Mapping the Big Green Challenge - The Skills & Learning ...

Mapping the Big Green Challenge 1337.10 Low Carbon InventionsProducts rather thanprojects15 proposalsA clearly identified productProposals are in the ‘idea’ or ‘research and development’ stageLess than 5% of proposals fell into this Proposal Type (15applications). These are proposals which are focussed ondeveloping a new product/technique. That is not to saythat there are no new products, or products used indifferent ways, in other proposals in the context of awider project. However, these Invention proposals are allabout the product, and how this in itself will help toreduce carbon emissions. As such, they have a tendencyto give sparse information on how they expect theirproduct to be taken up. In fact of the proposals that werenot included in this analysis because they gave insufficientinformation to provide a basis for coding, most would fallinto this category. The proposals included in this categoryare those which provided enough detail and notnecessarily those which are technically more or lessfeasible as inventions.Chart 102 – Low Carbon Inventions,product only and product withpractice, 15 proposalsPracticeProduct20%Product80%All of these are categorised as Product ideas, and only three have elements of behavioural changeincorporated in the proposal.7.10.1 Climate Change GoalsMost (73%) of these are looking at carbon reduction methods considered, according to the MACCcategorisations, to be long term proposals. Ten are looking at niche products, and the other five arelooking at technical adjustments within the current carbon regime. In terms of niche ideas becomingestablished the large number of proposals of this type whichdid not address this issue is of concern.As each idea is basically aimed at one form of reduction, thereis not the variety of measures within each application that isfound in other categories. They are almost all singularreduction measures.Chart 103 – Inventions, feasibilitytimescales, 15 proposalsCurrent7%Where more than one measure has been allocated to theproposal it is because the single invention results in two areasof carbon reduction. For example, a product for refillingpersonal containers results in less waste (re-using thecontainer) and less packaging on the materials sold; a devicefor calculating carbon emissions from travel is aiming to reduceboth road transport and international flights.)Future73%Near term20%Appleby Ltd July 2009