Localism and energy: Negotiating approaches to embedding resilience in energy systems

Tensions are evident in energy policy objectives between centralised top-down interconnected energy systems and localised distributed approaches. Examination of these tensions indicates that a localised approach can address a systemic problem of interconnected systems; namely vulnerability. The challenge for energy policy is to realise the interrelated goals of energy security, climate and environmental targets and social and economic issues such as fuel poverty, whilst mitigating vulnerability. The effectiveness of conventional approaches is debateable. A transition to a low carbon pathway should focus on resilience, counter to vulnerability. This article draws from on-going work which evaluates the energy aspects of a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) project to refurbish and re-build a local authority’s entire stock of sheltered accommodation to high environmental standards. Initial findings suggest that whereas more conventional procurement processes tend to increase systemic vulnerability, a user focussed process driven through PFI competitive dialogue is beginning to motivate some developers to adopt innovative approaches to energy system development. Conceptually these findings strongly suggest that embedding ‘Open Source’ principles in energy system development acts to work against systemic vulnerabilities by embedding resilience

Resilience: an all-encompassing solution to global problems? A biopolitical analysis of resilience in the policies of EC, FEMA, UNDP, USAID, WB, and WEF

This thesis examines the use of resilience in international policy-making. A concept that originally meant an ability of ecosystems to absorb disturbance has not only been welcomed in many disciplines outside ecology, but lately become popular in the policies of international organisations that claim resilience as a solution to various ‘global problems’ such as climate change, underdevelopment, or economic crises. The study contributes to the ongoing critical discussion on the governance effects of resilience. Here, the Foucauldian theory of biopolitics and the concept of governmentality are useful. Resilience now addresses human systems and communities with concepts from natural sciences, thus making it a biopolitical phenomenon. Specifically, the thesis asks how mainstreaming resilience affects the pursuit of agendas in six organisations: European Commission, Federal Emergency Management Agency, United Nations Development Programme, United States Agency for International Development, World Bank, and World Economic Forum. Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, the study is thematically divided into adaptive, entrepreneurial and governing aspects of resilience. Each part explicates how truth, power and subjectivity are constructed in the discourse. The analysis shows that contrary to the policy claims, resilience does not function as a solution but is constitutive of the problems it attempts to solve. The current policy discourse confirms pre-existing practices and power relations, and further problematizes issues on the agendas. The thesis confirms that the policies are trapped in a neoliberal biopolitics that has problematic implications for human subjectivity and political agency. It further concludes that if resilience is to have any practical relevance and positive effects, the policy discourse has to be changed, for which current critical accounts do not offer a plausible direction. Therefore, a distinction between resilience as a policy tool and social resilience is needed, whereby the use of resilience as a policy solution is reduced to disaster risk reduction and similar technical functions, and social resilience is recognised as a communal capacity that cannot be subject to policy regulation

Recommendations for changes in UK National Recovery Guidance (NRG) and associated guidance from the perspective of Lancaster University's Hull Flood Studies

This report was commissioned by the Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS) following the publication of Lancaster University‟s Hull Flood Project and Hull Children‟s Flood Project. Its principal purpose is to identify how findings made as a result of the two research projects could be integrated into the Cabinet Office‟s National Recovery Guidance (NRG), as a means to improve affected communities‟ ability to recover from emergency events. The report, in effect, details a desktop analysis of UK Civil Protection (CP) guidance, from a bottom-up perspective (i.e. using as its critical lens, the lived experiences of members of the public who were tested by the Hull flooding of 2007 and its aftermath)

Goodbye to Projects? Briefing Paper 1: An Overview: Projects and Principles.

YesThis briefing paper reports on research exploring ten detailed case studies of livelihoods-oriented interventions operating in Tanzania, Lesotho, South Africa and Uganda. Analysing these interventions through an audit of sustainable livelihood `principles¿ (as a proxy for best practice) revealed general lessons both about the practical opportunities and challenges for employing sustainable livelihoods approaches to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development interventions and also about the changing format of development interventions.Department for International Developmen

Goodbye to Projects? Working paper 1: Annotated bibliography on livelihood approaches and development interventions.

YesThis paper is one in a series of working papers prepared under a research project on Goodbye to Projects? The Institutional Impacts of a Livelihood Approach on Projects and Project Cycle Management. This is a collaborative project between the Bradford Centre for International Centre for Development (BCID) with the Economic and Policy Research Centre (EPRC), Uganda; Khanya ¿ managing rural change, South Africa; and, the Institute for Development Management (IDM), Tanzania. The project is supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) under their Economic and Social Research Programme (ESCOR).Department for International Developmen

Putting livelihoods thinking into practice: implications for development management.

YesThe failure of `blueprint¿ development interventions to deliver substantive improvements in poverty reduction has been well recognised over the last twenty years. Process approaches seek to overcome the rigidity and top-down operation of much aid-funded intervention. Sustainable livelihoods approaches (SLA) are one of the latest additions to this family of approaches. As a theoretical framework and as a set of principles for guiding intervention, sustainable livelihoods thinking has implications for development management. Drawing on research exploring the application of sustainable livelihoods principles in ten development interventions, this paper considers how these principles have evolved from continuing debates surrounding process and people-centred (bottom-up) approaches to development management. This research suggests that whilst these principles can improve the impact made by interventions, the effective application of sustainable livelihoods and other process approaches are fundamentally restricted by unbalanced power relationships between development partners

A Socio-technical Analysis of Interdependent Infrastructures among the Built Environment, Energy, and Transportation Systems at the Navy Yard and the Philadelphia Metropolitan Region, USA

This paper reports on a research initiative that explores the interdependencies of the system of systems — the built environment, energy, and transportation — related to the redevelopment of The Navy Yard in Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Metropolitan Region. The overarching goal of the project is a clearer understanding of the dynamics of multi-scale interactions and interdependencies of systems of sociotechnical systems that will be useful to system practitioners. The understanding and the subsequent planning and design of sociotechnical systems are “wicked” problems and one characteristic is there is no definitive formulation. One of the main findings or lessons learned of the work reported for the understanding of interdependencies of infrastructure is the identification of what are the problems or challenges because for wicked problems “[t]he formulation of the problem is the problem!” We find that systems practitioners have an overarching concern of a fragmented regional policy and decision making process. Four main themes of 1. Vulnerability of aging infrastructure, 2. Integration of emerging technology into existing infrastructure, 3. Lifestyle and value changes, and 4. Financial innovations were identified as challenges. Continuing research work explores three possible infrastructure projects for further study as well as the development of a high-level systems of systems model. The principle outcome is the initiation of a planning process so that the system practitioners will learn to better understand the connections among related sociotechnical systems and the constellation of problems they face not within their immediate scope of responsibility yet influences the operations of their systems