The UK’s universities were among the first in the world to dedicate teams of scientists to investigate just how our world is changing.  The research is expanding into new areas all the time.  Here are just a few examples of the latest projects.

Designing cities for climate change
Renewable technologies at an affordable price
How we relate to waste around us

Designing cities for climate change

A groundbreaking initiative which aims to help protect Greater Manchester against the potentially catastrophic impacts of global warming was launched by The University of Manchester in July 2009.

The Eco Cities project – directed by Professor Simon Guy – is a partnership between The University of Manchester and office provider Bruntwood. By the end of 2011, it will provide a blueprint to help the Manchester city region adapt to what are now accepted as the inevitable effects of climate change.

Work in Manchester will provide a living laboratory to test adaptation methods and develop transferable research findings. Eco Cities will collaborate with a global network of individuals and organisations with an interest in climate change, sharing best practice on how cities are designed, built and managed in the face of a changing climate.

New research will make going green more socially inclusive and help tackle fuel poverty by examining how households can use renewable energy technology to cut their fuel consumption.

Renewable technologies at an affordable price

The two-year research project will be conducted by Dr Fin O’Flaherty from Sheffield Hallam University and Dr James Pinder of consultancy firm Positive Sum Ltd. It is funded by the Eaga Partnership Charitable Trust (eCT).  The study will include an evaluation of ten low income homes in Rotherham that have been retrofitted with renewable energy sources.

Dr O’Flaherty said: "Understanding how low-income households can benefit from clean energy is essential if we're to meet the Government's target of cutting the UK’s C02 emissions by 80 per cent. It’s really about asking how we can make going green socially inclusive.

"This research will investigate how technologies like solar thermal hot water and heat pumps can make energy more sustainable and affordable for consumers.”

The Fuel Poverty Advisory Group (FPAG) has recently warned that rising unemployment and higher energy prices are pushing more people into fuel poverty – where they are spending more than ten per cent of their household income on heating.

The study will be essential to gaining a better understanding of how renewable technologies can help alleviate fuel poverty.

How we relate to waste around us

Dr Catherine Alexander from Goldsmiths, University of London has been researching the ways that people relate to, manage and live around waste.

Dr Alexander has been considering informal ways in which the lives of objects can be extended through exchange, hoarding, gifts and repairs, thus reducing waste. The results of this study will assist engineers in designing flexible technologies and waste collection infrastructures around what people actually do, as opposed to bolting people onto technologies and expecting them to change their behaviour.

The research makes important contributions to debates around waste and waste management as her anthropological perspective sheds light on how waste is defined and lived with.  In a world waking-up to human effects on climate change, it is important that waste strategies take account of the ways that people actually behave to create sustainable systems that will be adopted and used effectively.