About Us
The complex issues facing society as a consequence of climate change require a co-ordinated approach, cutting across traditional academic disciplines and industry sectors.
Other areas of interest
Meeting the Challenge of Delivering the Low Carbon Economy
The twin challenges of energy security and environmental sustainability presents the global community with little choice but to develop a low carbon future - less reliant on fossil fuels. This will require a revolution in the way in which we produce and consume energy and use land. This will be a huge challenge for global societies, as well as presenting a myriad of opportunities for industry, governments, civil society and researchers.
The Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation - hosted by the Universities of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt and Edinburgh Napier - has been created in response to this challenge.
Underpinning this initiative is the understanding that key barriers to delivering a low carbon future are: the lack of professional skills to support effective decision making; the need for enhancing social and business innovation; and the need for a hub to build partnerships and provide portals for information exchange.
What is the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation?
The Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation fosters collaborative working between policy, community and business leaders to support and deliver workable solutions for a low carbon future. We provide a forum for solving "low carbon" problems. And we coordinate and deliver professional skills training, in the form of short courses (Executive Education; Continuing Professional Development) and Masters Courses. The Edinburgh Centre works with businesses, national and local government, and civil society. The Centre is supported and hosted by the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier University and Heriot-Watt University.
We aim to equip the next generation of industry leaders and opinion formers to tackle climate change. The Edinburgh Centre enables interaction with industry and policy-makers, with a strong focus on commercialisation, knowledge sharing and executive education.
What does ECCI do?
The Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation has three core functions:
Enterprise & Innovation: working with and supporting businesses to develop innovative products and services that will help Scotland, Europe and countries globally achieve economically viable reductions in carbon emissions.
Skills & Learning - Executive and Postgraduate: co-ordinating expert training and education for decision makers, business leaders and innovators. To equip them with the skills required to succeed in the low carbon economy.
Low Carbon Hub: the Centre brings together academics, policy makers, industry leaders, nentrepreneurs and investors; facilitating knowledge-exchange, co-operation and joint action towards delivering a low carbon future.
Find out more about the Centre's Activities.
Why not Edinburgh Centre for Climate Change?
When the Centre began life in 2010 its creators chose the name 'Edinburgh Centre on Climate Change' but as the Centre matured and its vision for the future was further developed, the Centre's supporters, champions and stakeholders began to feel that their name didn't quite match up to their mission.
The use of the words "climate change" gave the wrong impression to both internal university stakeholders (who expected the Centre to be an academic research centre doing climate research); and external stakeholders (eg. leaders in low carbon business and policy who wondered what relevance the centre had to them). The name also had the potential to create a barrier when in discussions with audiences who are inclined toward climate change scepticism.
Instead the Centre sought a name which conveyed its 'can do' attitude to the challenges of creating a low carbon society: that through promoting innovation and bringing people together to make good ideas real, Scotland can lead the UK and the rest of the world into a prosperous low carbon future.