With its recent Climate Change Bill, the Government made a real commitment to reducing the UK's carbon emissions by 60 per cent by the year 2050. About half these emissions come from building and using our houses, workplaces, and other buildings.

For the past decade researchers in Oxford Brookes University's School of the Built Environment have been investigating the environmental, social, and economic aspects of sustainability.

In 2004, they were incorporated into the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development (OISD). With an income of £1.6m, 100 staff, and 90 PhD students, this is now the UK's largest research institution working on sustainable development in the built environment.

Its members, who include architects, planners, and property and construction professionals, have expertise in measuring carbon emissions, designing energy-efficient buildings, and planning individual developments and whole cities to be truly sustainable.

Under its new management team of professors - directors Tim Dixon, Ray Ogden and John Glasson and associate directors Katie Williams and Elizabeth Burton - OISD works nationally and internationally, but some of its work has a local focus.

Strong and sustainable For example, The Oxfordshire Economic Observatory, a joint initiative between OISD and Oxford University, recently produced the report The Economic Ecology of Small Businesses in Oxfordshire, which analyses the way that business networks contribute to a strong and sustainable local economy.

OISD was also involved in the recent public consultation about the future of the JET (Joint European Torus) nuclear fusion research facility at Culham.

Professor Glasson, one of OISD's founders, said: "We're very practical academics. The beauty of our research is a lot of it is very applied. Brookes is a resource for the community. We like to work with the city and the county on real-life problems."

One project set to make a significant impact on carbon emissions locally, and perhaps globally, is the development by senior lecturer Dr Rajat Gupta of a GIS Geographic Information System (GIS) based computer model to measure the carbon footprint of every building in a neighbourhood.

A council's environmental officers will be able to see at a glance where the pollution hotspots are, and take appropriate action.

The system also identifies solutions, by assessing which energy efficiency measures will have the greatest impact for a specific property.

It produces an instant graph showing the relative cost and environmental benefit of, say, cavity wall insulation, installation of a CHP (Combined Heat and Power) system, or even changing to energy efficient light bulbs.

Guesswork is replaced by exact figures. Dr Gupta is developing his prototype to bring it to the market.

Professor Williams' expertise lies in the linked areas of spatial planning and urban design, the former being at the scale of a town or city, the latter relating to neighbourhoods and individual developments.

Her work looks at compact cities' where development mostly takes place on old brownfield industrial sites, rather than spreading outwards, and how these can be developed as genuinely sustainable communities.

Pioneering work This involves both the initial design of developments, and how people live in them afterwards. For example, building an estate of well-insulated houses with neat recycling areas is pointless, if it is located so far from places of employment that its residents have to commute long distances in cars every day.

Professor Burton has done pioneering work on inclusive urban design': the design of neighbourhoods that are safe and pleasant to live in.

She said: "How you feel is affected by the place you're in, inside or out. I want to investigate the relationship between the built environment and human well-being and quality of life."

One focus of her research has been the ways older people interact with their environment. This has included identifying the kinds of urban environments that make it possible for people with dementia to continue living at home, go out into their community, and live as normally as possible.

Her research results show, for example, that people with memory loss navigate their way best through small, irregular blocks of houses, with plenty of variety and landmarks. They tend to get lost in grid systems and cul-de-sacs.

These are just a few examples of the extensive range of research being undertaken at OISD.

Looking ahead, Professor Dixon said: "Key questions we will be looking into over the next two years include: How can we reconcile the real tensions that exist between economic growth and environmental impact in our towns and cities'? and How can we design sustainably for future generations?'"

The institute is steadily building up a solid evidence base about best practice, a resource that will be of vital importance in enabling the UK to meet the proposed target for carbon emissions reduction.

n Contact: Tim Dixon tdixon@brookes.ac.uk www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/be/oisd