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Research
Environment group
Projects
About Environment group
Introduction
Environmental policy research is inherently concerned with links between
society and the natural world. Human activities can have a profound
influence on ecosystems, the climate and landscapes. Conversely, the natural
world has value for health, aesthetic or recreational reasons and provides
the resources upon which economic activities depend. The PSI Environment
Group is dedicated to the analysis of the socio-economic causes of
environmental impacts and the policies that may ameliorate them. It seeks to
undertake policy-relevant research of the highest quality with a view to
contributing to the maintenance and enhancement of the environment’s
contribution to human welfare, now and in the future.
The Environment Group’s approach to the
environment recognises the interaction at every level between the
environment, the economy and society generally, and is therefore
intrinsically interdisciplinary. Many projects are carried out in
collaboration with others so that a range of perspectives can be taken for
any given problem. The challenge of sustainable development underlines the
fact that environmental policy must be firmly embedded in the wider social
and economic context. The research of the Environment Group is located
within, and seeks to contribute to the development of, thinking about
sustainable development.
The objectives of the Environment Group are to analyse, investigate and
understand:
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how a transition to environmentally sustainable development might come
about.
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the environmental policies at all levels of government, and in other
institutions, which might help to bring it about.
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the role of science and technology in helping to bring about
environmentally sustainable development.
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the linkages between environmental policy and economic and social concerns
which need to be taken into account if the environmental policies are to
be both implemented and effective.
Background
The Environment Group has operated since Professor Jim Skea arrived at PSI
as Director in November 1998. He was previously Leader of the Environment
Programme at SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), University of
Sussex and Director of the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC`s)
Global Environmental Change Programme. With others in the Group, various
projects have been carried out including: Reducing Barriers to Energy
Efficiency; The Development of Socio-Economic Scenarios for Climate Impact
Assessment; The Implications for the UK of an International Carbon Emissions
Trading Scheme; and a review of the Environment Agency’s Sustainable
Development Research Programme. Mayer Hillman, Senior Fellow Emeritus, also
conducts research under PSI auspices.
Professor Paul Ekins was appointed Group Head in late 2000, and moved from
Keele University to work full-time at PSI in October 2002. Paul is also
Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Westminster, a
Member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, and an Associate
Director of the sustainable development charity Forum for the Future, which
he co-founded with Jonathon Porritt and Sara Parkin in 1996. He has received
the UNEP Global 500 Award "for outstanding environmental achievement". Paul is taking up a new post as Professor of Energy and Environment Policy at King’s College London from January 1st 2008. A new Group Head is being sought and Ben Shaw is currently Acting Group Head.
The Environment Group has developed a number of research areas,
including resource productivity and technical change, energy policy and
climate change, environmental policy instruments, the governance of science
and technology, scenarios of environmentally sustainable development, the
social dimension of environmental policies, and conceptions and measures of
quality of life.
In November 2000, the Sustainable Development Unit at the then DETR (now
Defra) commissioned PSI to facilitate a sustainable development research
network with the goal of "strengthening the capacity for and delivery of
high-quality cross cutting research in the UK relevant to the needs of those
who must implement polices and decisions in the context of sustainable
development". This project was renewed for a third three-year phase and has enabled PSI
to play a leading role at the interface of sustainable development research and policy.
The work has involved collaboration with colleagues at the University of
Westminster’s Centre for Sustainable Development, the Centre of the Study
of Environmental Change and Sustainability at the University of Edinburgh, and with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and various other institutes and consultants.
Research themes
Environmental research at PSI employs a wide range of research methods, from formal modelling and scenario building to many styles of policy analysis and evaluation. A very wide range of data - economic, social and environmental - is relevant to environmentally sustainable development, and provides the empirical basis for the Group’s research. A major objective of the Group is to clarify the scope of sustainable development research and to increase awareness of its significance.
Staffing and collaborative links
A full list of current staff and visiting researchers is available here. The group also has a number of research associates through its close links with the Centre for Sustainable Development and the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster. Individual researchers also maintain close links with a large number of other universities and research institutes and policy-focused organisations.
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