Research for a robust transition.

00 · Under all four

Our models

Every programme rests on models. We build our own, rebuild published ones so they can be verified, and couple models with partner institutions into integrated models. All follow the same standards: predictions before runs, uncertainty carried through, failures published.

How we work

P1 · What is the transition built from?

Industrial transitions

Which technologies and materials actually decarbonize construction and heavy industry, and which only appear to?

• 24 cement and concrete technologies assessedSECTOR
• Industrial ecology for constructionSECTOR
• Forest carbon cost of wood productsALSO IN · P2

P2 · What does it draw on?

Land and ecosystem transitions

What is the true carbon cost of using land and biomass, and how should competing uses be arbitrated?

• The full climate cost of foodLAND SYSTEM
• Forest carbon cost of wood productsLAND SYSTEM
• Land, biomass and ocean in EuropeLAND SYSTEM

P3 · How is it counted?

Measuring transitions

What do accounting standards omit, how uncertain are their figures, and what risk does that carry?

• The accounting gapPRODUCT
• 24 cement and concrete technologies assessedALSO IN · P1
• Forest carbon cost of wood productsALSO IN · P2

P4 · Does it hold?

Systemic transitions

Why do efficient systems become fragile, and what does it take, and cost, to make them robust?

• Why efficient systems become fragileTHEORY
• The price of slackECONOMY
• The full climate cost of foodALSO IN · P2

Connections

How the projects connect

No project stands alone. Methods developed in one become the starting point of another. Hover a project to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

• The carbon opportunity cost of land, developed on food, is used in the forest work, the European land-use project, the cement assessment and the accounting-gap study.
• The forest work feeds the European land-use project and the accounting-gap study, and supplies the timber-against-concrete comparison.
• The construction work the lab started with led to the cement and concrete assessment, which is the first application of the accounting-gap study.
• The cement assessment's systems archetypes are the fragility traps the economy model must reproduce.
• The theory of robust systems supplies the metrics for the economy model and a planned robustness layer for food foresight.

Scale

From a product to an economy

The same projects on one axis, from the carbon cost of a single product to the robustness of a national economy and the theory beneath it.

• Product: The accounting gap
• Sector: 24 cement and concrete technologies assessed, Industrial ecology for construction
• Land system: The full climate cost of food, Forest carbon cost of wood products, Land, biomass and ocean in Europe
• Economy: The price of slack
• Theory: Why efficient systems become fragile