Liveable Cities

Delivering global and societal wellbeing within the context of low carbon living

Liveable Cities is all about transforming the engineering of cities to deliver global and societal wellbeing within the context of low carbon living. Resource security is ever more vital and researchers must develop realistic and radical engineering that demonstrates the concept of an alternative future, in order to deliver it. This means assessing where cities are today, where we need to get to by 2050 in order to meet carbon reduction targets, how this might change under different scenarios and what might happen to people’s wellbeing in the process.

Working with partners from the Universities of Birmingham (lead), UCL and Lancaster, our researchers are working on a baseline study which will characterize the energy performance of target cities over a range of scales, integrated within a GIS platform, looking holistically at building and transport emissions. The baseline analysis will inform targeted case studies, with engineers working in tandem with social scientists to assess how people behave in response to technological solutions and whether it has a positive or negative impact on their wellbeing. The technological solutions will be tested for acceptability with interested parties, including local government. This will lead to a body of evidence which will lead to revised technological solutions and policy guidance for transforming cities, by 2050.

Key facts

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