The EU’s Green Deal is a comprehensive plan for policy, research, innovation and investment to make Europe climate neutral by 2050. Reaching net zero emissions is also a key criterion for the EU’s €750 billion recovery package from Covid-19 recessions. To support progress of the Green Deal, the EU’s information services organisation ‘CORDIS’ produced a results pack from frontier research … including […]
Charlie Wilson gave a talk to the Oxford Energy Network on “How do new things spread? The diffusion of digital low-carbon innovations”. Charlie explored the many analogies between the underlying mechanisms of virus transmission – about which we’ve all sadly become armchair experts – and the underlying mechanisms of innovation diffusion. He then showed a range of new evidence from the SILCI project demonstrating the […]
Post written by Emilie Vrain A new article from the SILCI team published in ‘Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions’ demonstrates the importance of studying social networks and communication behaviour to provide insights into potential obstacles for rapid diffusion of low carbon innovations. Using smart home technology as a case study, this paper identifies marketing strategies and policy actions using social […]
Or at least that’s how a web tool translates “Energie sparen – das Potenzial ist gross” from Swiss German into English! Charlie Wilson was interviewed by the Swiss national radio and television station, SRF, about his research on energy demand reduction as an essential climate mitigation strategy that avoids the risky bet on future negative emission technologies. You can listen […]
The SILCI team have a new open access paper published in Annual Review of Environment and Resources. Here’s a taster in the form of a mock interview! What is your article about? Our article analyses a range of digital innovations available to consumers for providing alternative low-carbon forms of mobility, food buying, and domestic living. We […]
Do digital consumer innovations help reduce carbon emissions? The SILCI team scoured the literature for studies that quantified impacts on activity, energy, or emissions as a result of using digital consumer innovations. They focused on 33 innovations across mobility, food, homes and energy domains – ranging from shared ride-hailing apps and digital farmers’ markets to smart home technologies and ‘demand response’ (domestic appliances temporarily powering down when […]
Post written by Emilie Vrain Charlie Wilson and Emilie Vrain from the SILCI team recently presented at the virtual Sunbelt Conference hosted by the International Network for Social Network Analysis. The conference brought together researchers from a wide range of fields all studying the patterns of social interactions and structure. The SILCI team is interested in such social factors as they potentially play an important role for encouraging the adoption […]
In a recent review we find that innovations that build on home solar PV generation (e.g., electricity generation and storage, peer to peer electricity trading, vehicle to grid systems) fail to adequately challenge the incumbent model of passively using energy in the home. Their appeal is limited to a reduced set of core and non-core attributes which offer added value […]
Charlie Wilson participated in a media briefing on reaching net-zero emissions organised by the Science Media Centre in London. The aim of the briefing was to emphasise the importance of the upcoming round of international climate negotiations (CoP26) to be hosted by the UK in Glasgow this November. CoP26 marks the critical five year follow-on to the […]
Hazel Pettifor a senior researcher with the SILCI team reflects on a new government incentive aimed at boosting electric vehicle adoption within company fleets. From 2020 employees who opt for an EV through their company car scheme pay no benefit in kind (BIK) tax in 2020/21 and a reduced rate for two years following. The company car market remains a primary driver of new registrations for cars accounting for 8-9% of new vehicle registrations in 2018 (Department […]