Dr Rajat Gupta:

Carbon Reduction from Existing Housing: a GIS-based Approach

how people can reduce carbon emissions from existing homes using a community-level approach

Rajat Gupta

An award-winning GIS-based DECoRuM model developed by Gupta models, measures and maps baseline energy use and related CO2 emissions on a house-by house level and aggregates them to street, neighbourhood and city levels. This enables DECoRuM to evaluate the potential and financial costs for domestic CO2 emission reductions by implementing a range of best practice energy efficiency measures, low carbon systems and renewable energy technologies. Unlike traditional carbon calculators the model offers the opportunity to highlight not only individual problems, but problem areas. DECoRuM is not designed to ‘name and shame’ homeowners but offer them a clear picture of the issue and a strong indication of the amount of energy, and money that can be saved. The effectiveness of DECoRuM can be clearly seen in the results of the trial we ran in Oxford. What became clear is that the majority of the public were entirely unaware of the energy efficiency of their homes, what they could do to improve matters and, crucially, the various grants available for this purpose. By highlighting the efficiency of individual dwellings in a simple manner and providing supplementary advice, the project achieved some impressive results.

Strand: Sustainable Energy, Technology, Housing

Type of event: presentation

Place: Room 3 upstairs in Primary School

Starts: 10:30

Ends: 11:30

Presenter's Personal/Professional Background: Dr Rajat Gupta

Dr Rajat Gupta is a Reader in Architecture and Climate Change in the Department of Architecture, and Co-Director of the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development: Architecture Unit (OISD:A), at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford. He qualified as an Architect in India and London, and gained an MSc in Energy Efficient Building and a Doctorate from Oxford Brookes University. He is recipient of the 2006 RIBA President’s award for outstanding research related to DECoRuM®, a GIS-based software model, which has been funded as a ‘proof of concept’ to help planners and policy-makers count, cost and reduce domestic carbon emissions on an urban scale. Dr Gupta has also received awards for outstanding research in sustainable architecture in 2005 and 2007 from Oxford Brookes University.
Dr Gupta’s teaching and research activities encompass a range of subjects in the field of energy use, carbon emissions reduction and sustainability in the built environment. He has been managing a number of research projects in these areas across UK, USA and India. Currently Dr Gupta is leading an EPSRC-funded project on suburban neighbourhood level adaptation for a changing climate; an EPSRC CASE-funded project assessing the potential of heat pumps in reducing domestic carbon emissions in a changing climate; as well as monitoring and post-occupancy evaluation of sustainable non-domestic buildings.
Dr Gupta sits on the ‘London 2012 Carbon Management Strategy Advisory Group’ run by London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paraolympic Games, and is an invited member of the BSI’s Shadow Committee for CEN TF-190: Energy Efficiency and Savings Calculations. He has chaired British Council-funded international conferences on Sustainable energy technologies and low carbon buildings (February 2008) and Greening Events and Energy-efficient Cities for lasting legacies (February 2007) held in New Delhi; as well as the Science Forum of the 2nd International Solar Cities Congress 2006 held in Oxford (April 2006). More recently, he was conference chair of a major UK- India conference on Urban sustainability and green buildings for the 21st century, organised with RICS India and CASLE and held in Delhi on 15 May 2009. Dr Gupta is also co-convener of the Westminster Carbon Counting Group and chair of the Adaptation Working Group run by International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). He has lectured nationally and internationally, including University of California, Berkeley, and University of Nevada, Las Vegas in USA – since 2007, he has been appointed as a Visiting Research Scholar at the College of Design in Arizona State University, USA.

Organisation: Oxford Brookes University

Website: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/be/staff/rajatgupta.html

Recommended links: http://www.decorum-model.org.uk