Policy Briefs

Rising consumption and the increasing resource intensity of daily living practices are key drivers of environmental change. As a result, individual consumption and the promotion of positive pro-environmental behaviour change have become a key area of attention in European and Irish sustainable development policy. In finding ways in which environmental transitions can be achieved through… | Read on »

Most Irish wind farms have been granted a time-limited, 20 year, planning consent with a requirement to subsequently decommission. However, in the context of renewable energy targets, increasing pressure on land and opposition facing new sites, it will be important for existing sites to retain their license to operate. This could be achieved through extending… | Read on »

As the planet changes to a more urbanised landscape, it is predicted that 60% of the world’s population will reside within cities by the year 2030. With the increase of urbanisation, also comes a greater risk of pollution entering urban waterways. Surface waters such as rivers, canals and lakes are considered productive ecosystems with unique… | Read on »

Data used to model decision-making behaviour commonly comes from one of two sources, subjective data or objective data. Subjective data is generally based on users experience of a good, whereas objective data may come from a range of source including scientific measures and management/expert opinion. The use of either source of data requires a trade-off;… | Read on »

An angler’s decision on which site to fish at can be a complex system of arithmetic calculations, weighing up the attractions and detractions of every feasible site they could visit. One site may have good access but poor fish quality, another may be teeming with fish but overcrowded with anglers. On any given choice occasion… | Read on »

Communities’ perceptions of energy are complex, place-based and situated in cultural and political contexts. Explicitly addressing the social study of energy and climate change, the research highlights how developing collaborative, fair approaches to community low carbon energy transitions poses critical questions for both technical and social scientific methods. This research argues that there is a… | Read on »

High blood pressure (hypertension) is a chronic condition in which the blood vessels have persistently raised pressure. It is one of the leading risk factors for heart attack and stroke and is one of the most common chronic conditions seen today. According to the TILDA study, approximately 65% of Irish adults over the age of… | Read on »

Ambidexterity in general refers to the ability to do two things equally well (e.g. use of right and left hands) and organisational ambidexterity refers to the simulaneous ability to exploit existing capabilities and explore new capabilities. This is seen as paving the way for introducing both radical and incremental innovations in the marketplace. For many… | Read on »

Urban areas are already suffering substantial losses in both economic and human terms from climate-related disasters, including flooding. These losses are anticipated to grow substantially in the coming decades, while local planning decisions today will have a large bearing on future costs, for example by locking-in future exposure to flood risk (Kocornik-Mina et al. 2015)…. | Read on »

The environmental pillar of the EU’s Integrated Maritime Policy that supports sustainable ‘blue growth’ is manifested through the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). The MSFD aims to achieve and maintain good environmental status of all EU marine waters by 2020. A healthy and productive marine environment provides a variety of ecosystem goods and services… | Read on »