programme

Research and innovation to create a resilient future

We explore how enterprise (for profit and not-for-profit) manage their environmental footprint and liabilities as well as their relationships with shareholders and stakeholders.

Our research identifies where technological innovation can help to reduce the environmental impacts of processes or assets, and how a sustainable approach can benefit both investment and society.

Enterprise brief

Making corporate climate transitions work: business guidance for implementing just and equitable transition plans

In this Enterprise Brief, the authors outline how companies can integrate justice and equity into their climate strategies to ensure a just transition that supports long-term, socially sustainable net zero goals. They present a seven-step roadmap to help businesses identify and engage with groups affected by transition plans, co-create fair outcomes, and strengthen resilience. 

seven-step roadmap to help businesses identify and engage with groups affected by transition plans, co-create fair outcomes, and strengthen resilience.

Developed by the Oxford Net Zero Youth Advisory Board, this guidance emphasises procedural justice and highlights how a just transition risk can reduce risks, unlock opportunities, and build public support for climate action.

Research

Working collaboratively with partners in enterprise and academia, our research explores how to reach net-zero carbon emissions, the best options for sustainable cooling solutions and how to stimulate a regenerative economy.

We also support the transition to sustainable production in capital-intensive industries such as mining and construction, as well examining alternatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions form the food system.

Delivering water security

Water research

Our research focuses on reducing social inequalities – river water security in urban Asia, climate resilience in Africa and results-based funding for safe drinking water in rural Africa and Asia. We aim to make 10 million poor people in Africa and Asia water secure by 2024, and advance thinking on rural water finance to provide reliable water services for 100 million people by 2030.

Past projects

The interdisciplinary RISE project focused on designing integrated, practical and transferable strategies for the local SME renewable energy sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our work centred on two contrasting national case studies, in Uganda and Zambia.

Mumuni Singani, a spin-off from the RISE project, created an innovative concept that combines access to clean energy, irrigation systems, sustainable farming and agro-processing solutions in Singani, Zambia. The approach was developed in cooperation with local communities, especially the involvement of Women Self-Help Groups, with the aim of scaling-up the concept across other regions in sub-Saharan Africa.