Category: Cities and local authorities, Policies and measures

Oxford Sustainability Index

Aether was appointed to develop a Sustainability Index for Oxford, comparing the city’s performance with others.

Aether was appointed to develop a Sustainability Index for Oxford, comparing the city’s performance with other urban areas on a range of factors such as: Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency, Transport, Water, Waste, Air Quality, Green Space, Biodiversity, Flood Risk Mitigation and Land Quality. The analysis featured quantitative as well as qualitative analysis to benchmark and evaluate Oxford’s performance and identify cases of best practice in other cities. This analysis, originally undertaken in 2016, was updated in 2019 to reflect the latest available data. 

The Challenge

The key driver for this project was to establish a transparent, robust framework by which Oxford (and other cities in the future) could assess itself against key environmental criteria. The outputs will inform the City Council on areas of relatively good and poor performance, so that it can prioritise future resources and projects and work towards a cleaner, greener Oxford. The Sustainability Index utilises national, regional and local datasets to compile best and worst performance across a series of environmental indicators, which when combined provide qualitative and quantitative context as to how Oxford was performing in each category.

The Solution

Using our knowledge of national and regional datasets, as well as expertise in compiling and analysing complex datasets, we designed a comprehensive framework making use of existing and reliable information. For each quantitative aspect we identified a scale from best to worst performing urban areas and then mapped Oxford City on that scale. For qualitative aspects, we utilised a recognised policy analysis protocol which allowed us to evaluate non-quantitative environmental indicators. By weighting each of the indicators then combining them, overall scores across 10 environmental categories were developed. The results were summarised in a brief report, along with supplementary information on Oxford's performance and best practice case studies from other cities across the UK.

The published 2016 report is available to download here.  The Sustainability Index for Oxford (2016 results) is displayed below.

See all case studies

Kathryn Hampshire

Senior Consultant

Related case studies

Luton Council Net Zero Roadmap and Climate Policy and Action Plan

Category: Cities and local authorities

Aether, alongside SE2 and associate Joanne Wade, developed a Net Zero Roadmap and Climate Policy and Action Plan to support the council in its vision of a net zero town by 2040.

Read case study

Surrey Air Quality for Schools Programme

Category: Cities and local authorities

Aether, in partnership with London Sustainability Exchange (LSx), Surrey Air Alliance and Surrey County Council, has helped to create and implement a Cleaner Air for Schools Programme in Surrey.

Read case study

Railfreight Energy and Emissions Calculator (REEC)

Category: Cities and local authorities, Emission inventories, Rail

REEC is the first tool for the UK that can calculate, to a high level of granularity and accuracy, the energy usage and resulting emissions for a specified freight train configuration travelling on specified routes on the GB rail network.

Read case study

News

Latest news

Posted on: 23 March 2023

Barriers to Net Zero - disconnected timelines

Who has time for climate action?

Read full story

Posted on: 15 March 2023

Barriers to Net Zero - Silos

Is the evolution of the brain the flaw to whole system thinking, or what we teach it?

Read full story

Posted on: 24 January 2023

Aether 2022: A Year in Review

We reflect on our work and teams in 2022.

Read full story

Posted on: 14 November 2022

Post COP27: A future with integrity

During COP27, we look at the difference between transparency and integrity and why this is becoming the new battle ground for action on net zero.

Read full story

Testimonial

Don't just take our word for it...

“I must congratulate each of you for your professional and tireless efforts. Let me point out that this has been the 'neatest' in-country review expert review team I have coordinated, and it has been a real pleasure.”

UNFCCC Secretariat

“Engaging Aether to support us to develop the first GHG Inventory System and first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) for the United Republic of Tanzania has been a rewarding experience due to their high level of professionalism, creativity, timeliness and value for money. We will definitely consider Aether in our future initiatives.”

Abbas Kitogo, Programme Specialist Energy and Climate Change, UNDP Tanzania

“If we have a need for any more reports in the future Aether will be first on my list.”

Alan Hardy, Kyson Design

“Professional team and very collaborative communication. Effective result in terms of suggestions for improvement in the quality of the inventory and proposals on how to streamline specific topics.”

Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research

“Saint Lucia embraces the professional approach with which this project was undertaken by Aether, particularly their ability to develop mentorship relations with local government experts. This provides a basis for ensuring that the pool of local experts remain engaged and recognized over successive processes.”

Annette Rattigan-Leo, Chief Sustainable Development and Environment Officer

“We have been collaborating with Aether for several years, and our projects have greatly benefited from it. Aether staff are very knowledgeable, professional and flexible - and last but not least, very friendly and a pleasure to work with.”

Umhverfisstofnun, Environment Agency of Iceland

“Both the face-to-face training and the online version have been of high quality, with dynamic methods and a practical orientation that have allowed students to reach a solid knowledge base. The products have been delivered within the stipulated deadlines with an excellent quality and the team has always shown willingness to make adjustments according to the requirements of CONAF. We are very satisfied with the work. ”

Javier Cano Martín, Professional Unit for Climate Change and Environmental Services, CONAF (National Forestry Corporation), Chile

“The Aether team were a joy to work with and I would recommend the consultancy - the service provided throughout the process was exceptional. Where there were problems, they provided solutions. The team were working to very short time scales but were able to deliver a high quality piece of work within the specified time frame.”

Sefton Council - for the Merseyside Atmospheric Emissions Inventory

“The support provided by Aether for this project was especially remarkable considering the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tools and methods used in order to engage local stakeholders really added value to the capacity building of the national team.”

Shanna Emmanuel, Saint Lucia BUR Project Coordinator

“Aether's approach to couple innovative visualisation with high expertise manpower delivered valuable insights for our inventory work.”

Umweltbundesamt (Germany)

Required form 'ContactES' does not exist.