheate to give lecture at LSE

Dr Bill Sheate will give a lecture to LSE Masters students on EIA

CEP's Dr Bill Sheate is to give a lecture titled Environmental Impact Assessment: EIA and SEA to students of the Executive MSc in Cities programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) on 13th December 2017.

CEP to update the knowledge base for understanding global megatrends

CEP commissioned to review and update the knowledge base related to global megatrends

CEP has been commissioned to lead the fourth Specific Contract, let under the CEP-led framework service contract for the European Environment Agency (EEA), to provide Assistance to the consolidation and update of the knowledge base on global megatrends and resource nexus in support of SOER 2020.  CEP is also leading a specific task in this project to review and consolidate the knowledge base underlying EEA’s global megatrends.  This specific task is linked to other tasks being led by Futureline / SEI Stockholm (development of the knowledge base underpinning the concept of “resource nexus” within European consumption and production systems), and the University of Barcelona looking at the analysis of the resource demand implications associated with long-term trends and the synergies and trade-offs between selected European policy frameworks.

The CEP task draws on previous work by CEP on reviewing and updating GMTs and understanding their implications at the national and regional level in Europe.  This fourth contract provides an opportunity to bring together a number of key forward looking analyses and to develop an understanding of resource use and policy interactions and trade-offs in support of SOER 2020.

For more information on this project please contact Owen White or Rolands Sadauskis.

CEP's Owen White is also the overall Framework Contract Manager and can provide general information on the framework.  CEP's Dr Bill Sheate is the Framework Contract Director.

Sian Morse-Jones joins CEP

NEW SENIOR CONSULTANT JOINS CEP

Sian Morse-Jones has recently joined CEP as a senior consultant. Sian is a social research professional, with 10 years’ experience in the environmental and sustainability field. Much of Sian’s work has focused on improving understanding on the value of the natural environment to support better decision-making. Examples include: understanding how stakeholder decision-making processes are informed in managing and responding to climate and weather-related nexus shocks (flooding and heatwaves), cultural ecosystem services, building capacity on natural capital and ecosystem valuation and applying and developing tools to support assessment, advising business on approaches for valuing biodiversity risks, and exploring public preferences towards biodiversity conservation and water supply.

Sian will be working on a number of projects for CEP, including the urban Natural Capital Accounts extension project for DEFRA, as well as business development.

CEP presenting at the European Environmental Evaluators Network Forum

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross is presenting at the European Environmental Evaluators Network Forum in Edinburgh, 23 -24th November 

The 2017 Forum will ask whether evaluation is evolving in line with the societal and environmental challenges policy is trying to address. Europe, in order to achieve its goal of “living well, within the limits of our planet”, will need to rely inter alia on innovation to make the transition to sustainability. Many forms of innovation will be required to turn Europe into a resource-efficient, green and low-carbon economy.  

Clare is presenting  work carried out by a team at CEP (Dr Bill Sheate, Dr Clare Twigger-Ross, Owen White, Rolands Sadauskis, Paula Orr, Liza Papadopoulou and Ric Eales):  "Learning Lessons from evaluations across the nexus: a meta-evaluation", which examined CEP evaluations in the context of complexity and impact, developing insights and key questions for future evaluations.   This is being presented as part of a session from CECAN on Innovations in instrument evaluation - integrating complexity into Environmental policy evaluation: Insights from CECAN on Thursday afternoon.   The project report and summary can be found here.

CEP ran workshop on global megatrends in Slovenia

CEP delivered workshop in Slovenia exploring the implications of global megatrends for the state of environment in Slovenia

CEP led an expert workshop in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on 7th November 2017, as part of the project Influence of global megatrends on the state of environment in Slovenia. The work was undertaken for the Slovenian Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning, and the Slovenian Environment Agency.

The workshop brought together 28 experts in a scoping exercise intended to identify and prioritise the implications of global megatrends (GMTs), as analysed by the European Environment Agency in their European Environment State and Outlook Report (SOER) 2015. The workshop in Slovenia focused on two GMTs: GMT 7 (intensified global competition for resources), and GMT 9 (increasingly severe consequences of climate change). The implications identified were assessed in terms of the likelihood of their occurrence, the magnitude of their effect and the timescale over which they may occur.

The outputs of this workshop will inform a following second workshop to be held in 2018 as part of this project that will focus on the risks and opportunities for the state of environment in Slovenia arising from the GMT implications identified, and any existing policy gaps and needs.

CEP is leading the work related to global megatrends, adapting and implementing a method toolkit previously developed (by CEP) for the European Environment Agency.

Please contact Rolands Sadauskis (Project Manager) for further information on the project. CEP's Owen White is the Project Director.

CEP giving paper at bathing waters conference

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips presenting new bathing waters valuation research at the 2017 UK Bathing Waters Conference

CEP will be presenting the interim results of a research project for the Scottish Government at the UK Bathing Waters Conference 2017 on 21st November in Wrexham. CEP's Dr Peter Phillips will co-deliver the presentation with Erin Gianferrara from project partners eftec. The project is assessing the value of bathing waters in Scotland and the influence of bathing water quality on this. 

Please contact Dr Peter Phillips (Project Manager) for further information on the project. CEP's Dr Clare Twigger-Ross is the Project Director.

CEP presented at European ecosystem services research dissemination event

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips presented results of Pentland Hills collaborative land use planning research at EU FP7 OPERAs project Scottish dissemination event

CEP's Dr Peter Phillips was invited to present at the Scottish final dissemination event for the EU FP7 funded OPERAs project which has developed ecosystem science for policy and practice. The event was held at the University of Edinburgh on 14th November. Peter presented the results of a CEP-led collaborative land use planning project undertaken with stakeholders in the Pentland Hills Regional Park during 2016 and 2017. This project was undertaken in collaboration with an OPERAs case study in the Pentland Hills that addressed the socio-cultural value of ecosystem services in upland regions.

Spela Kolaric joins CEP

New senior consultant joins CEP

Špela Kolarič has recently joined CEP as a senior consultant.  Špela is an an environmental and spatial planning professional experienced in international academic research and consultancy in territorial cohesion, environmental, economic and social aspects of European Union sector policies, environmental impact assessment and strategic decision-making processes and evaluations. 

Špela is already working on a number of projects for CEP, for example on the study to understand the implications of global megatrends (GMTs) on the state of the environment in Slovenia (for Slovenian Environment Agency/Ministry of Environment); and on assessing the knowledge base on society’s dependence on natural capital in support of SOER 2020 (for the European Environment Agency).

CEP attends 'Our Bright Future' workshop on monitoring and evaluation

CEP attends monitoring and evaluation regional workshop in Liverpool for the Big Lottery Funded project Our Bright Future

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross is attending the Our Bright Future Share Learn and Improve Regional Workshop in Liverpool on Thursday 2 November.  The aim of the workshop is to identify solutions and approaches to monitoring and evaluation challenges and will be attended by some of the OBF projects.  Clare will be representing the CEP programme evaluation team.  The team is led by ERS with CEP and is carrying out the evaluation of the programme between 2016 - 2021. ERS ltd in partnership with Collingwood Environmental Planning have been commissioned to undertake the Programme Evaluation. The Programme Evaluation seeks to identify, analyse and assess:

• the collective impact of the portfolio of 31 projects;

• The added value of the Programme i.e. what value has been derived from a programme with the Share Learn Improve, Policy and Youth Function and from the development of an Our Bright Future network/movement;

• Whether the Programme has achieved its long-term ambitions; and

• Best practice and lessons learnt, and provide evidence and guidance to support Programme learning and development.

CEP explores links between global megatrends and planetary boundaries

CEP commissionED to explore relationships between global megatrends and planetary boundaries

CEP has been commissioned to lead the third Specific Contract, let under the CEP-led framework service contract for the European Environment Agency (EEA), to provide Assistance to the analysis of planetary boundaries at the European level, in support of SOER 2020.  CEP is also leading a specific task in this project to explore and map the relationships between global megatrends affecting Europe and planetary boundaries.  This specific task is linked to other tasks being led by GRID/University of Geneva (downscaling of the planetary boundaries to Europe) and SEI Stockholm/PBL looking at the interactions among planetary boundaries and the relationship with existing EU environmental policy measures.  

The CEP task draws on previous work by CEP on GMTs at the national and regional level in Europe, and on planetary boundaries and tipping points, as well as the inter-linkages among the planetary boundaries being examined by SEI/PBL.  This third contract provides an opportunity to bring together a number of key forward looking analyses undertaken by the EEA in support of SOER2020.

For more information on this project please contact Dr Bill Sheate or Rolands Sadauskis.  

CEP's Owen White is the overall Framework Contract Manager and can provide general information on the framework.  CEP's Dr Bill Sheate is the Framework Contract Director.

CEP holds conversations about bathing water quality in Scotland

CEP meets with local communities and businesses across Scotland to discuss the value of bathing water quality

As part of a research project for the Scottish Government to provide a detailed and quantifiable socio-economic understanding of the value of Scottish bathing waters and the influence of quality to bathers, beach users and to the national and local economies, CEP has recently run a series of focus groups in Scottish coastal communities, which investigate the benefits and impact of bathing water quality on local people and businesses. The focus groups were held at Gullane and Portobello in East Lothian, Troon and Ayr in South Ayrshire, and Nairn in the Highlands. The focus groups covered the impression, uses, and value of local beaches, including public perception of water quality and beach information. The results of each discussion will be used to inform the research findings to be reported to the Scottish Government on the value of bathing water quality for local communities.

The focus groups are being run by CEP’s Paula Orr and Izzy Cotton.

CEP delivering EEA workshop on urban sustainability

CEP delivering workshop to support the EEA develop their thinking on urban sustainability as an input to SOER2020.

For the first time, the European Environment Agency (EEA) will be explicitly addressing urban sustainability in the European Environment State and Outlook Report for 2020 (SOER2020). As part of CEP's current framework contract with the EEA on forward-looking analysis, sustainability assessments and systemic transitions, CEP in partnership with LSE Cities is currently undertaking a specific contract on urban sustainability to support this aspect of SOER2020. Specifically, the project is reviewing the EEA knowledge base on urban sustainability and developing a conceptual framework to guide the EEA's work in this area, including for SOER2020.

On Thursday 26th October, CEP's Dr Peter Phillips and Rolands Sadauskis are running a one-day workshop with EEA experts in Copenhagen to go over the results of the knowledge review and critically appraise, refine and validate the proposed conceptual framework for urban sustainability. 

CEP presents at first ESRC CASCADE-NET seminar series

Clare Twigger-Ross to present at new ESRC seminar series

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross is presenting on the tension between consultation/participation and engagement with social learning in the context of flooding at the first seminar in the ESRC Seminar Series: CASCADE-NET: Civil Society’s agency and extreme weather events: dichotomies in theory and practice http://www.cascade-net.com/ .  It is on Wednesday 18th October at University of West of England, Bristol.

CEP at CECAN meeting

CEP's Dr Clare TwiGger-Ross at CECAN team meeting

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross is attending the internal CECAN (Centre for the Evaluation of Complexity across the Nexus) team meeting at Barnett Hill, near Guildford on Friday 13th October .  This meeting will cover CECAN case studies,  updates from CECAN fellows, and discuss the impact of CECAN in terms of outputs, capacity building in both practitioners and policy makers, and policy relevance.

For further information about CEP's involvement in CECAN see our news items here.

Further information about CECAN can be found at  www.cecan.ac.uk

Staff promotions in CEP

Key CEP staff receive promotions

We are pleased to announce that a number of key staff at CEP have recently been promoted from 1 October 2017 to more senior positions, reflecting their well-established commitment to CEP's approach and the responsibilities they have assumed.

Paula Orr has been promoted from Principal Consultant to Technical Director (Paula has been at CEP since 2007, specialising in stakeholder engagement, evaluation, social impacts, risk perception, climate vulnerability, and flood risk).

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Owen White has been promoted from Principal Consultant to Technical Director (Owen has been at CEP since 2008, specialising in European policy and long-term futures, science-policy, and integrated policy assessment and evaluation).

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Dr Peter Phillips has been promoted from Senior Consultant to Principal Consultant (Peter has been at CEP since 2013, specialising in natural capital, ecosystem services, environmental assessment, evaluation, land use and participatory planning and urban sustainability).

Ric Eales, CEP's Managing Director said:

"We are delighted to have announced these highly deserved senior promotions, reflecting just how lucky we are at CEP to have such knowledgeable, loyal and dedicated staff."

Isabel Cotton joins CEP

New environmental consultant joins CEP

Izzy Cotton has recently joined CEP as an environmental consultant.  Izzy is an environmental scientist with an MSc in Climate Change and Environmental Policy from the University of Leeds, where she also worked previously as a research assistant in CIEMAP  - the Centre for Industrial Energy, Materials and Products. 

Izzy is already working on a range of projects for CEP - on the Value of Bathing Water Quality in Scotland, Clyde Marine Planning and Our Bright Future among others.