Collaborating for Climate Action: Reflections from the GTE Research Forum

Authors: Simon Corbey, CEO and Richard Broad, Director from the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products (ASBP)

We were delighted to join colleagues from the Transforming Homes project in October for an event hosted by the Future Observatory, the Design Museum’s national research programme for the green transition, funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Transforming Homes is one of four large scale ‘Green Transition Ecosystems’ (GTE) projects that is “focussing on translating the best design-led research into real-world benefits”. The ASBP’s role in the project mostly involves industry stakeholder engagement and knowledge sharing and dissemination.

It was great to find out more about the other GTE projects, which are incredibly diverse in their focus but share a common goal of addressing challenges posed by the climate crisis through high-quality, multidisciplinary and intersectoral design research.

• Design HOPES (Healthy Organisations in a Place-based Ecosystem, Scotland) – A collaborative research initiative leveraging ‘design-led thinking and making’ to address complex health delivery challenges and drive urgent net zero objectives for a sustainable health and social care system.
• Future Island-Island – A circular waste management modelling project which aims to raise awareness and foster public engagement in developing an intuitive, eco-friendly waste management culture with a focus on protecting water bodies from plastic pollution.
• Public Map Platform – will pilot a multi-layered public map to help local authorities and their communities’ picture what is happening in a place as a basis for informed decision making and local action on climate change, in response to the Welsh Government’s need to operationalise the Future Generations Wales Act.

The event provided an opportunity to make new connections with organisations involved with the three other GTEs which includes partners from across the UK including Universities of Cambridge, Dundee, Strathclyde, Wrexham and Queen’s University Belfast. It was also great to catch up with our consortium partners from Transforming Homes including Universities of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff and Exeter, and industry partners including Mikhail Riches and WeCanMake.

An element that was strongly communicated across all the projects is the importance of community engagement and co-design. It is fantastic that Melissa Mean and the team at WeCanMake are involved in the Transforming Homes project, providing vital engagement opportunities with the community in Knowle West where one of the retrofit demonstrator projects is located. WeCanMake is a “people-led response to the housing crisis”, creating affordable homes for the local community utilising modular construction approaches and bio-based products.

We enjoyed the breakout sessions in the afternoon, where we explored the potential of cross-disciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborations, focussing on lessons learned and future opportunities that might arise. It highlighted how design can drive innovation in policy, technology, and societal and environmental challenges by fostering collaboration.

Looking ahead as we move forward into the second year of the project programme, the event provided a valuable opportunity to reflect on our progress to date, share learning and foster new opportunities for collaboration. Our role in the project increases during this second phase as we help disseminate the important project findings to our diverse stakeholder membership network and throughout wider industry, to help share the learnings far and wide, and deliver maximum impact for the project.

Out thanks go to Justin McGuirk, the Director of the Future Observatory for his thought provoking opening session and to Salah ud Din, Future Observatory Research and Grants Manager, for organising and hosting what was a fantastic day.

Image credits: Matthew-Kalternborn