Research projects

2D4D – Disruptive Digitalization for Decarbonization

Digitalization will fundamentally change all sectors of the European economy in the next decades. At the same time, the EU is committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. These two transformation will undoubtedly affect each other, but the extent to which they will be mutually supporting is currently unknown. Most importantly, there is a danger that the digital transformation will delay the progress towards a net-zero carbon economy. The EU-funded 2D4D project aims at ensuring that the digital transformation is not a barrier to decarbonisation, rather an enabler. The project will identify and measure the decarbonisation consequences of three disruptive digitalisation technologies in hard-to-decarbonise sectors: additive manufacturing in industry, mobility-as-a-service in transportation, and AI in buildings. The project will produce a distinctive data collection to examine the technical and socioeconomic potential of these technologies, enhance decarbonisation narratives and ensure that digital technology supports energy transition.

Energy, Health, Jobs & Growth.

COACCH – CO-designing the Assessment of Climate CHange costs

COACCH (CO-designing the Assessment of Climate CHange costs) is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and carried out by a consortium of 14 European organisations. COACCH will develop an innovative science-practice and integrated approach to co-design and co-deliver an improved downscaled assessment of the risks and costs of climate change in Europe, working with end users from research, business, investment, and policy making communities throughout the project.

Future Earth, Energy, Global Policy, Jobs & Growth.

ECO-DEKS – External knowledge sourcing strategies for environmental innovation in the industrial sector of Nigeria

Globally, the industrial sector substantially contributes to the high level of the world’s consumption of energy, natural resources and generation of waste. It is one of the most energy and resource intensive sectors in the world. Nigeria, one of the largest economies in Africa, does not have a clear cut policy on eco-innovation. More importantly, in light of the challenges such as resource scarcity, inadequate power supply, hazardous substances and waste generation, resource inefficiency and high intensity energy consumption facing the industrial sector, there is an urgent need to assess the policy measures that will guarantee transition to a sustainable manufacturing (UNEP 2011) which is fair and creates social and economic benefits in the country. However, before these can be achieved, it is crucial to understand how firms access, assimilate and develop the knowledge needed to reduce their environmental footprints. The overall objective of ECO-innovation and the Dynamics of External Knowledge Sourcing (ECO-DEKS) is to examine the dynamics of alliance portfolio for eco-innovation in the manufacturing and service sectors of Nigeria using both qualitative and quantitative data. ECO-DEKS focuses on the two sectors because of their significance to environmental sustainability. Together, these two sectors account for 70.84% of the GDP of the Nigerian economy in 2017. The sectors are similar in that they are characterized by considerable innovation potentials and by the highest potential environmental gains, but differ in terms of technology and the context within which the economic agents act. Therefore, the way in which firms within each sector

Energy, Health, Jobs & Growth.

ENGAGE – Exploring National and Global Actions to reduce Greenhouse gas Emissions

ENGAGE is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme and carried out by a consortium of 25 European and International organizations. As the world faces the risks of dangerous climate change, policy-makers, industry and civil society leaders are counting on Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to inform and guide strategies to deliver on the objectives of the Paris Agreement (PA). ENGAGE rises to this challenge by engaging these stakeholders in co-producing a new generation of global and national decarbonisation pathways. These new pathways will supplement natural science, engineering and economics, traditionally represented in IAMs, with cutting-edge insights from social science in order to reflect multidimensional feasibility of decarbonisation and identify opportunities to strengthen climate policies. The pathways will be designed to minimise overshoot of the temperature target and analyse the timing of net-zero emissions to meet the Paris temperature target and reduce the reliance on controversial negative emissions technologies. In addition, they will link national mitigation strategies of major emitters with the PA’s objectives, integrate potential game-changing innovations, and advance conceptually novel approaches to architectures of international climate agreements. ENGAGE will also quantify avoided impacts of climate change, co-benefits and trade-offs of climate policy, and identify the biggest sectoral opportunities for climate change mitigation. In ENGAGE, we will set new standards of transparency for global and national IAMs. The new pathways will be developed in an iterative global and national stakeholder process and a consortium of leading global and national IAMs and social scientists. This co-production process ensures

Energy, Global Policy, Health, Jobs & Growth.

NAVIGATE – Next generation of AdVanced InteGrated Assessment modelling to support climaTE policy making

NAVIGATE is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme and carried out by a consortium of 15 European organisations and two others BRIC countries organizations (Brazil and China). It aims to develop the Next generation of AdVanced InteGrated Assessment modelling to support climaTE policy making. It will critically improve the capability of Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to inform the design and evaluation of climate policies by targeting major advancements in two areas: describing transformative change in the economy, in technology and in consumer goods and services, and describing distributional impacts of climate change and climate policy.

Future Earth, Jobs & Growth.

SMOOTH – Sustainable Finance for a Smooth Low-Carbon Transition

The threat of climate change calls for a rapid transition to a low-carbon society. Aligning the financial system with climate stability is a crucial prerequisite for achieving decarbonization while preserving economic prosperity and societal welfare. However, we currently lack a comprehensive understanding of how the institutional and behavioural features of financial systems may affect the speed and shape of the low-carbon transition. Additionally, the coevolving socioeconomic, financial and environmental repercussions of such a large-scale societal transformation have not yet been systematically analyzed. The SMOOTH project will lay the foundations of an innovative macro-financial analytical framework to provide essential insights on the links between financial systems and decarbonization dynamics.

Energy, Future Earth, Jobs & Growth.

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