Anne Marte Bergseng Archives | Page 3 of 14

The Scottish Government’s Heat in Buildings Strategy aims to transform Scotland’s buildings and systems that supply their heat, ensuring a transition to net zero emissions and addressing fuel poverty commitments. There is a commitment to decarbonise the heating of at least 1 million homes by 2030, to help achieve Scotland’s target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

This research aimed to identify appropriate trusted messengers, communication channels, engagement formats and points of intervention for engaging with different groups across the Scottish public on delivering heat decarbonisation.

The findings have been used to inform the development of the Scottish Government’s public engagement strategic framework for the heat transition and associated communications activity.

Methods included a literature review, a survey and focus groups conducted between February and March 2023.

Summary of conclusions

Developing communications and public engagement to facilitate the heat transition and move to zero direct emissions heating systems is a complex and challenging task. It includes raising public awareness across:

understanding and buy-in of the changes required
improvement options and potential benefits
the support and advisory services available to households to facilitate uptake.

For further information, including detailed findings, please download the report.

If you require the report in an alternative format such as a Word document, please contact info@climatexchange.org.uk or 0131 651 4783.

The concept of interlinked practices views lifestyles as a network of interrelated practices consisting of competencies (knowledge, skills), materials (objects, infrastructure) and meaning (expectations, shared meaning). It has been suggested that these practices could provide the targets of interventions aiming to change unsustainable behaviours or parts of them.

The ultimate aim of interlinked practices is to identify some critical shared elements that can be changed to catalyse greater societal change across a range of behaviours.

The aim of this research was to explore how the Scottish Government can apply the concept of interlinked practices to improve net zero policy development and enact societal change. It focused on research with Scottish Government staff and external stakeholders, including a literature and evidence review, interviews, exploratory and testing workshops, and a mapping exercise.

Findings

The interlinked practices concept is untested and theoretical in terms of policy development and implementation.
The research found policy interdependencies and interlinked practices in the following sectors: Transport, Agriculture and Land Use Change and Forestry, Waste and Circular Economy, and Buildings. These are key pillars of the Climate Change Plan and have significant powers devolved to the Scottish Government. These sectors have practice-based elements and are crucial in making progress towards net zero targets in key areas.
Interlinked practices can help to reframe a behaviour problem and help policymakers and practitioners work towards positive societal shift. However, the end point of using social practice related tools is to identify the factors influencing behaviours or practices rather than to prescribe a policy or intervention.
Of the three social practice elements, material and competencies were often considered in policy development, but meaning was not.
An interlinked practices approach could be beneficial, but policymakers would need support with developing and implementing it.

For further information, please download the report.

If you require the report in an alternative format such as a Word document, please contact info@climatexchange.org.uk or 0131 651 4783.

On 2 November we hosted a lunchtime webinar on crafting successful research proposals tailored to meet the specific needs of the Scottish Government.

ClimateXChange is funded by the Scottish Government and commissions and manages research in response to calls for evidence from policy teams.

This pilot event was designed to equip participants from academia and consultancies with the knowledge and best practice for writing proposals for ClimateXChange projects.

Dr Sarah Govan, Project Manager for climate and land use at ClimateXChange, guided attendees through the elements of a research call and offered insights on how to produce a winning bid. This blog explains what was discussed at the event. For a summary, please see the slides under Related links.

Understanding the research specification and the policy environment

We expect research proposals to clearly demonstrate that bidders understand the aim of the project and how their work will address it.

This goes beyond copying the text from the project specification and should be written in your own words. 

Good proposals include relevant Scottish policy context and policy development timelines, with an understanding of research and evidence needs stemming from those. Furthermore, proposals should include information on the cross-sectoral nature of the project.

Research methodology

Tell us what you are going to do to answer the policy questions and how you are going to do it.

Explain your robust methodology in plain English, stating what the outputs will be for each stage. Describe the steps of data collection and analysis, and the rationale for choosing particular types of evidence.

It is very important to honestly address both strengths and weaknesses as well as gaps of the approach you will take to conduct the work.

This section is an opportunity to demonstrate an understanding of the policy audience for this work by not using technical terminology or acronyms, given that people who are not experts in this area may not be familiar with them.

If you list academic references, clearly state how they relate to the specification. The panel who will assess the bids want to know exactly what you know about relevant work in the area. References to research papers are not usually helpful in a proposal of this type.

Project management and staff resource

This section is where you tell us who will be doing what, when and how everyone will work together to deliver the whole project.

Introduce the team that will deliver this project. This is more than just their CVs – we want to know how their expertise meets the project requirements. You will want to put forward a strong project team and demonstrate why this team will deliver this project, rather than relying on reputation. 

Bidders are also expected to allocate staff to each task and analytical step, and to ensure that the named team members will be available to conduct the work.

We need to know who will be the contact person should we work with you, so please name them in the proposal and describe how they will be involved throughout the project. 

In this section you should also reference compliance issues such as GDPR and, if there aren’t any issues, explain why that is the case.

Communication and report writing

ClimateXChange reports will be read by very knowledgeable people in the Scottish Government, but they might not be experts in your area of work. Therefore, the language you use in the reports will need to consider that. In this section you should show how you will communicate clearly with policy teams.

Describe the approach you will use in writing this particular report. It is important to respond to the specification, but not repeat it; copying the specification does not tell us how you will approach the reporting process and will lose marks.

Explain the process for delivering outputs, including quality assessment processes. 

You are encouraged to link to your previous work, in particular to reports written for a policy audience. However, links are not enough; you should explain the role of specific team members in producing those outputs or publications and how they are relevant for this work.

Detail the process for developing and added value of planned visualisations and presentations – this is often missing from proposals. And detail specific data management tasks and their related costs.  

Quality assurance and risk mitigation

We all know things can go wrong, despite careful planning. This section is here to demonstrate that you have anticipated the key risks, thought about how to minimise their likelihood and that you have a plan to reduce the potential impact on project delivery.

Detail your approach to quality assurance, demonstrating checks and balances, and addressing issues. QA should be done throughout the project and we would like to know who will be responsible for checking quality at different stages as well as the final report.

Do not rely on a single person for this, as we can all become text blind after a while looking at the same report.

List risks at each stage of the project, tailored to this specific project. Demonstrate an understanding of risk of staffing and data accessibility, for instance whether you will need a data sharing agreement.

Show that the project plan takes account of all of those risks. It is very useful to show us a risk mitigation matrix, including a description of each risk, how likely it is, the impact it will have, how you will mitigate it and respond to it.

Sign up

We commission more than 30 projects each year responding to Scottish Government requests. Keep an eye on our website and subscribe to our emails to make sure you receive our latest invitations to quote, calling researchers to work with us.

We will guide successful bidders in planning their work to meet policy timelines. Outputs from projects will support the Scottish Government as it develops policies on adapting to the changing climate and transitioning to net zero.

Unfortunately we are unable to share an example of a successful bid, as this would risk the commercial confidentiality of the successful bidder. We do recommend that you look at our most recent completed projects, which will give you an idea of the outputs we are working towards. For examples, you may want to look at the structure and content of the reports under Related links below.

Findings

Five parking interventions were identified as having an impact on car kilometre reduction, modal shift (the percentage of travellers using cars), and/or car ownership:

Parking standards, off-site or non-adjacent provision of residential parking, low-car and car-free housing
Parking pricing, on-street and off-street
Parking levies
Park and ride
Parking capacity reductions at city or neighbourhood level

The research found strong evidence that four out of the five intervention types have a positive impact on car kilometre reduction, modal shift or car ownership.

The exception to this is park and ride, which was found to generally increase vehicle kilometres travelled when located close to destinations. However, when located close to journey origins, it could reduce vehicle kilometres in the order of 1.5km per park and ride user.

The four most impactful interventions align with wider Scottish Government policy, including encouraging active travel, reducing car dominance, reducing congestion and air pollution, and supporting sustainable investments.

Further details on the findings can be found in the report attached.

If you require the report in an alternative format such as a Word document, please contact info@climatexchange.org.uk or 0131 651 4783.

Scottish Mediation defines mediation as: “a flexible process that can be used to settle disputes in a whole range of situations. […] The mediator helps parties work out what their issues and options are, then uses those options to work out an agreement.”

Over five days at the end of August, I attended accredited mediation training with a group of people working across climate change engagement. In addition to learning about mediation we explored how the approach may be applied to conflict resolution around climate action.

We need to take action at pace to transition to a net zero, climate-ready future. That comes with considerable potential for conflict. Indeed, many engaged at both a local, national and global level have found themselves in the middle of heated and intense conflicts that block progress and harm those involved.

Understanding conflict

Conflict and disagreement are part of life. By understanding how conflict escalates to the point where the two sides see no way forward, it is possible to avoid trench warfare.

Conflicts about local climate action can follow a well-known conflict escalation pattern: an issue becomes personal through antagonism, labelling and stereotypes; this leads to defensiveness, other issues are draw in, communication breaks down, mistrust spirals, ending in polarised camps that do not see any possible solutions other than defeating the adversary.

What mediation offers is a structured process that has the potential to help climate practitioners manage and work through the potential conflicts involved in delivering climate action.

These skills and techniques can be used to bring people with divergent and conflicting views together, to work through challenges constructively, unlocking new ideas and seeing conflict as an opportunity for positive change.

Change is difficult

Individuals and communities can feel helpless and hopeless in the face of climate risks like sea level rise or increased flooding. Rapid and significant change is scary and unsettling.

Anger, loss and grief are all natural feelings that are important for us as individuals that other people acknowledge.

We are all often more intent on getting our own point across rather than listening to someone else’s. As a result, people tend to talk in parallel, neither really listening to the other, which leads to more frustration and greater anger.

Mediation gives participants space to reflect on their feelings before refocusing on going forward in an agreed way.

Creative problem solving

Solutions in a mediation process come from the participants. The process can help unlock and facilitate people’s ability to identify and discuss new and unexpected solutions, and gives them an opportunity to make concessions gracefully, without pushing them to admit fault or back down.

This gives back agency and brings a constructive focus on the opportunity for innovation and creativity.

Climate action needs creative problem solving where people can home in on what they gain rather than what they may lose.

So, while a formal mediation process may not be the answer to how we reduce the number of cars on the road or how to avoid wars over access to water, by finding new ways of unlocking progress on challenging issues, mediation seems a useful tool in our climate action acceleration toolkit.

Summary of findings

The research found that introduction of sustainable travel can result in multiple positive benefits for high streets, such as:

better environment
making room for people and nature
valued places that people enjoy
healthier, happier and safer communities
thriving businesses, better links to jobs and more spending

Summary of recommendations

The report recommends the following measures, which could be taken to increase sustainable travel to high streets and town centres:

Maximise the benefits of sustainable travel through holistic projects that meet community needs.
Provide guidance on how to measure benefits and evaluate interventions in order to identify and communicate these benefits effectively.
Identified benefits should play an important role in constructive engagement.
Groups potentially negatively impacted by interventions need to be particularly catered for in engagement.

Further details on the findings and recommendations can be found in the report attached.

To meet Scotland’s net-zero targets, it is important that the Scottish Government understands how its policy and spending decisions impact greenhouse gas emissions.

This research explores options to improve understanding of the consequences of Scottish Government’s spending choices on emissions and increase the transparency and value of the carbon assessment of the Scottish Budget to support scrutiny and informed discussion.

The findings contribute to the Joint Budget Review on matters related to climate change between the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament.

The research considers a number of options based on but not limited to current systems and practices within the Scottish Government, proportionality to the policy process, capacity, avoiding unintended consequences and the practical application. Lessons are drawn from across all policy areas, and from other jurisdictions. The recommendations cover a number of areas, however there is a focus on governance, processes, capacity and culture.

Recommendations

The report recommends that the Scottish Government:

Improves the clarity and transparency of Government decisions that impact on climate change, acknowledging that trade-offs will always exist between different objectives.
Pursues a cultural shift to ensure sufficient time and resource for robust decision-making processes, allowing business cases, carbon assessments and impact assessments to be undertaken, challenged and scrutinised.
Enhances cross-governmental policymaking governance, to have oversight and challenge function on the existence and quality of processes and appraisal throughout the entire policymaking process. The governance process would require the capacity for an enhanced approach to pre-budget carbon assessments.
Urgently expands their internal capacity and skills, including recognising that civil servants cannot expect to undertake processes as intended without enough time, resourcing, and a significant increase in practical policymaking and appraisal guidance.
Considers periodic external auditing of climate change policymaking governance, processes and carbon assessments.
Introduces a Net Zero Test to ensure that all spending with major emissions implications undergoes a quantitative carbon assessment.
Creates a second cross-governmental governance team (see recommendation 3), responsible for assessing climate impacts, providing oversight and a challenge function. The team would ensure the Net Zero Test and carbon assessments are being undertaken and of suitable quality. This would in addition support work across Government to embed consideration of carbon throughout policymaking process. To be effective the team will require the ability to influence Government-wide change.
Recognises the power of Scottish Government procurement in driving economy-wide carbon reductions. We recommend the Government considers a swift roll out of quantitative carbon management procedures, building on the success of the Cross Tay Link Road case study and carbon management procedures in the City Region & Growth Deals team.
Considers retiring the taxonomy-based carbon assessment of the Capital Budget and the high-level carbon assessment of the Budget. This will have implications for the Climate Change Act.
Considers the challenging environment for data collection under current budgetary processes, and that a longer lead in time will be required for better data.
Moves towards the use of individual-level carbon assessments and gap analysis to provide suitable data for fiscal and policy scrutiny. In time, further mechanisms for scrutiny should also be explored, such as a carbon equivalent to financial memos for any announcements that require legislative changes, and publication of carbon assessment results after decisions have been made.

While these recommendations are made for the Scottish Government, many of the principles are shared with agencies and local government. Supporting alignment with these principles across the whole of government will be critical to developing an understanding of how government spending choices impact on emissions.

This paper summarises findings from research to map areas with high potential for future hydrogen production and, subsequently, areas with a building stock that has high technical suitability to use hydrogen for heating.

The policy context for hydrogen for heating is set out in the response from the Scottish Government published alongside the summary report.

The Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan requires over a million homes currently heated by gas boilers to convert to zero emissions heat over the next eight years. Overall, emissions from homes and buildings need to fall by 68% from 2020 to 2030.

The use of 100% hydrogen in heating our homes is dependent on strategic decisions by the UK Government on the future of the gas grid that will not be made before 2026.

The study identified regions in Scotland where hydrogen can best be produced based on a range of assumed criteria, datasets retrieved for assessment and stakeholder discussions. The project focused on green hydrogen, which is produced from renewable energy sources, and blue hydrogen, which is produced mainly from natural gas.

The analysis identified the following seven high potential areas in Scotland deemed most able to produce low or zero carbon hydrogen in the near future and where a considerable percentage of properties are technically suitable to accept hydrogen for heating:

Fife, 66.2%
Falkirk, 63.7%
Highland, 54.6%
Angus, 53.6%
Aberdeenshire, 48.2%
Aberdeen City, 43.7%
Na h-Eileanan Siar, 12.1%

Alongside a summary of the report, we are publishing a response by the Scottish Government that sets the context for the use of hydrogen for heating in Scotland.

In 2022, the Scottish Government consulted on a draft route map that sets out interventions to reduce the distance travelled by car by 20%, by 2030. Some of those relate specifically to children and young people (CYP).

This project aims to provide evidence to support the development of integrated policy interventions to increase sustainable travel among Scotland’s CYP and their families.

Researchers reviewed Scottish, Welsh and Danish policy, and literature evaluating interventions related to sustainable travel among CYP and families, focusing beyond the journey to/from school.

Summary findings

It is worth addressing travel behaviours beyond the school commute, including for leisure and other purposes.
There is potential in supporting infrastructural improvements with interventions that capitalise on the social environment of educational settings. For instance, a transport network that promotes independent movement from around age 12, around the transition to high school or earlier, would support sustainable travel norms before children reach driving age.
Designing integrated interventions to maximise both sustainable travel and related policy objectives such as physical activity and road safety could have an impact. For example, Learning for Sustainability is embedded in the Curriculum for Excellence and affords opportunities for interventions targeting multiple objectives – sustainable travel, physical activity, safety and wellbeing – aligning with the ‘Getting It Right for Every Child’ approach.
There is potential in including interventions that target families with younger children (0-4 years old) and whole family units. These might include providing smaller bikes, bike seats and cargo bikes through cycle share schemes; family-friendly rail fares and facilities in public transport and at interchanges; and in the design of walking and cycle routes to accommodate groups.
Intervening with specific age groups and during key moments of change such as the transition from primary to secondary school, leaving school and starting a family could have an impact. This might include opportunities to piggyback on existing interventions such as baby boxes.

The executive summary of the report includes a full list of findings and recommendations for policymakers in national and local government that set out priority actions to promote sustainable travel amongst children, young people and their families.

In its climate policy and international engagement, the Scottish Government is already a strong voice calling for a gender-responsive approach and women’s participation. Integrating the Scottish Government’s visions for climate justice and a feminist approach to foreign policy is an opportunity to demonstrate powerful leadership in shaping a new feminist approach to international climate justice.

Climate change, conflict and gender are mutually reinforcing dynamics that interact to destroy lives and livelihoods, especially for the most disadvantaged. From an analysis of Scottish Government work to date, and best practices in international policy and programming, this project suggests strategic policy opportunities through which the Scottish Government could boost its global roles in climate justice and gender equality, and contribute to peace and security.

The report describes the levels of action required to achieve a feminist approach to international climate justice. This framework can be used to analyse policy in Scotland and beyond:

Building from a strong base, the report identifies a range of priorities and entry points for the Scottish Government to ensure its development strategy more systematically and meaningfully engages with the relationships between climate change, conflict and gender inequality:

Centre economic justice in climate justice
Use the Climate Justice Fund and International Development Strategy to support just, inclusive and sustainable feminist economies
Empower women peacebuilders and environmental defenders to advocate for economic transformation
Advance gender equality through all Climate Justice Fund and International Development programming
Leverage partnerships at home and abroad and continue to learn

These opportunities are discussed with reference to how they respond to the action needed at each level of the framework.