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Engineering is at the heart of all our lives, and all areas of engineering must now be defined by our legal obligation to achieve a zero emissions society by 2050.

The ever-growing world economy is hungry for energy and materials but is powered by fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gases that lead to dangerous climate change.

There are two main sets of solutions: develop technologies to deliver clean energy, acting on the supply side of the problem; and reducing our demand for energy and materials, by identifying and implementing resource efficiency measures.

Supply-side solutions such as renewable energy and carbon capture and storage cannot deliver rapidly enough and at sufficient scale to provide the levels of mitigation agreed by national laws and international declarations. These techno-optimistic options rely on an unrealistic rate of innovation and fail to grasp the urgency of the climate crisis.  Read Absolute Zero for more information on this.

Therefore, the implementation of resource efficiency measures must be a primary ingredient of any mitigation strategy. From developing technologies to increase the material efficiency of key manufacturing processes, to evaluating the impact of measures such as reducing the size of cars or increasing the lifetime of buildings, research is required to understand how demand-side options can deliver the greatest benefit.

The Use Less Group is based in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge and is led by Julian Allwood, Professor of Engineering and the Environment and Fellow of the Royal Society of Engineering. The group pursues world-leading research into the sustainable use of materials, energy and resources. We are funded by EPSRC, UKRI and industry partners.

 

Latest report

Minus 45

Ahead of COP26, the UK Government has submitted its Nationally Determined Contribution to global climate mitigation which requires a 45% reduction in UK emissions from 2018 to 2030. Even if all...

Latest News

Cambridge engineers invent world’s first zero emissions cement

Three Cambridge engineers, Dr Cyrille Dunant, Dr Pippa Horton and Professor Julian Allwood, have...

Flexible Ring Rolling

Researchers at University of Cambridge have developed a novel ring rolling process for high...

Latest blog posts

Working with the Use Less Group

PhD student, Iacopo Russo on what it's like to research within the Use Less Group.

Publications

We present an optimistic, entertaining and richly informed evaluation of the sustainable management of our growing demand for materials, Sustainable Materials With Both Eyes Open

We regularly publish reports and papers, and have a wide selection of videos.

The Use Less Group
The Department of Engineering
The University of Cambridge
Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1P

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